Emotional Issues | special dinner

Food vs Mood

Food vs Mood - Food functions as a tension reliever. Both eating food and thinking about food work as distractions from uncomfortable feelings.

Being food- focused takes the edge off any feeling that a person would rather not feel or tolerate (boredom, stress, anxiety, anger, loneliness, etc.). When you are feeling bored and suddenly you find yourself thinking about the ice cream in the freezer.

As soon as you start think about the ice cream, you are no longer focused on feeling bored. Food and food thoughts can be used in reaction to any intense feeling or stressful life situation.

The use of food to manage mood becomes a self-reinforcing habit.

(Today, scientists are also focused on the biology & brain chemistry of overeating. There may also be many physiological reason why we keep turning to food even when it feels self-defeating and self destructive) Emotional eating is normal. We all celebrate with food thoughts.

When something sad occurs, friends and neighbors arrive with cakes and casseroles. It's only when emotional eating begins to have impact on one's emotional and/or physical well-being, and it's used as a person's primary strategy for mood regulation, that it becomes a problem. When eating becomes a primary coping strategy, it greatly impacts a person's quality of life. At the most extreme point on the emotional eating continuum, there may be a diagnosable eating disorder present-such as bulimia or binge eating disorder-and often, clinical depression as well.

Food vs Mood

Causes

Tips to prevent it

Make a conscious effort to stay more aware of (more mindful of) how and why you use food as a distraction from other things in your life. Find resources for learning new skills for emotional regulation (very few of us are lucky enough to posses these skills naturally). If you need support to develop ways to self-soothe without eating food, seek help from some professional. A skilled Coach or a Licensed Psychotherapist specialized in emotional eating issues can help you in this regard. The focus of any such intervention should be on the development of self-care and distress tolerance skills, on improved emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. It will also help in learning how to shift away from dieting and toward intuitive eating and improved fitness. Only then a movement toward a healthier, more fit body can be achieved. Dieting is a trap for an emotional eater. If you are eating food to distract from any food thoughts, feelings, or sensations that you would rather avoid, then dieting (which is all about restriction, not mood regulation) promises to be a set-up for more failure. If excess weight is due to the use of excess food to self-soothe, then dieting is destined to lead to more emotional eating. Seek out an innovative way to break this frustrating, self-defeating cycle and let yourself feel free.

• Food is the body's fuel - Most people learn early in their life that food serves other purposes besides nutrition.
• Your mother may have given you ice cream, along with hugs, when you hurt yourself as a child.
• You may have been rewarded with a special dinner at a restaurant when you earned stood top in your academics.
• Maybe as a college student, you got in the habit of munching on food as a way to get through exams.
• Today, you may be using food to fill emotional needs, contributing to your weight management difficulties.
• You may find out that your worst food binges happen on holiday nights, just as you're anticipating a tough week at your office.
• Maybe your eating seems out of control around your parents. Try to deal directly with your anger. You may call a friend and vent your feelings. Take a career class or talk to a counselor. If you're lonely, reach out to other people. Join a health club and think of a vacation.