Food has the power to temporarily assuage stress and sadness, boost happiness, and bring us comfort when we need it most. It should come as no surprise that experts estimate 75 percent of overeating is triggered by our emotions, not physical hunger. According to Ohio psychologist Susan Albers, Psy.
D., we can learn to soothe ourselves through dozens of mindful activities that are healthy for both body and mind. Humans are biologically designed to find food soothing; it is a built-in survival mechanism which most of us find pleasurable and enjoyable.
As children, we have limited abilities to self-soothe since our brains are still developing; eating for comfort at times is therefore something we learn early on in life. To occasionally use food to lift our spirits as adults is most likely not much of an issue; using it consistently for comfort, though, can keep us from addressing an underlying emotional need. Stress eating becomes problematic when it is the only coping skill used to handle uncomfortable emotions.
Studies have shown that people who feel conflicted about their eating habits may link any overeating behavior to stress or emotion only after they’ve already eaten, regardless of whether their patterns differ much from people who don’t identify as emotional eaters. Former and current dieters, interestingly, are more likely to eat in response to visual food cues as well as to describe themselves as stress eaters. Folks who have never dieted are more likely to avoid food when experiencing stress or strong emotions due to the appetite-reducing effects of the flight-or-flight response.
According to scientific research, the largest drivers of emotional eating are restriction (not eating enough calories) and deprivation (avoiding certain foods based on fear or morality). Severely slashing calories, often done for weight loss purposes, can cause the brain to crave high-carbohydrate foods, like brownies or snack foods, as an innate survival mechanism to keep us alive and functioning. If hunger levels progress to “primal” stages, our choices related to food may be more influenced by our emotions.
Someone who has eaten adequate food throughout the day is usually better equipped to use non-food coping strategies when experiencing uncomfortable feelings. Conversely, one who has felt deprived of sufficient calories or types of food may reach for food as a reaction to any perceived stressor instead of using mental capacity to respond. Regardless of whether emotional eating adversely impacts our health, we all benefit from becoming more mindful when viewing how we obtain nourishment; many of us are prone to “autopilot eating,” meaning it has become routine or is used to treat boredom.
Or consider the harried employee on a deadline who eats lunch, talks on the phone, and answers emails simultaneously; while managers might praise multitasking, our bodies are not registering what we are eating or that we are nearly inhaling our food. Awareness of when you are using food to self-soothe is an important first step to breaking potentially unhealthful eating patterns; becoming more curious is also key. Learn to implement the H.
A.L.T.
strategy by asking yourself: “Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired?” Emotional eating can be a signal that our psychological needs are not being met and may warrant further exploration with a trained professional when indicated. Individuals seeking to free themselves from using food to manage stress are wise to uncover their emotions and interpret their meaning; the key to changing the way we eat is to control what’s on our mind, not on our fork. In her book titled “50 ways to soothe yourself without food” (newharbingerpublications, inc.
, 2009), Dr. Albers categorizes multiple coping techniques into five general categories: mindfulness techniques, strategies to change our thoughts, ways to calm our bodies, finding distractions, and gaining support. Practiced for over 2,500 years and still used in modern healing therapies, mindfulness can be defined as being highly aware of what we are feeling and thinking in the moment in an open, nonjudgmental way; it is both an action and an attitude.
Becoming more aware of how we think better equips us to prevent negative thoughts from triggering stress eating; examples include mindful thinking, affirmations, guided imagery, and realistic statements. Yoga, deep breathing exercises, physical movement, and self-massage are all helpful methods to promote relaxation and body awareness when stressful situations arise. Mindful distraction is not done to ignore our feelings, but to interrupt unproductive brooding and negative habits.
Seeking and maintaining meaningful social support is one of the most effective ways to circumvent mindless overeating; receiving encouraging words from a favorite relative or trusted friend or connecting with the world in a new way can be quite helpful. Written in 2006 by Judith Matz, LCSW, and Ellen Frankel, LCSW, two social workers who happen to be sisters, “The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance, and Self-Care” (Sourcebooks, Inc.) is another excellent resource which endorses a sustainable healthy relationship with food and eating.
The authors maintain that following rigid rules to achieve wholeness or lose weight based on societal pressures can be detrimental to our overall well-being. Readers are encouraged to abandon “dieting mentality” and allow their weight to stabilize, stop feeling guilty about eating the foods they love, free up mental energy typically spent on food restriction/consumption to become more productive and joyful in life, and learn to recognize physical hunger while loving their bodies. Attuned eaters have developed skills with which they can eat for satiation and pleasure without anxiety; they are able to listen to their body and trust what it tells them.
Professional help should be sought for someone who feels their eating habits are out of control or who struggles with binge eating disorder, which is a clinical eating disorder. To read more about good nutrition and optimal health or to find a nutrition professional in your area, please visit www.eatright.
org ..
