When I'm feeling bad -- whether it's anxious, depressed or simply frustrated -- I often find myself wanting to seek comfort in the arms of a pint of chocolate ice cream or a bag of Doritos. I know I'm not alone. Psychologists call this emotional eating, and it is thought to be one of the major contributors to obesity in our country.
Americans are stressed out, and seeking treatment for anxiety and depression in record numbers. Experiencing all of those bad feelings each day leads us to consume more and more high-calorie junk food, in an attempt to make ourselves feel just a little bit better (ignoring the fact that binging almost inevitably leaves you feeling even worse).
At least, that's how most of us, including the psychologists, think emotional eating works. Only we may be wrong.
According to a recent study, feeling bad may not make you more likely to reach for comfort food. It turns out that it's how you deal with your bad feelings that determines whether or not you'll be brushing the potato chip crumbs off your pants.
Recent research shows that experiencing anxiety, depression or anger is only associated with emotional eating when we try to suppress our feelings -- to control them by not expressing them, by keeping them to ourselves and trying to push them out of our minds.
Aside from being a really lousy strategy for dealing with emotions for a whole host of other reasons, suppression is really hard to do. It relies heavily on, and often fully exhausts, your capacity for self-control. This leaves you unprotected -- completely vulnerable to temptation. And that is why we reach for "comfort" foods -- they are the sweet and salty snacks that we normally have more self-control to resist. But if you're using up all of your willpower trying to suppress your fear or sadness, then when the junk food appears you are practically a sitting duck.
So, how can we deal with our feelings in ways that don't leave us vulnerable to temptation? You can engage in what psychologists call cognitive reappraisal, which is really just a fancy way of saying "thinking differently." Try following these steps:
1. Don't hide from your feelings -- take a moment to examine them. In particular, focus on what's causing them. Why are you feeling so anxious, so frustrated, so down?
Next, try to think about the cause of your trouble in ways that diminish its impact:
2. Be objective (Would other people react this way? Am I over-reacting? Am blaming myself when I shouldn't? Am I being too pessimistic?)
3. Put it in perspective (In the scheme of things, is this really a big deal? If things don't work out this time, is it really the end of the world?)
4. See the silver lining (What have you learned? How will you take this knowledge with you and use it to grow and improve?)
Tackling your feelings head on, and thinking about them in ways that will actually help you to cope with the circumstances that caused them, may sound hard, but it actually uses less self-control than suppression.
New studies show that when people use this strategy to cope with their feelings, they don't succumb to the call of the cookie. And of course, they tend to feel better much more quickly. So it's not just a good way to stick to your diet -- it's a good way to become a happier person, too.
Follow Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hghalvorson
Pavel Somov, Ph.D.: Understanding Emotional Eating
Weight-loss help: Gain control of emotional eating - MayoClinic.com
Emotional Eating: Feeding Your Feelings
Emotional Eating: Overcoming and Managing the Causes of Overeating ...
William Anderson, LMHC
Author of 'The Anderson Method - Secrets of Permanent Weight Loss'
Blog: http://theandersonmethodblog.wordpress.com/
the point is not to let your emotions take a hold of you. Unfortunately most of us (as in people) are conditioned to feed our negative emotions and stress instead of releasing them.
As a dietitian I always have people asking how to deal with their emotional eating. I try not to seem flippant, but my answer is usually something to the extent of, "you need to learn to deal with the emotions." Telling someone to snack on carrots or rice cakes isn't a solution, heck, it's not even a very good band aid.
When people consistently eat for reasons other than hunger, it is a type of disordered eating. Of course you're going to have your wedding cake even if you're not hungry, but people with healthy relationships with food generally eat just when they're hungry. I might taste test or take a bite of something out of curiousity or have half a cookie just because it sounds soooo good (it is normal to eat for reasons not having to do with hunger.)
What is not normal is to never feel hunger because you feed yourself all the time or to eat "because it's time to" or because there's nothing else to do or to reward yourself or someone else.
I've been there, and the only thing that got me through was a great therpist who insist that I experience my feelings instead of examining them or pretending they weren't there. We didn't talk about food at all in therapy, we fixed the emotional part and the eating part fixed itself.
"Am I over-reacting?"
"Am blaming myself when I shouldn't?"
(hard to say...I wish I could better) ...having the skill to cleanly separate the reaction and it's fallout and choosing an objective and insightful alternative. What I'd want is more training in reacting to the trigger... I want an emotional 'batting cage' where one can safety learn to field all the different kinds of pitches because the fear is that having to learn in the real game of living in the world (especially for as an adult) will sabotage the chances to make it to the big leagues.
If that's not so I say THANK YOU!