Food and Emotions

• 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 “fullness” or temporary wholeness.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• 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 Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• 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.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Ways to cope with stress

  Discovering another way to deal with negative emotions is often the first step toward overcoming emotional eating. This could mean writing in a journal, reading a book, or finding a few minutes to otherwise relax and decompress from the day. Experiment with a variety of activities to find what works for you.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Move your body

  

  Some people find relief in getting regular exercise. A walk or jog around the block or a quickie yoga routine may help in particularly emotional moments.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Try meditation

  There are a variety of studies that support mindfulness meditation as a treatment for binge eating disorder and emotional eating. Simple deep breathing is a meditation that you can do almost anywhere. Sit in a quiet space and focus on your breath — slowly flowing in and out of your nostrils.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Start a food diary

  Keeping a log of what you eat and when you eat it may help you identify triggers that lead to emotional eating.  Try to include everything you eat — however big or small — and record the emotions you’re feeling at that moment.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Eat a healthy diet

  

  Make sure you get enough nutrients to fuel your body. If you eat well throughout the day, it may be easier to spot when you’re eating out of boredom or sadness or stress. Try reaching for healthy snacks, like fresh fruit or vegetables, plain popcorn, and other low-fat, low-calorie foods.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Remove common offenders

  Consider trashing or donating foods in your cupboards that you often reach for in moments of strife.  Think high-fat, sweet or calorie-laden things, like chips, chocolate, and ice cream. Also, postpone trips to the grocery store when you’re feeling upset.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Pay attention to volume

  

  Resist grabbing a whole bag of chips or other food to snack on. Measuring out portions and choosing small plates to help with portion control are mindful eating habits to work on developing. Once you’ve finished one helping, give yourself time before going back for a second.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Seek support

  Resist isolation in moments of sadness or anxiety. Even a quick phone call to a friend or family member can do wonders for your mood. There are also formal support groups that can help. Overeaters Anonymous is an organization that addresses overeating from emotional eating, compulsive overeating, and other eating disorders.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Banish distractions

  You may find yourself eating in front of the television, computer, or some other distraction. Try switching off the tube or putting down your phone the next time you find yourself in this pattern. By focusing on your food, the bites you take, and your level of hunger, you may discover that you’re eating emotionally. 

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Work on positive self-talk

  Feelings of shame and guilt are associated with emotional eating. It’s important to work on the self-talk you experience after an episode. Instead of coming down hard, try learning from your setback. Use it as an opportunity to plan for the future.

  Emotional Eating: Why It Happens and How to Stop It

• Start a list of the emotions

  Pay attention to your emotions as you start to think about eating (you might feel hungry, or have a craving to eat something). Notice your emotions as you eat, and after as well.  Keep a few notes — what emotions do you feel, when, and why. What do you feel like eating? 

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Pick one emotion to start with

  

  Start with the emotional trigger that occurs most frequently . So if you only have social eating triggers once or twice a week, but you have stress or comfort triggers multiple times a day, choose the latter.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Find a healthy alternative

  If the need is a way to cope with stress, you need to find some healthy way of doing that other than eating . If you don’t, then the need will become so strong that you’ll cave and eat.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Pay close attention

  If you’re focusing on stress, pay close attention to it. Try to notice every time it comes up . You might want some kind of visual reminder placed where you’ll see it when you get stressed (at your desk or in the car, for example, if those are places you commonly get stressed).

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Use your new coping technique

  If the technique is going for a walk when you get stressed, then every time you notice the trigger, go for a walk, even if it’s just for 1-2 minutes.  If you strongly want to eat, do the new coping technique instead . Breathe. You’ll get through the eating urge.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Call upon social support

  

  Ask friends and people online to support your new change. Report to them daily and ask them to hold you accountable.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Repeat

  Do this technique for one emotional trigger for at least a couple weeks , if not a month.  When you feel you have a handle on it, repeat the technique for another emotional trigger on your list.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Stress

  Instead of eating, try some kind of exercise, such as pushups, walking, jogging, weights, or yoga. Try deep breathing or meditating for 2 minutes. Try massaging your shoulders. Drink water.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Boredom

  Some healthy ways to deal with boredom is to go for a walk. Find a comfy spot and read a novel. Find friends to play sports with or go for a hike with. Learn to garden or sew. Make tea. Write. Journal. Do yoga. Listen to music.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Reward

  Did you put in a hard day’s work? Did you accomplish something great? Don't reward yourself with food.  Instead, take a nap. Get a massage. Take a bath. Have tea. Allow yourself some down time.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Comfort – sadness, depression, loneliness

  

  We often use food as a way to comfort ourselves.  Find a friend or loved one to comfort you or give you a hug. Again, tea can be a good choice. Snuggle with a pet. Do yoga or meditate. Call someone. Take a walk in nature. Watch a sunset. Light scented candles and take a bath.

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Social

  Often we eat as a way to socialize, or because other people we’re socializing are eating. Learn other ways to socialize instead : Go for a hike, play sports, make healthy food with friends, play music or make art together, or have fruit instead of unhealthy foods. 

  Mindful Diet: Dealing with Emotional Eating Issues : zen habits

• Awareness Is Key

  

  Emotional eating is sometimes called "mindless eating" because we often don't think about what we're doing and let our unconscious habits or drives take over. Become aware of why you're eating when you eat. Maintain a food journal. If you have to log what you eat right before you eat it, you may realize you're eating for the wrong reasons, and can then move onto another approach to deal with your feelings.

  These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating

• Find Relaxation Techniques

  When you’re under stress, your body is likely producing higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that tends to make people crave sweet and salty food—the stuff that’s generally not good for us.  Create a simple stress management plan, or find stress relievers that fit with your specific situation.

  These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating

• Cope in Healthy Ways

  Many people use food to deal with uncomfortable emotions like anger, frustration, and fear. There are healthier ways to cope with emotions: Talking to a friend. Journaling: When you feel like reaching for unhealthy food, reach for a pen instead. Exercise.

  These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating

• Face Your Problems

  If you’re using food to muffle your feelings in a difficult relationship, try assertiveness instead.  If food is your only treat at a job you hate, try techniques for findingsatisfactionatyourjob, or get a different one. If you look to solution-based coping mechanisms to cut down on the stress in your life, you won’t need food to help you cope.

  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.

  These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating

• Try Healthy Alternatives

  If these techniques don’t completely eliminate your emotional eating urges, go ahead and indulge—but use healthier fare.  Munch on veggies or healthy snacks instead of chips; savor one small piece of dark chocolate instead of binging on a whole chocolate muffin from the coffee shop.

  These Stress-Relieving Techniques Can Stop Emotional Eating

• Eating Distract from Emotions

  

  We often associate eating with relief or even excitement, and it’s only natural that we’d reach for those same feelings when we’re worried or sad. Events don’t have a meaning; we give them a meaning. The meaning of eating is, ‘I’m going to be happy. I’m not going to be in emotional discomfort. I’ll have this wonderful experience.

  Experts Reveal What Triggers Emotional Eating And How To Control It

• Why we choose comfort food

  Comfort foods don’t tend to be healthy. We want cake or pasta or chips when we’re emotionally eating. We have emotional memories around certain foods, which are more likely to involve your grandma’s lasagna than a salad.  But after we eat for emotional reasons, we’re replacing our original feelings with the emotions that arise out of eating.

  Experts Reveal What Triggers Emotional Eating And How To Control It

• Comfort food

  We associate comfort food with positive memories. Think about all the happy and comforting memories you have involving food. Maybe your family used to celebrate occasions with a trip to the ice cream shop, or maybe your mom or dad used to soften the blow of a bad day with macaroni and cheese. When you’re feeling rejected or anxious today, eating one of those foods is an instant connection to that soothing time.

  Experts Reveal What Triggers Emotional Eating And How To Control It

• Control emotional eating

  Remember food’s true purpose ― to nourish you.  Seek comfort through friends , doing kind things for yourself and engaging in healthy activities that reduce internal distress. As soon as you start looking for food, stop.  Think, ‘Am I hungry? Do I need food in my stomach, or is one of my triggers going off? What do I need right now? Jot down what you’re eating when and taping that note to the fridge, in order to recognize a pattern in what you eat, when you eat it and why. 

  Experts Reveal What Triggers Emotional Eating And How To Control It

• Eat often enough

  

  According to research, eating regular meals and snacks at the same time every day helps keep your blood sugar levels steady.  If you feel like your blood sugar might be dipping frequently, talk to your doctor. This could be a sign of hypoglycemia - a health condition that causes people to need to eat frequently.

  Mood Food: Can What You Eat Affect Your Happiness?

• Don’t skip meals

  Skipping meals actually makes your body less able to assimilate food, and you are more liable to overeat at the next meal.  If you keep yourself from getting too hungry, you may be able to avoid a bad mood.

  Mood Food: Can What You Eat Affect Your Happiness?

• What foods to avoid

  The biggest bad mood culprits are refined carbohydrates and refined white starches that cause your blood sugar to go up and down like a rollercoaster. Blood sugar spikes and drops can leave you with a short-lived burst of energy followed by a tired, cranky feeling.

  Mood Food: Can What You Eat Affect Your Happiness?

• The best foods to eat

  Protein to help slow the absorption of carbohydrates in your blood and increase the release of dopamine. Vitamin D may help relieve mood disorders. The vitamins folate and B-12 may help ease depression . Broccoli, lentils, oatmeal, oranges, dark leafy greens are good sources of folate. Vitamin B-12 can be found in cottage cheese, lean beef, and salmon. Soluble fiber can slow the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream and increase serotonin. You can find healthy amounts of fiber in oats, beans, pears, peas, and brussels sprouts.

  Mood Food: Can What You Eat Affect Your Happiness?