emotional eating

It is a fact that positive emotions create an experience of well-being. Pessimistic emotions, on the other hand, could induce great psychological and physiological damage.

One result of negative emotions that has been in the news for a while now is emotional eating. It is not uncommon to see people consume more than they normally would once they are under a lot of emotional distress. This distress may have been caused by trauma, anxiety, unhappiness, anger, loneliness, relationship problems, or depression. Actually, an eating disorder is among the most visible symptoms of emotional disorders such as clinical depression.

Emotional eating occurs when your emotions influence your eating habits instead of your stomach. Once you indulge in emotional eating, it’s likely to add to your worries and your weight.

Emotional eating essentially means that you finish eating without feeling hungry. Individuals indulge in such behavior to try to comfort themselves and turn to food as it is readily available. Trying to break free from such an urge is like trying to break free from a drug dependency: it takes a lot of effort to give up substance abuse.

One of the first steps you need to take to overcome emotional eating is to try to distinguish between eating when you are hungry and eating to feel comfortable. Learn to distinguish your hunger and recognize if you are eating according to the demand of your head or your stomach. Eat only if you are hungry.

Don’t use food to kill boredom, and don’t make snacks and sweets a habit either. Remember, you are expected to “eat to live” and not “live to eat.” If boredom is something you’re struggling with, use different means to counter the situation. Go for a walk, visit a friend, or just grab your tools and start a garden.

The next time you experience the urge to snack between meals, reach for an apple or carrot. If you don’t turn to favorable comfort foods for a while, you’ll go a long way in decreasing your need for those foods over time.

Going to the gym will make you much more aware of your body and physical exercise enhances emotional health. While you may feel like eating afterward, you need to make sure you’re making healthy food choices.

Lack of sleep could lead to reduced levels of leptin, the endocrine hormone credited with regulating appetite by signaling satiety. Make sure you get some decent relaxation every day.

If none of these work and you’re not effective at sustaining your efforts, you may need to improve your emotional health. Visit a counselor or psychologist to try to discover the reason for your binge eating and research the top natural remedies that are available with a reputation for helping.