How To Stop Emotional Eating

Our expert: Dr. Dennis, Psychologist

People under stress behave in two different ways: some stop eating and lose a lot of weight, while others start emotionally eating and gain weight. In addition to negative feelings of stress, the latter also gain extra weight. What are the alternatives to emotionally eating cookies and hamburgers?

Why do you eat more when stressed?

We enjoy tasty food, so it comes naturally to us to cope with feelings of guilt, loneliness, or anger by eating. Many of us remember the situations when we wanted to eat something delicious after an argument with a family member or boss, as eating makes us feel better. The emotional eating algorithm is programmed in us from early childhood as adults often give children something tasty to calm them down.

Signs of emotional eating

Normally, you are expected to feel hungry 3–4 hours after each meal. Your body sends you a signal that you should replenish your energy by eating. If you start feeling hungry much earlier, it is most likely about emotional eating between meals.

The most obvious symptoms of emotional hunger include the following:

• Occurs spontaneously
• You crave junk food, high-calorie food, or sweets
• You need to eat something tasty immediately
• There is a correlation with negative feelings
• Eating becomes uncontrollable

This type of hunger starts in your brain, not in your stomach. After eating, you start feeling guilty because of what you ate, and the negative feelings get even worse. Doing this repeatedly can eventually lead to depression.

Solving the problem

You can continue emotional eating and gaining weight, but it is much more effective and healthy to change how you react to stress. To make this happen, you need to do everything from the list below.

• Identify the causes of negative feelings.
• Think about things you like, which can replace sweets, such as dancing, yoga, reading, swimming, quests, or just taking a walk.
• Try eating every 3–4 hours to make skipping unhealthy snacks easier.
• Check your level of vitamin D as it is directly related to metabolism and affects your mood.
• Get some exercise. When you chew, you relieve stress by moving the jaw, which works as an exercise.
• Identify your weak points, try to spell out your emotions, and transform them into words. This can relieve anxiety and negative feelings. Keep a diary for emotional eating. Describe situations when you want to get a snack.

If you cannot settle this problem on your own, it is advisable to turn to a psychologist. A medical expert will help you identify the trigger for the craving to eat something tasty, develop a therapy program, and equip you to have more self-control.