Is emotional eating taking you down an unhealthy path?
One of the most emotional times in your life is when you’re faced with an important change that you either do or don’t want to make. Even if it’s for the better, change is a scary thing at times, especially if what lies beyond it is unknown and you’re not sure what to expect.
Naturally, right around these moments, you’re going to be in an elevated emotional state. You’re going to be more stressed or sadder than you normally would be, making it a target time for emotional eating.
For example, you might be in a bad or unhealthy relationship. You know that you want to end it, but part of you dreads having to. Whether it be retaliation from the other party, ridicule among friends, or loneliness, there are a lot of things that you might be worried about.
It’s easy to get caught up in the short term negatives while ignoring the long term positives. Before a time like this, you’ll probably experience many emotional eating urges.
Jobs are another very common source of stress and stressful situations. If you have a job that you just despise, you’re definitely going to be stressed. The prospect of quitting your job is an intimidating one for sure, and even the thought of accepting a new job is nerve racking.
This is another likely case in which you’ll resort to emotional eating. The problem with emotional eating in these situations is that it involves you ignoring a major decision in your life that needs to be made just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Of course it’s more comfortable to be eating a bunch of junk food, but that’s not going to help you make the decisions that you need to – or even carry out the transition from one thing to another after a decision has been made.
There are certain things in our lives that we have to do, even though we hate doing them. These difficult decisions are prime examples of that. Even if you know you want to leave your significant other, you might still dread doing it just because it’s uncomfortable.
However, that’s just the way things go in life, and eating isn’t going to change that. What it can do is permanently damage your health. Even positive life changes, such as a move or marriage, can drive you to eat emotionally because although it’s rooted in happiness, these times are still a source of stress based on an unknown future.
So, what can you do about negative feelings?
The sooner you learn to stop hiding behind food, the better. It’s a bandage, a temporary solution to a long term problem. You need to be able to face these problems directly if you hope to have a chance at making a positive change for good and protecting your health for longevity.
One of the main reasons people turn to emotional eating is that they’re stressed out – meaning they have a high amount of cortisol being released in their body due to some unfortunate life circumstances.
Regardless of what’s bothering you, the effect on your physical well-being is the same. When you have too much cortisol, your body acts strangely. You’ll lose hair, gain weight, and turn to emotional eating to try to suppress those feelings.
Instead of eating, you need to address your stress in a different way. What you have to understand is that there is a very clear physical process going in your body when you get stressed out, and then when you relieve stress, you reverse that process.
There are many activities that you can do that have been shown to reduce cortisol production in your body, making you less stressed. However, the effectiveness of the activities varies from person to person.
For example, if you really love animals and you have pets, then you’re going to see a significant decrease in stress from spending time with them, petting them, and playing with them.
Both dog and cat owners have been shown to have lower stress levels when they’re interacting with their pets, so it’s a great activity for both you and your pets. Many people also have stress relieving reactions to certain types of music.
When they get caught up listening to their favorite songs, their bodies stop releasing the stress hormone and instead just focus on the music. It doesn’t have to be traditional calming music – just whatever it is that you really enjoy listening to, because the aim is to make you happier.
For the more athletically inclined, exercise is a proven combatant of stress. It gets your blood pumping and lets your body get distracted from whatever it is that’s making you get stressed out.
It also helps you look better and feel better. Whether it’s going for a 20 minute walk or spending two hours lifting weights, exercise is a great way to blow off steam and release endorphins.
What it really boils down to is doing something that you enjoy that’s productive, because what you’re trying to accomplish is slowing your body’s cortisol production down so that you’re not stressed out.
Whatever it is that helps you do that best is what you should do, as long as it’s healthy, unlike emotional eating. Food is something that should be enjoyable and a nutrition resource – but it should never act as a crutch to prop you up in times of turmoil.
Curious to learn more? Check out our Emotional Eating Introductory Course here.
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