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These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating
Use Mindfulness Exercises
Mindfulness, the act of being present and aware, can help people get out of the habit of acting on their cravings without thinking.
Mindfulness exercises are simple to learn and wonderful for promoting resilience to stress in general, so you really can't lose.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Why food
Negative emotions may lead to a feeling of emptiness or an emotional void.
Food is believed to be a way to fill that void and create a false feeling of “
Emotional vs. true hunger
Physical hunger
- It develops slowly over time.
- You desire a variety of food groups.
- You feel the sensation of fullness and take it as a cue to stop eating.
- You have no negative feelings about eating.
Emotional hunger
- It comes about suddenly or abruptly.
- You crave only certain foods.
- You may binge on food and not feel a sensation of fullness.
- You feel guilt or shame about eating.
Emotional hunger isn’t easily quelled
While filling up could work in the moment, eating because of negative emotions often leaves people feeling more upset than before.
This cycle typically doesn’t end until a person addresses emotional needs head-on.
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Key Ideas
Stress can prevent you from keeping a healthy weight
Stress can prevent you from keeping a healthy weight.
Every time you're stressed, your adrenal glands release adrenaline and cortisol. Your body releases gluc...
Cortisol and sugar cravings
With increased levels of cortisol, your body is supplied with glucose for energy, and your body signals the need for extra sugar.
The downside of eating sugar is that your body tends to store sugar, especially after stressful situations, as abdominal fat. The vicious cycle continues: stress, cortisol release, craving sugar, weight gain.
Cortisol and metabolism
Cortisol slows down your metabolism, decreasing your ability to lose weight.
Researchers found that women who reported one or more stressors burned fewer calories than non-stressed women. Stressed women also had higher insulin levels, resulting in fat storage.
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Key Ideas
Intuitive eating
It is a philosophy of eating that makes you the expert of your body and its hunger signals.
Essentially, it’s the opposite of a traditional diet. It doesn’t impose guidelines about wha...
The basics
To eat intuitively, you may need to relearn how to trust your body. Distinguish between physical and emotional hunger:
- Physical hunger. This biological urge tells you to replenish nutrients. It builds gradually and has different signals, such as a growling stomach, fatigue, or irritability.
- Emotional hunger. This is driven by emotional need. Sadness, loneliness, and boredom are some of the feelings that can create cravings for food, often comfort foods.
History of intuitive eating
Some of the concepts of intuitive eating have been around at least since the early 1970s, though the term wasn’t coined until 1995.
The program was built on the principle that diets don’t work and that lifestyle changes and personal care are more important for long-term health.