5 Top Ways Of Dealing With Stress Eating
People have different ways of coping with stress. Nobody wants to be in a stressful situation so they find a different coping mechanism to escape.
For some, they dig into the fridge, looking for that sweet cake or ice-cream. In time, our bodies get conditioned to this reward system and we always start to look for food when the situation turns a bit unexpected in life.
This leads usually to obesity and chronic health conditions.
If you are one of those people who find themselves reaching for those treats to cope with stress, you might feel like you are fighting a losing battle and you just cannot control your impulse.
Five most effective ways of dealing with stress eating:
Recognize emotional hunger
The first thing you have to do is to know how to differentiate emotional hunger from physiological hunger. This will help so that you won’t starve yourself or give in to emotional hunger.
First, you need to know that emotional hunger or stress hunger usually hits you suddenly, it is not as gradual as our usual physiological hunger. Those with emotional hunger also tend to crave a particular type of food, in most cases, it is junk or unhealthy foods.
They also usually eat the food mindlessly, without savoring the taste or acknowledging levels of satiety as those with physiological hunger do.
Stress eating is usually accompanied by that overwhelming feeling of guilt afterward. When you can easily tell between these two forms of hunger, you are ready to face the problem head-on.
Know the triggers
Know what gets you going down the path of stress eating.
Know the things that stress you and try hard to avoid such circumstances.
It is also useful to try and get rid of those foods that you usually binge-eat while under stress. Some stressful situations are inevitable so sometimes we should try to find alternative ways of dealing with our stress.
Once you know your stress triggers, you are better equipped at fighting those impulses that come with them since we would know what to look out for.
Mindfulness
Stress eating comes usually as an impulse, a craving, something more visceral than mindful. If we practice mindfulness, we will know how to fight those visceral urges.
Whether it is meditation or other forms of mindful exercises that help you focus your thoughts, try those to remain vigilant.
When we focus our thoughts, slow down and breathe, we can willfully take our minds off things that stress us and force us to eat. We can also practice mindful eating when we get rid of the rush for instant gratification.
Plan your meal schedule
Stress eating usually happens outside our usual meal times. We just crave food even after we have eaten. Stop the habit of eating between meals. Have a meal schedule and try hard to adhere to eat. Eat healthily, do not take the habit of ingesting a lot of junk food.
Eat fruits, vegetables and stay hydrated while laying off the sweet stuff. This also helps to watch your weight and have a healthy body in the long run. Pay attention when you eat. Do not eat in front of the television or while distracted. Respect the levels of satiety and try to savor the food you eat.
Take your time with your meal, rushing through or being distracted might be signs of stress eating
Exercising and other coping methods
Stress is pretty much inevitable; we cannot change that. What we can do, however, is to change the way we deal with it.
Exercising has been shown by various studies to reduce stress levels and help with our mental health.
Try to stay physically fit. Hobbies and other leisure activities can also help take our minds off things and thus reduce our stress levels. When we have all these coping mechanisms in place, we can easily avoid going to the pantry when the stress comes.
It is essential to be vigilant when it comes to stress eating. Sometimes we can be strong enough to deal with it ourselves. Recognizing stress eating might be very hard and perhaps we feel embarrassed to admit it to ourselves. When you have tried all you can, walking through mindfulness down to exercising, you might want to reach out for help when you feel that you are not beating the problem.
Reach out for professional help or for others to support you when you find it hard to beat. Trying to fight it yourself and fail might further stress you and lead to more stress eating. No, when it is time to reach out for help. It is never a sign of weakness to reach out.