Complete acceptance: coexisting with negative emotions rather than running away from them
Instead of trying to eliminate your negative feelings about food, try to accept those feelings as much as possible, and be able to coexist with them for a period of time. Feeling angry, disappointed, and stressed is normal sometimes. Learning to coexist with these negative emotions, instead of numbing yourself with food or temporarily escaping them, is called complete acceptance. Complete acceptance is a way of focusing entirely on the thing itself, not on what you want it to be. Accept the situation as it is, without trying to change it or fighting it. Complete acceptance is also an ancient technique for dealing with distressing emotions.
Emotional eating is the opposite of acceptance. It involves using comfort eating to avoid bad emotions because you are not accepting your current feelings. Acceptance does not mean you agree with or tolerate the situation. For example, when you are stressed, you may not like how you feel. You may not see it as a good thing either. However, it is a fact. When you stop fighting with how you truly feel right now, you will find more constructive ways to manage difficult emotions. You can make plans instead of worrying about how unfair it is. Achieving complete acceptance is not easy, but it is worth the time and effort to practice.
Self-soothing techniques: Acceptance language for emotional eating
When you feel the urge to eat emotionally, repeat the following acceptance statements to yourself. You can also create your own acceptance statements if you prefer.
I fully accept myself.
I accept my rollercoaster emotions.
I accept that I want to comfort myself with food.
I accept that I am not perfect, and sometimes I can't control myself from eating.
I accept that I can bear this pain without needing to numb myself with food.
I accept that I cannot change how I feel.
I accepted these feelings and set out to find comfort in a healthy way that wouldn't harm me.
Self-soothing techniques: imagining the worst-case scenario
This is a quick writing exercise to get to the heart of those emotions that make you feel uncomfortable (and thus make you feel better through food).
(1) Ask yourself, what aspect of this emotion is particularly bad?
(2) Could the degree of pain or discomfort harm your body or kill you?
(3) Does this emotion provide you with any important information? For example, overeating may be a sign of anger than you think.
Change your mind
A good laugh can sometimes be the best tranquilizer. One day, I was feeling down and depressed because of my weight. I wanted to eat anything I could find in the kitchen. But instead, I chose to sit on the sofa and try to relax. When I turned on the TV, I saw an outdated show-"I Love Lucy." This show made me roll around on the floor laughing uncontrollably. By the end of the show, I had completely forgotten about food. My anger had completely vanished, and I was able to move on again.
------Tenny
If you want to change your emotional eating habits, you need to find ways to understand how you perceive the comforting properties of food. If you simply believe that food makes you feel better when stressed, then you need to work on finding other ways to change your mood. You may need to put in a lot of effort to sever the psychological link between food and comfort, as this link is deeply ingrained. You can also benefit from positive interpretations of your negative thoughts. Pessimistic thoughts only make you feel worse and only evoke your need for comfort. Your next task is to learn how to generate more comforting thoughts rather than frequently having negative ones. When your mind is filled with comfortable and relaxing images and perspectives, you will reduce your use of food to cope with stress or unpleasantness.
Keeping a diary can improve your mental health.
I'm not good at controlling my emotions. Journaling helps me understand the motivations behind my stress eating. When I write about my struggles, I often find that I overeat because I'm anxious about something. Eating calms my nerves. When I'm journaling, I don't judge myself; I just try to understand why I fall into emotional eating again and how to better prepare for next time.
------Olivia
Writing down your troubles can help comfort you; it's a simple, clinically proven method. In fact, an entire branch of psychology, known as narrative therapy, studies the therapeutic benefits of journaling. This theory is based on rewriting and concretizing your feelings. Essentially, this means describing your feelings on paper so you can see them from a different perspective. Unexamined emotions are like powerful undercurrents in the ocean; they can push you where you don't want to go.
Why can journaling help? Because it offers several benefits. For beginners, the process may be somewhat bumpy. However, journaling helps you recognize what drives you to seek comfort through eating. Many emotional eaters believe they eat solely for the pleasure of eating, but eating has many other effects. Journaling helps you confront problems directly by examining their depth, contrasting with the numbing and avoidance of your own feelings that comes with eating. After starting journaling, you may still eat emotionally. However, you will have a better understanding of the eating needs that arise in those moments.
The second benefit of journaling is that it helps you think about your situation in a more positive and realistic way. For example, let's say Bob had a bad day and he might tell himself, "This was the worst emotional eating I've ever had." But when he started journaling, he realized that his current emotional eating wasn't the worst overeating he'd ever experienced. It wasn't the amount of food bothering him, but rather the guilt and disappointment he felt. Seeing his guilt and disappointment was difficult for him until he wrote them down on paper.
Finally, journaling provides a space for you to plan for your next stress eating urge. When you clearly understand what your past challenges were, you can predict how you will cope in the future, and next time you can plan to deal with those challenges in a more constructive way.
Diary 101: Writing Techniques
To make journaling a habit, you should plan ahead like winding up a clock, writing in your journal at the same time every day. For example, you could use 20 minutes before breakfast each morning, or after putting your children to bed at night.
If you don't write in enough detail, or if you feel you don't have time, you can quickly jot down 1-2 notes in your daily plan.
Don't keep a journal. Don't try to censor yourself, don't try to eliminate thoughts; let your thoughts flow naturally. In psychology, this is called free association, which means allowing your consciousness to take you wherever it wants to go.
For each diary entry, provide a summary of the past, present, and future. The format is as follows: In the past, I felt this issue... Now, I feel this issue... In the future, regarding this issue, what I want to do or describe is...
If you spend most of your time on a computer, you can keep an online journal. There are many free online journaling services available.
Self-soothing techniques: Researching stress eating
If you're unsure what to write, that's okay. Here are some tips to help you get started. Each tip is the beginning of a sentence. They'll stimulate your thinking. However, you don't need more specific tips, as that would negate the benefits of journaling. If the listed questions don't address how you feel, then you can pick up a pen and begin writing:
The worst thing about this situation is...
The three adjectives that best describe how I feel right now are...
The reason that triggered this emotion in me is...
When I eat, I feel...
Self-soothing techniques: Focus on positive moments
Focusing on positive moments can help you overcome panic and can also prevent stress eating. After reading the following statements, take a blank sheet of paper or open a new computer file and jot down any thoughts that come to mind. Choose one statement and write down as many details as possible.
Positive moments in your life, such as a child's first smile, a good report card, a job promotion, or a surprise birthday party.
The moment you feel peaceful or very calm is like when you are watching the sunrise at the beach.
The moment you fall in love.
You feel completely relaxed during moments, such as when you're traveling or after putting your child to bed.
Your sense of adventure is very strong when you go to places you've never been before or try something new (like diving).
Rebuilding Positive Moments
Now that you have documented the details above, it is time to apply them. Answering the following questions can provide some insights into how to rebuild positive moments in your life:
What can we use to rebuild such positive emotions? How can we approach such emotions in the future?
More specifically, how do those positive emotions help you cope with emotional eating later in life?
For example, suppose you describe on paper a moment when you were completely relaxed on a beach vacation. You can do anything that helps you recreate that feeling. For instance, you could take off your shoes, put your feet in the bathtub, and pour hot water over the backs of your feet. Then, close your eyes and imagine walking along the water's edge of the beach. You could also play some upbeat music or invite a friend to the beach for a reunion.
Self-soothing techniques: Image diary
No one has ever said that journaling has to be handwritten. With the rise of audio, a picture is worth a thousand words. Draw a visual image of your emotions or take photos of yourself in different moods. Collect these drawings and photos in a notebook. Date each photo and explain how it relates to food and emotional eating.
The "Haha" moment
A good laugh can sometimes be the best tranquilizer. One day, I was feeling down and depressed because of my weight. I wanted to eat anything I could find in the kitchen. But instead, I chose to sit on the sofa and try to relax. When I turned on the TV, I saw an outdated show-"I Love Lucy." This show made me roll around on the floor laughing uncontrollably. By the end of the show, I had completely forgotten about food. My anger had completely vanished, and I was able to move on again.
------Tenny