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Some links in this article are affiliate links. We may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we find useful to our readersIf you are finding yourself in a stressful situation, chances are that many have the tendency to rely on eating unhealthy to get them by. But emotional eating can take a toll on your health when you are doing it consistently on a regular basis.
Eating uncontrollably is not a healthy way of coping with stress which is the reason why it is important that you adhere to healthy eating habits.
For those who have been looking into ways to combat emotional eating, we have sorted out a few for you to take a look into.
What Does Emotional Eating Mean?
If you find yourself reaching out for good when you are in distress, such a situation is what we term as emotional eating.
People have time and time reported (R) that food has been a positive recluse for people who tend to struggle emotionally.
Often times when it comes to asking why is it food that helps cope with such distressing situations, it is believed that food effectively helps fill the void that one often tends to struggle with.
Why is Emotional Eating Harmful?
Often times, emotional eating has also been associated with the risks of eating disorders like binge eating disorder and such which has grave impacts on the overall emotional state of an individual.
If you reach out for food when you are emotionally distressed, chances are that you wouldn’t be able to keep a track of things and end up eating more and more than what is considered normal and healthy.
A consistent habit of emotional eating can lead to complaints associated with the risks of obesity and consistent health issues that many could be struggling with.
Not just that, it also does end up enhancing the overall risks of chronic diseases in an individual, further deteriorating the condition even further.
What Causes Emotional Eating?
When it comes round to the causes and triggers behind the condition, there are quite a few that is worth looking into.
Some of the most popular causes include:
Stress
Any kind of constant pressure on your shoulder can lead to emotional eating. If you are finding yourself in stressful condition, it is likely that the same will end up affecting your overall mental state, which further has direct impacts on your eating habits.
Boredom
Even boredom is a kind of emotion that can lead to uncontrolled overeating. Often times, this is considered one of the most common triggers of emotional eating and majority of the people don’t even realize until it is too late to go back. When one has nothing to do around, the most common thing that they use to fill the void is by eating more.
Fatigue
If you are tired of doing something consistently, people treat that as a trigger to end up overeating because of the condition of emotional eating. If this is something that you have been noticing, it is actually very important that you do focus on getting things aligned accordingly.
How to Deal with Emotional Eating?
Finding suitable and effective treatment options for this condition is a necessity that you didn’t know you needed. There are a number of ways to curb emotional eating. The only thing that you need to do is know about them.
Knowing them helps draw out the unnecessary triggers, thus helping provide effective results in healing your condition faster and more effectively.
Let us take a look at some of the best ways to stop emotional eating.
1. Analyse the situation
The best way to combat that is by ensuring that you analyse the kind of situation that you are stuck in. Doing so can effectively help in getting rid of the constant triggers and finding better ways to handle the situation.
Sit down and analyse the pattern of your eating habits and that itself should be more than enough to help you get a look at things in perspective.
2. Be Mindful
If you are faced with a stressful situation, the first thing that you need to do is take a step back. This might not seem like much but can effectively help in getting rid of the habit of emotional eating for good.
People make decisions when they are in constant distress, so when you are in such a situation, don’t act out of nature.
Instead, it is important that you do take your time to calm yourself down first. This might not seem like a lot but has been found to have amazing benefits in helping rechannel your sympathetic nervous system to calm down and make rational decisions.
3. Be Prepared
The best way to take on challenges like a pro is by ensuring that you do have a plan in action. It might not seem like a lot but the best way to take over the situation is by ensuring that you plan things ahead of time.
When you have a whole weekday coming up, plan your days and tasks in the weekend so it is easier for you to handle things, even if you are subjected under stressful conditions.
4. Talk to a Friend
Talking helps channel the positive flow of energy and can even allow you to express the things that might have been causing you consistent distress.
Bottling things up ends up making one more stressed about a situation which is why it leads to the overexerting eating that you find yourself doing.
This is the reason why it is very important that you do find better alternatives and talking to a friend is considered a healthy way to manage your stress unlike anything else.
Also, Read: Foods to Increase Stamina and Energy
5. Manage your stress in a healthy way
It could range from walking around in nature to even talking to a therapist about the situation. It all comes down to how well you handle the situations you are in that further help manage the signs.
If you are constantly finding yourself stressed, you need to ask yourself what is causing it.
Chronic stress takes a toll on your body in the long run and is definitely not something that you want to experience in life.
All that aside, finding constructive ways to manage your stress is one of the best ways of handling your condition of emotional eating.
6. Recognize your addictions
Eating addictions also result in unnecessary emotional eating that you are likely not even aware of.
There have been conducted studies that have pointed out the patterns of addictive eating that could further contribute to issues concerning emotional eating.
They found that people are likely going to eat more when they are subjected to an unstable eating habit. If they are addicted to something around, the same is likely going to have direct impacts on the emotional state of mind as well.
7. Avoid your triggers
The reason why that is the case is that they contribute to making the situation even worse. This is the reason why it is best that you distance yourself from such situations and find a recluse.
You can also work on your temptations by preventing on stocking up on these kinds of foods. They have been found to have quite a massive impact on the condition of emotional eating which is the reason why it is best that you uproot the causes from the roots.
It is likely for your brain to see unhealthy and easily accessible foods but it is completely up to you on how you handle things. Keep an eye out on that for effective impacts.
8. Try grounding techniques
If you are finding yourself struggling with such issues, try out any of the grounding techniques that you know will work well for the condition.
Grounding techniques are considered quite an effective way to power through a situation that you might be struggling with. They help in bringing your mind back to the present, helping you power through the struggles.
This has been found to further have amazing benefits in helping prevent mindless eating that many indulge in when they are emotionally distraught.
Also, Read: Healthy Foods You Should Not Overeat
9. Get your body moving
Not only does this help in getting the steam off of the situation, but the same has also been found to have beneficial impacts in helping trigger the release of endorphins into the bloodstream as well, which has positive benefits on the body.
Exercising is considered a much healthier option instead of indulging in unnecessary emotional eating that you otherwise would.
10. Opt for meditation
If you have been struggling to keep your struggles with emotional eating in check, one of the best ways to get rid of that issue is by ensuring that you meditate at least 10 minutes a day.
This has been found to have positive benefits in helping calm your mind and get rid of the unnecessary negative thoughts that have been swirling around in your mind.
Just make sure that you drive out the accessory noise around because that is what helps concentrate your mind a lot better.
If you have been trying to find ways to cope with emotional eating, we would suggest that you looking into the methods that we have mentioned around. All of them have been found effective in helping improve your quality of living and your overall well being for that matter. Emotional eating can take a toll on your health, so make sure that you plan things accordingly.
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