How to Stop Stress Eating
There is a lot going on emotionally for us right now.
And maybe one of the ways we’re dealing with this is by eating.
Today I want to talk about why we do this, and what to do about it if it’s becoming a problem for you and you’d like to stop.
The words stress eating could also refer bored eating, anxious eating, worried eating, or any other kind of eating that is done for emotional reasons and not because your body physically needs the fuel.
Why do we want food so much right now?
The reason has to do with the way our brain is programmed.
When we’re in physical danger, we try to escape so we can stay safe.
Same with emotional danger.
When our brain senses emotional danger, we also seek to escape, but through pleasure. Our brain wants to feel good, and when we eat Oreos and Cheetos, we get a huge hit of dopamine in our brain that rewards us for that action.
Dopamine is a feel good chemical that is released in the brain anytime we do something that the brain sees as good and needful for our survival.
When we eat all the snacks, these can be healthy or unhealthy, we experience temporary intense pleasure which of course helps us to forget about all the stuff we’re stressed about for a minute.
We are able to temporarily escape, and we don’t feel the overwhelm, or the anxiety, or the boredom “dangers”. The brain thinks we’re safe.
So, it makes perfect sense that during this time when a lot of us have heightened “negative” emotions, our desire for food is also heightened.
But here’s the deal, anytime we’re eating when our body doesn’t need the fuel, we’re overeating, and our body stores the excess as fat.
Of course the brain is going to offer food to you. If you’re typically an emotional eater, you can plan on it.
It’s the quickest and easiest form of pleasure, especially now in our society when all we have to do is open the fridge or the pantry and voila, in less than a minute we can have a huge hit of feel good dopamine pulsing through our body.
The problem with this is that the part of our brain that is telling us it’s a good idea to down a bag of Doritos isn’t capable of making wise choices for our future self. I
t has no idea that all this food will eventually make us gain weight and could cause us health problems down the road. It just sees we’re in “danger” and we need to fix things stat!
But guess what, you don’t have to listen to that part of your brain.
It’s okay to want something but not do it.
Today I want to offer you 3 things you can do to Stop Stress Eating
#1. Plan your meals and snacks and drinks ahead of time, 24 hours is ideal.
When we make decisions ahead of time we use the wise part of our brain that IS capable of thinking ahead and thinking about long-term consequences and what’s in our best interest.
Planning ahead of time also takes all the emotion out of eating because you’re not choosing what to eat in the moment of being bored or feeling overwhelmed.
You make a plan and then if it’s not on your plan, you just choose to not eat it.
It’s okay to tell yourself no.
This is different than telling yourself you can never have it or that it’s bad, or that you shouldn’t, which usually leads to feeling deprived and then you get fixated on it and tend to binge eat.
Check out my free emotional eating course HERE to learn more.
#2. Ask yourself WHY.
In the moment when you want the food, stop and take a minute to ask yourself why. Why do I want this right now? What is it going to do for me? What happens if I eat it? What happens if I don’t? Is this a choice I want to make?
As strong as your urge to eat is, it is always your choice what goes in your mouth. Your brain cannot force you to pick up the food and put it in your mouth. That is always a conscious decision.
This is where deciding ahead of time will help. You can tell yourself no, and then wait until your next scheduled eat.
If you do decide to eat it anyways, that’s ok, but make sure you consciously decide what you want to do next, meaning do you want to beat yourself up for doing it, do you want to say “screw it! I’ve already messed up might as well eat everything else and start again tomorrow”, or do you want to figure out what happened – what worked and what didn’t work, and try again?
I can tell you the latter feels much better.
#3. What other sources of pleasure could you do instead of the food?
What activity or hobby makes you feel really good and brings you a lot of joy?
Brainstorm some ways you can add more pleasure to your life. If you start doing those things often, you’ll more than likely find your need for food goes down.
This is a great time to pull out that hobby you’ve always been meaning to get to or start working on a goal. Add pleasure to your life and your brain will desire less of it from food.
