Why Are We Emotional Eating Right Now?
As we are experiencing a global pandemic in the western world means predominately staying at home, an indefinite loss of social plans, normality and generally any kind of life outside of home. Covid-19 has hit hard and fast, our lives have changed and the world is collectively scared and in grief. Emotional eating can be described as using food for purposes other than nourishment or satiation, as a coping mechanism for emotions that you don’t want to feel, to feel better, self sooth, numb, fill a void or some sense of control. It’s easy to see how almost everyone on the planet with access to a kitchen open 24-hours might be using food as coping mechanism right now.
It has to be mentioned that emotional eating occasionally is absolutely normal. It is when it becomes consistent, chronic and negatively impacts overall quality of life that it becomes a problem.
Eating emotionally is about emotional not physical hunger. The way to tell the difference is that emotional eating usually starts suddenly, feels insatiable, wants instant gratification and inspires cravings for specific often comfort foods that are high in sugar, carbohydrates and fat. Physical hunger increases gradually over time and is for a wide array of foods and is able to feel full and stop when satisfied.
You are probably and rightfully overwhelmed with many and constantly changing new kinds of feelings. Firstly, you aren’t alone, everyone is going through their own version of this in different homes but all together. We are grieving and naturally want to make these uncomfortable feelings go away. We have never known stress like this before, if you have been eating as a coping mechanism it’s ok.
Emotions aren’t bad, they constantly fluctuate and provide useful information. Compulsions to eat are signs/messengers that something is requiring attention. Humans don’t like to feel pain, we are biologically instructed to do almost anything to avoid it. I believe collectively right now emotional eating is about fear, disconnection from ourselves and avoiding the way things are because they are not how we want them to be. This makes perfect sense if you, without realising, have recently been finding yourself eating when not physically hungry to numb, self-comfort or a means to gain control.
Depending on your living arrangements with so much time at home you might be eating out of frustration feeling sick of your partner, family, housemate or on the flip side living by yourself food is being used as a void to fill the emotional hunger of social connection.
Self-awareness that this is happening is the first step in figuring out how to cope in more health promoting, providing the ‘why’. In order to recognise what we’re feeling we need to sit with it which can feel very uncomfortable but it allows us to observe, name and remove judgement. Until we know what we’re feeling it’s very difficult to move forward. Using food for an emotional need is very temporary, it doesn’t go away as the emotional need can never be satiated by food. Understanding the purpose of emotions, not labelling them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ helps us to figure out their effects on our thoughts and behaviours. Even if you come to the conclusion that you just feel hopelessness right it is still actively regulating emotions and can start to provide some relief.
Emotions connect us to what matters and to our values. This weekend with family plans understandably not encouraged can bring waves of anger, sadness, loneliness which signifies that you value your family, traditions and social connection. When you think about it that way you can bring compassion for yourself.
The next time you find yourself gravitating to the fridge or cupboard and suspect that you aren’t physically hungry consider:
Emotions are triggered in response to some kind of stimulus. Something happens then we feel, think, act in a particular way as a result. What just happened? Did you watch a fear driving news segment or read an article, remember plans that are now cancelled, miss someone, see an over productive person on social media and feel bad about yourself, have a moment of avoiding working from home, get frustrated with someone you live with, feel lonely living by yourself having no other humans around or just start thinking about the future and then get overwhelmed?
Radical acceptance helps you end the fight against your emotions and learn to tolerate distress. Only through acceptance can you begin to heal through a non-judgemental lens, looking at what you can and can’t control by the facts of the situation. Acceptance is about sitting with discomfort and then letting it go instead of fighting against it or mindlessly shutting it out. It requires seeing an element of choice and how you respond which empowers you to cope, creating space for emotions and learning to tolerate them.
With a rapidly changing world (hopefully in the long term for the better) we are being given the opportunity to reflect inwards and go over our personal inventory of what is working for us, what we value and remove what doesn’t feel right anymore. Now is the time to lean into trusting ourselves and our bodies. On the surface it may seem like the opposite is happening, but we do have ability to feel in control and empowered by our choices, especially with food. Checking in with yourself asking questions about how your feeling and naming some throughout the day can help lessen the severity of compulsions when new triggers, conversations, news articles, arguments or feelings come up. Experiment with being flexible in exchange for an all or nothing rule based mindset, let go of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, trust your body and its fluctuating needs. The first few times you challenge emotional eating it might seem that nothing is accomplished but the power of choice will accumulate as self-awareness grows. If guilt or shame keeps arising from eating take it as a cue that something deeper is going on requiring some attention.
We have been forced to slow down which funnily enough is the perfect time to experiment being curious and kind when communicating with yourself. We are physically isolated yes but still connected to everything and everyone is an integral part of the world.
Having this printed on the fridge has helped clients before, or you might like to save the image somewhere accessible and safe for you.
