Why Stress Causes You To Overeat
- Brainz Magazine
- May 11, 2022
- 5 min read
Written by: Vanessa McLennan, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Are you stressed and don’t know it?
Stress can be present in our lives to various degrees depending on what we are going through.
When we are stressed, we release a hormone called cortisol and this sends a signal to the brain that we need food to help us with this flight or fight situation. We crave especially salty or sweet things to help us through this situation as the brain needs instant fuel to fight this perception of threat. In the very moment of high acute stress, you may not want to eat, but the body will crave food when it comes down from the high as it needs to refuel. However, the problem lies when stress becomes a normal part of life and we do not even realise we are under stress. When we have a constant low level of stress our bodies are being depleted so we naturally are hungrier.
There is also the psychological side. Underlying stress becomes too much to handle so we turn to food as a way of coping. After a stressful day, the mentality is to say, ‘oh sod it,’ we do not care, and we want to eat. We think we deserve it as we have had a distressing day. We deserve a treat. We justify it to ourselves that way. When we are eating our focus goes on the food and to our stomachs as it fills up. Our body systems focus on digesting the food and the symptoms of stress appear to fade away. In the moment of eating, it feels good, and we just forget about the stress. The food makes it all feel better.
Over time this becomes a pattern, and it becomes habitual. What we end up doing is eating to cover our feelings instead of facing and dealing with our feelings. When we manage our stress levels, a stressful day is not as bad as it once was because we can manage it in a better way. When we are calm and we feel good, we stop turning to food to manage our emotions.
Below are five steps that you can take to start bringing the stress levels down so you can stop turning to food.
1. Deep breathing
Develop a deep breathing practise. It could be meditation of some kind. Even just two minutes out of your day to develop a breathing routine could massively lower your stress levels. You might ask ‘How on earth is breathing going to help me with my stress? Psychologically it is helping you to pause your conscious thought. It is giving you space in the analytical brain to help you to stop in that moment to focus inwards. Often in life, it can feel as if we have no time for us. This creates us to find unwanted but emotionally beneficial behaviours because it is making us feel better (like overeating). The breathing helps us to put the focus on us. We start to pay more attention to us and our needs. We start being calmer in life. We also want to start looking out for us more, which means being kinder to ourselves and letting go of unwanted behaviours.
2. Tapping (EFT)
Tapping is where you use your first two fingers to tap on certain acupressure points. The acupressure points are stress-relieving points and follow the same meridian lines as Chinese acupuncture. The theory is when we have suffered from trauma, we hold that stress in the body and that causes stagnation. Psychologically it is stagnation that we are not able to move past that we end up going around in circles. We cannot see a way through so tapping is a way to help us get through that stagnation but also help us realise our feelings, acknowledge where we are with our feelings. It brings in elements of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) as we say we love and accept ourselves for where we are at the end of each tapping point. As we start to tap on a point, we start by saying how we feel, for instance, I am feeling really stressed and we finish by saying, but I completely love and accept myself for who I am. It is a great method for helping us to process how we feel and move past it.
3. Healthy snacks on hand
There are times when we are at home, and we do just fancy snacking on something. It can be hard to give up a habit totally at first. In that case then rather than having crisps and chocolate in the cupboard, when you next go to the supermarket buy the healthier snacks. In the baking aisle you will find dried fruit pressed bars. If you go down to the ‘free from’ aisle you will find healthier snacks like vegetable crisps for instance. Apples and grapes are an easier way to get healthier snacks in you so that you are not going for that high fat high sugar E foods.
4. Get out
Sometimes you need a break from what we are going. Often in that moment, it is easy to get up and go to get food. Going to the kitchen or to the shops is a fantastic way to take a break, though not so good for our health if we keep overeating. Changing your environment helps you with the stress but to avoid the food it is about changing your pattern. It could be as simple as going outside and going for a walk around the block. You might not live or work in a lovely green park area, it does not matter it is just breathing deeply while you are on a walk to change your environment for five minutes to help you get out of your head and let your body relax.
5. Drink before you eat
If the urge to eat is strong, have a drink of water before you eat. It is just changing your patterns to doing something else. When we stop a pre-programmed pattern, it is called a pattern interrupt. Instead of going to the cupboard, we can train ourselves to get a drink of water instead and it is taking that time to just drink, pause, take a deep breath and it gives us that moment of breathing space.
This is all about changing your old unwanted patterns and introducing healthier patterns. It is acknowledging where your stress levels are working on yourself to help you live a calmer life. You may find it is much lighter physically and mentally.
Vanessa McLennan, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Vanessa McLennan is a hypnotherapist/psychotherapist specialising in Binge Eating, Weight loss and obesity. After experiencing challenges in life, she found therapy and it was a life changing experience for her. Her life moved forward so much that she wanted to help others. She started specialising in weightloss and disordered eating because her own poor health caused her to clean up her own diet and healthy living became a passion of hers. She helps people who have been on many diets and they have not worked. Their eating has got out of control and they can't escape the cycle between eating too much or restriction. Are you ready and open to exploring your mind and emotions to help clear your unconscious saboteurs? To go within to work on the cause of your habits and not just the symptoms? Vanessa takes her clients on a healing journey where they heal the relationship with themselves and with food. An exploratory, liberating, life changing journey
