Tips To Prevent Emotional Eating

When we experience overwhelming feelings, it's sometimes easier to turn to things outside ourselves to help us manage. These outlets can be positive, like exercise or blogging, or destructive, like getting drunk and drug usage. For some sufferers, eating is the outlet they turn to when feeling out of control emotionally. Emotional eating is a way to suppress negative feelings for many sufferers.

For some folks, emotional eating only means eating a little ice cream after a rough day at work. For many, however, this is a unhealthy coping mechanism that can lead to weight problems and health troubles. Many comfort foods are high in calories, sugar, and salt, which all can lead to health complications when eaten in massive quantities.

There are many factors that can cause emotional eating. Key life events, or even day to day irritations can lead emotional eaters to the refrigerator. For others, eating can even be a way of relief from boredom. There is a chemical reason behind emotional eating additionally. Many popular comfort foods release chemicals or hormones that elevate your feelings, so they are chemically as well as psychologically comforting.

Emotional eating is a hard habit to break. However, there are a few things you can do to help quit this dangerous tendency. It's vital to learn how to tell the difference between true hunger and an emotionally motivated desire to chow down. If you know that you aren't truly hungry, give it a few minutes to see if the urge fades. Emotional cravings differ(s) from physical cravings in many ways. It comes on rapidly, while physical hunger is slower. True hunger is a universal sensation of emptiness, while emotional hunger will make you crave something in particular. Emotional eating is also more likely to cause feelings of remorse afterwards.

Don't keep unhealthy foods nearby, because it's much less difficult to fight those urges when temptation isn't easy to access. Attempt to swap unhealthy comfort foods with better for you alternatives. Make a list of activities you can do to amuse yourself when emotional eating hits, such as go for a run, take a brief nap, or read a newspaper. Finally, finding the help of a therapist to address the psychological motivations for emotional eating can be very rewarding.

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