Emotional eating has become a common way for many people to deal with stress, boredom, sadness, or even happiness. If you’ve ever found yourself reaching for a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps after a tough day, you’re certainly not alone. Emotional eating is a natural and widespread response to life’s ups and downs. But for those who struggle with regular emotional eating, which feels uncontrollable, there is another way to help cope with your emotions without using food.
This is where Intuitive Eating Principle 7: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness comes in. The good news is that you can break free of a pattern of emotional eating without judgment, without shame, and with a lot of kindness toward yourself.
What Is Emotional Eating?
Before we dive deeper into how to cope with emotions without turning to food, let’s get clear on what emotional eating is. Emotional eating refers to using food to soothe, distract, or numb us from uncomfortable emotions. It’s a way of temporarily filling a void or quieting emotional discomfort. Emotional hunger often feels urgent, and it’s not necessarily connected to physical hunger.
For example, you might find yourself reaching for biscuits in the evening after a stressful day at work, even though you’re not physically hungry. The act of eating provides a momentary sense of relief, comfort, or distraction. But it’s a short-lived solution, and often, the emotions you were trying to escape come right back once the food is gone.
Why Do We Eat for Emotional Reasons?
There are a variety of reasons why we turn to food in moments of emotional need. Here are a few common ones:
- Comfort and Soothing: Food, especially certain types like sweets or high-carb foods, can activate the brain’s reward centres, temporarily making us feel better. From childhood, we might associate certain foods with comfort and safety, so it’s natural to reach for them when emotions are running high.
- Distraction: Eating can serve as a way to avoid dealing with difficult emotions. When we eat, we shift our focus away from what we’re feeling and onto the act of eating itself.
- Numbing or Avoidance: Sometimes, we use food to numb emotions we don’t want to deal with, whether that’s stress, sadness, loneliness, or even boredom.
- Celebration or Joy: Emotional eating isn’t always about negative emotions. We also eat to celebrate or prolong feelings of happiness. Think about all the times you’ve reached for food to celebrate a win or a special occasion.
The Difference Between Emotional and Physical Hunger
One key element of Principle 7 is learning to distinguish between emotional hunger and physical hunger. This is crucial because emotional hunger can be deceptive, often mimicking physical hunger in intensity.
Here are a few ways to tell the difference:
- Emotional hunger tends to come on suddenly, feels urgent, and often leads to cravings for specific comfort foods (think chocolate, crisps, or ice cream). It’s not about the body needing fuel but about soothing an emotion.
- Physical hunger develops more gradually, can be satisfied with a variety of foods, and doesn’t carry the same sense of urgency. It’s the body’s natural way of signalling it needs nourishment.
Coping with Emotions without Turning to Food
At the heart of Principle 7 is finding alternative ways to cope with your emotions that don’t involve food. It’s important to remember that emotional eating isn’t “bad” or something to feel guilty about. In fact, it’s often a sign that your emotional needs aren’t being fully addressed. The goal isn’t to take away food as a coping strategy completely, but to add more tools to your emotional toolbox, so that food isn’t the only way you cope.
Here are some strategies to help you cope with your emotions in a healthier way:
- Identify Your Triggers
The first step is to become more aware of what emotions or situations lead you to eat emotionally. Start by keeping a journal where you note the times you feel the urge to eat when you’re not physically hungry. Write down what you’re feeling, what triggered that emotion, and how you responded. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns emerge.
Common emotional triggers include:
- Stress from work or relationships
- Boredom or restlessness
- Feelings of loneliness or isolation
- Anxiety or overwhelm
- Celebratory events
- Pause and Check In with Yourself
The next time you feel the urge to reach for food, pause for a moment and check in with yourself. Ask yourself, “Am I physically hungry, or is something else going on?” If you realise it’s emotional hunger, try to name the emotion you’re feeling. This act of pausing and identifying your emotions can help you make a more conscious choice about whether to eat or find another way to cope.
- Develop Non-Food Coping Strategies
The key to coping with your emotions with kindness is to develop non-food ways to manage how you’re feeling. Here are a few ideas:
- Breathe and Relax: Take a few deep breaths to calm your nervous system. Breathing exercises, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation can help reduce stress and anxiety.
- Move Your Body: Physical activity, even a short walk, can help you release tension and shift your focus away from food. Movement can also boost your mood by releasing endorphins.
- Talk It Out: Sometimes, all you need is to talk to a friend or family member about what’s on your mind. Sharing your feelings with someone else can help lighten the emotional load.
- Engage in a Hobby: Doing something you enjoy, whether it’s reading, painting, or gardening, can be a great way to cope with emotions without food.
- Practice Self-Compassion
Emotional eating is something that many of us have done, often for years. If you find yourself turning to food during an emotional time, it’s important not to judge yourself harshly. Be compassionate with yourself. Recognise that emotional eating has served a purpose in your life, and it’s okay to learn new ways of coping without guilt or shame.
When Emotional Eating Happens, Be Kind to Yourself
It’s important to note that the goal with Intuitive Eating isn’t to eliminate emotional eating entirely. There may still be times when you turn to food for comfort, and that’s okay. The point of Principle 7 is to bring more awareness and choice to these moments. When you do eat emotionally, rather than criticising yourself, reflect on what happened and what you might need emotionally.
This principle is all about building a healthier relationship between food and your emotions. It encourages you to be kind to yourself, explore your emotions, and develop new ways of coping with life’s challenge. As you practice this principle, remember that Intuitive Eating is a journey, and progress happens one step at a time. Be patient, compassionate, and open to learning along the way.
If you feel you more need support with emotional eating and your Intuitive Eating journey, I’m here to help. Together, we can work through your emotional eating habits and find a path that feels kind and nourishing for both your body and mind. Get in touch or book in a free initial consultation via my Contact Me page today!
