6 Reasons Why You Might Be Struggling With Emotional Eating (and what to do about it)
It is easy to get caught in the cycle of using food as a main source of comfort. The act of eating does not only provide physical nourishment, but emotional nourishment as well. It naturally serves this purpose, making it common for the brain to identify food as a way to calm down. This connection may be further reinforced if food was used as a reward or removed as a punishment during your life. This creates a maladaptive connection that food is earned and utilized to address emotional needs. We want food to serve the purpose of both physical and emotional nourishment. What we don’t want is for food to take the place of adaptive coping skills. When food is used to continuously suppress emotions, it’s creating a great deal of harm to both the mind and body.
The causes of using food for comfort are quite varied. While food often elicits certain feelings, it can become problematic when food is used solely to regulate emotions. When food is used in this way, the underlying emotion that needs release is continuously suppressed. This leads to a greater drive to utilize food for comfort while never being able to heal the wounds that began this cycle. Understanding the causes of comfort eating can pave the way for healing. When we can identify triggers and patterns, we are better able to find ways to cope and utilize alternative strategies for healing.
If you can relate to getting caught in that cycle of emotional eating, it will be valuable to start observing what this process is like for you. Getting curious is the first step to gaining greater awareness. When you have greater insight into your patterns, you’re then able to target the cause rather than the symptoms. Let's start exploring.
6 Reasons For Comfort Eating
1.Suppressed feelings of guilt and shame. This is a heavy one. Feelings of guilt and shame are extremely uncomfortable. People who experience high levels of shame often experience low levels of self-confidence. While shame is one of those things that heals best through connection, we often want to hide or escape it as a knee-jerk reaction. Food is sometimes utilized as that form of escape. When we become lost in feelings of shame and use food to try to cope, there's a greater chance of getting lost in the act of eating and feeling out of control in the process.
While you may feel alone in your feelings of shame, I can assure you that you’re not. Shame is a universal feeling that most would agree can be quite debilitating. There are many resources available for working through shame (cue, Brene Brown), but here are a few quick ideas to get started:
Find a safe person that you can open up to about these feelings. Whether that person is a therapist, family member, spouse, or friend, it is imperative that you have established a feeling of trust in this person. Can this person hold space for you to listen and validate your concerns without judgment? Is this person able to keep what you’re saying between the two of you without later gossiping? While we can’t control what others do, it’s often valuable to assess whether this person is capable of this to allow for safety in sharing.
Quiet your inner critic. Remind yourself that this voice of criticism is not reality. While we benefit from learning from mistakes, continuously putting yourself down will only leave you feeling stuck. As soon as you begin talking negatively to yourself, allow yourself to pause. Kindly send those thoughts elsewhere and provide yourself with reassuring phrases.
Find gratitude for who you are. Spend one minute, or five, out of every hour appreciating yourself. Make a short list of things that you like about yourself. Repeat this to yourself throughout the day.
2. Food is used as a main source of pleasure.We all crave positive feelings. In fact, there are only two basic motivations: feeling good and avoiding pain. Essentially everything you do is motivated by these two things. If food is your main source of pleasure, you may have difficulty finding other ways to feel good. When this is the case, food is often the quickest way to access this feeling of pleasure because that pathway in the brain has been strengthened. In order to allow the brain to achieve different pathways for this feeling, you’ll have to try out different ways to feel good.
A few ideas include listening to music, walking outside in nature, having a meaningful conversation, playing an instrument, reading, dancing, or getting a massage.
It’s important to keep in mind, that because this connection in the brain between food and pleasure is strengthened, there will be less of a desire to engage in these other activities at first. You’ll need consistency to strengthen this connection in your brain. When you continue to practice healthy ways to feel good, you will one day automatically engage in these actions with ease.
3. A lack of other options for dealing with discomfort. When we feel bad, we look for ways to feel better. When food has been used as the solution to feeling better, other options appear to be unknown. Most of the time, food only provides a temporary relief from these feelings of discomfort. In this way, food is used as an external source to regulate the nervous system. It is much more effective to learn ways to regulate the nervous system from within. This allows you to take power in your healing.
Here are other options to try out when navigating discomfort: meditation, writing in a journal, calling a friend, listening to music, dancing, singing, playing with your child or pet, or engaging in breathwork.
Engaging in these activities will require greater motivation and energy to get started. Write down how you feel at the end of one of these activities. They often promote feelings of calm, groundedness, and optimism and those feelings can be a great source of motivation moving forward.
4. A low threshold for discomfort. A greater ability to sit with your discomfort will reduce the need to want to escape. You may be thinking “of course I want to escape discomfort- who doesn’t?”. Good point. The thing is, when we are constantly seeking ways to escape discomfort, we are often burying feelings. If you’re using food as a form of escape, the discomfort will only be avoided for so long. Learning to tune in, feel the discomfort, and identify what you really need in that moment allows for healing to take place.
Most of us avoid uncomfortable situations as much as we can. It may feel like a radical act to step into that discomfort and allow yourself to sit in it for a bit. Pay attention to your sensations, breathe deeply, and remind yourself that this is temporary.
When you teach your body to relax despite discomfort, you are exercising a skill that can be used in a multitude of situations. Relaxing your body and breathing deeply sounds simple, but it’s effective.
Here are some ways you can practice increasing your tolerance for discomfort: holding an ice cube in your hand, taking a cool shower, engaging in social activities, speaking assertively, or waking up with that first sound of your alarm without hitting the snooze button. During these practices, speak kindly to yourself, encourage yourself, and use relaxation techniques when effective.
5. Stress. Stress itself is an issue. It can create wear and tear on the body and mind. We need a little bit of stress in our lives. At a healthy point, stress can create motivation and force us to step into action when needed. At an unhealthy level, stress becomes chronic and brings the body to a heightened sense of arousal as it constantly prepares for danger. This chronic state of stress is uncomfortable at best. When stressed, your body craves different foods that actually decrease the body’s response to stress. We often refer to these foods as “comfort food”. Stress can lead to feeling out of control when eating as it creates such a heightened desire for comfort.
Take a moment to think about your current level of stress. Make a mental list of the top three stressors in your life. How can you reduce this stress? Are there any changes you can make to better support yourself so that these stressors aren’t so overwhelming?
When considering stress, there are different ways to reduce its impact. I like to categorize this into perspective, support, and action.
Perspective: Do you find yourself experiencing tunnel vision with a focus on negativity? Practicing a shift in perspective can help you widen your gaze to help shift focus towards gratitude.
Support: You may be trying to do it all on your own. While this is unfortunately praised in our society, it often leads to burnout and resentment. Try bringing in some support to help you navigate the challenges you’re facing.
Action: When stress is creating unhealthy patterns, it’s helpful to know where to invest your energy. Taking action in activities known to reduce stress is highly beneficial. Examples include meditating, decluttering, breathwork, visualization activities, joyful movement, and getting outside in nature.
6. Distracted eating.While multitasking is sometimes inevitable, it has its share of setbacks. Mindful eating allows you to better connect with your hunger and satiation cues. When we are distracted by the TV, our thoughts, or social media, it’s easy to lose awareness of the body’s cues for satiation. In these instances, an entire meal can be completed without any connection to the sensations of eating. These sensations are signals to the body that are not only important for mentally connecting with your meal, but also for digestion. It can be hard to eat without distractions. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets much easier with practice.
Start slow and try to observe your food and your senses without judgment. Let’s imagine it’s breakfast and you have a plate of eggs, toast, and fruit with a cup of coffee. Observe the variety of colors on your plate, look at how the butter slowly melts on your toast, feel the warmth of the mug of coffee in your hands, observe the steam rising from your coffee, and taste the unique flavors of each item in front of you. There is so much going on when you learn to fully tune in and pay attention. You may even enjoy it!