Overcoming Stress Eating

The painful consequences of stress

Stress is one of the most common reasons why people emotionally eat. It is an understatement to say we are currently living through one of the most stressful times in history! Trying to survive a pandemic, is no walk in the park. Fear about financial security, fear for our and our loved one’s health, relationship stress, loss, bereavement, unfulfilled dreams, lack of freedom and having to deal unexpected life circumstances are all very, very stressful.

We all know how painfully debilitating stress can be. When our mind is filled with stressful feelings, we feel overwhelmed, depressed and paralysed. When we are really stressed, it saps our energy, depletes all our mental and physical vitality, leaves us feeling restless, agitated and on edge.  We can’t enjoy any of the pleasures of life.

The physical consequences of chronic stress on our health is well documented. Chronic stress is at the root of many health conditions, including heart problems and many other diseases.

Understanding the psychology of stress

Stress is a feeling that arises within your mind and body when you encounter something you rather not.  In other words, it is a feeling that arises, when there is discrepancy between how you would want things to be and how things are.  It is a painful emotional response to things, situations and people that contradict your wishes. You want things/people/world to be a certain way and we get stressed when things/people/world are different to how we expect them to be.

Why is the pandemic so stressful? Because dealing with a pandemic along with all its undesirable side effects is not on anyone’s wish list. In short, when we are forced to deal with things we rather not, our mind becomes unhappy, frustrated, overwhelmed and stressed. When we are stressed we are not emotionally able to deal with how things are. We feel whatever it is, ‘should be different’.  When a colleague or family member says something you did not want to hear,  you feel, ‘they should not have said it, they are so insensitive’ and so on. Our mind can’t handle what they have said and we feel stressed.  These stressful feelings can be overwhelming, and then we seek comfort and relief from emotional eating.

Six mindset shifts for releasing stress

1)  Be kind to yourself

Unfortunately, when we have the habit of emotionally eating, we get caught in a vicious cycle, of feeling stressed about stress eating, judging and shaming ourselves because we have overeaten or binged, exacerbating the feelings of stress. When you are feeling stressed, and you find yourself reaching out to food to comfort yourself, to gain some relief from the emotional pain of being stressed, you are simply coping.

For those moments you are eating, you do get some temporary relief / distraction from those stressful feelings.  Even though stress eating does not address the actual the root of the problem, it does work for those moments. The kindest thing you can do for yourself, is not fuel the cycle of shame and guilt and simply accept your humanness. No one wants to experience painful feelings, you are no exception. The desire to escape emotional discomfort is inbuilt within us. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Let yourself off the hook.

2) The root cause of stress eating : Understanding what you can and can’t control

Stress triggers are things outside of your mind. They are endless and can be anything. Stress triggers can range from difficult people, pandemics, world situation, money, relationships, work, health, politics to small everyday frustrations like the milk running out.  Stress response, is inside you, your unique emotional response to the stress triggers. Stress triggers are things outside of yourself but your stress response is the nature of your thoughts and feelings.

Ultimately, we can’t control other people, situations, pandemics but you can develop the skills that allows you to gain control over your thoughts and feelings. I am not saying this is easy, but with practice and a commitment to the path of personal responsibility you can.

A key skill we need to learn is the skill of separating the stress triggers from your stress response.  When you do this, you are empowering yourself by becoming clear about what you have control over and what you don’t have control over. Eventually, you will see from your own experience that it is possible for you to encounter a stress trigger and yet for you to remain peaceful.

3) Building the muscle of emotional resilience

Every time we emotionally eat to numb painful feelings like stress, we are eroding away our confidence in our ability to deal with unpleasant feelings.  Equally, when we stay stuck in the pain of stress, of anger, of resentment, we can’t face up to reality of how things are and we stay stuck in denial and powerlessness.  We do this because staying in anger and stress is often easier than facing up to the reality of the situation. However, it is only when we face up to how things are, we can move towards a solution and eventually peace.

 Here are some practical steps of building your inner resilience and finding some peace by releasing the thoughts and beliefs that gives rise to stressful feelings:

a) based on mindset shift 2, you understand that stress response is a feeling from within you. It is the nature of your thoughts and feelings. You may not be able to control the stress triggers (outside of you) but you can deal with your stress response. To start this process, gently guide your mind inside,

b) pause, gently breath in to the feelings of stress, allowing yourself to feel those feelings, whilst mentally saying to yourself, ‘I know these feelings are painful, but these feelings have no power to destroy me, I can handle it’. You can do this for few seconds, perhaps a minute...

c) as you do the above, some space will open up in your mind, and then you can say to yourself from the heart, ‘even though, this is not a situation/interaction I want to be in, it is what it is, whatever has happened, has happened, whatever was said, was said and I can handle it’.

Every time you practice is, you are building your inner muscle of emotional resilience. You will learn that painful feelings can not destroy you. You will learn that eventually all painful feelings will pass. With practice it will easier and easier to let go and return to a state of balance and peace with confidence.

4) Learn to proactively release stress

Stressful feelings build up as the day progresses. Have you ever had the experience of work stress spilling over in to your personal life? This is because we haven’t learnt the skill of proactively releasing stress that is building up in our mind.

One of the best ways of doing this is through a simple breathing a practice, where you consciously choose to breath out stressful feelings, whilst telling yourself to let go, to release whatever painful feelings you are holding on to and then gently breath in peaceful feelings into your heart. Just a minute or two here and there throughout the day will have a powerful effect on your emotional well-being.

5)     Learning to cultivate realistic expectations

Stress arises when our expectations of how things ‘should be’ is thwarted. What does it mean to cultivate realistic expectations? This is not easy or immediately apparent. We need to learn the skill of compassionately challenging our underlying assumptions about life.  For instance, life can be unpredictable, full of instability and uncertainty, that’s just the nature of life. We get stressed because we have the underlying expectation that ‘life should be stable or work in accordance with what we wish for’. We only have to watch the news to know there is no evidence to believe in the stability or the predictability of life.

A lot of relationship stress, comes from having unrealistic expectations of other people. Perhaps we harbour unconscious expectations of how people should behave, speak and be and when they don’t, we feel disappointed, frustrated and stressed. The reality is that this world is full of imperfect people who will at times act out of selfishness and harm. Just like we do, when we are angry.  When we learn to become realistic about people, you are more likely to maintain your emotional composure when dealing with people who are behaving badly.

When our mind is stable, we more effective as a person, we can think clearly and find solutions with ease. A stable mind will give us clarity, it will help us communicate with confidence, resolve conflict with wisdom, set appropriate boundaries in line with the circumstances.

To dissolve stress away at a deeper level, develop the habit of asking yourself the question, ‘What unrealistic expectations should I be letting go of to bring my mind back in to balance?’. As you train in this, you will be pleasantly surprised in your ability to maintain a flexible and solution orientated mind during difficult times.

6) Creating a powerful morning ritual.

Please see my blog post ‘ The Power of a Morning Ritual’

As you can see, the key to resolving stress eating depends upon learning to proactively deal with the emotions of stress. When you have other ways of coping with stress, you will no longer need to use food as a way of escaping stressful feelings. You can train your mind and learn art of letting go!

Remember, all feelings,  no matter how painful will eventually pass!

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