Does Emotional Eating Have a Grip on You?

When you are stressed or generally not feeling well, do you eat to try and ease those feelings? There is no shame in emotional eating; many of us turn to food to relieve stress, find comfort or even make food to show love to those we care about. Unfortunately, emotional eating doesn’t fix the emotions we try to mask but usually makes us feel worse.



Before breaking free from the cycle, you should try to recognize the difference between emotional and physical hunger. However, this can be trickier than you would think, depending on how long you have been using food to handle your feelings. 

Here are a few ways to tell the two apart. 

1. Emotional hunger hits you in an instant, feeling overwhelming and relatively urgent. Physical hunger is different because it usually occurs more gradually and doesn’t feel as dire as emotional hunger. 
2. Comfort foods are usually what you crave when emotions are involved. Junk food and sugary snacks that give an instant rush are the only foods that will do. 
3. Mindless eating is almost always associated with emotional hunger. Eating a tray of cookies or a whole bag of chips without thoroughly enjoying it or realizing what happened. Physical hunger usually involves more awareness.  
4. A full stomach does not satisfy emotional hunger, but physical hunger stops when full.

So what are the best ways to help keep the emotions in check? One of the best ways to identify patterns related to emotional eating is to keep track using a food and mood journal, which you can find here. Each time you overeat or feel compelled to reach for comfort food, take a second to figure out the trigger and write it all down in your journal. What you ate, how you felt before, during, and after eating. With time, you can identify a pattern and realize your triggers to feed the feelings differently. 

When your cravings hit, step back and check in with yourself. If you’re anxious, relieve those nerves with some movement (walking, dancing, squeezing a stress ball). If you’re bored, pick up a new book, go outside, or turn to a hobby you enjoy. If you’re tired, rest and maybe try a cup of tea, take a bath, and relax somewhere you will feel refreshed. 

Learn to accept your feelings, even the bad ones, and work through them with the above tips to regain control over your emotions!