Do you overeat when negative emotions overwhelm you? Have you heard of emotional eating? If not, continue reading to learn more about its symptoms and how to overcome it.

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating is defined as overeating when experiencing emotional or psychological shock, or as a way to soothe psychological distress such as stress, sadness, or boredom, or to provide a comforting distraction instead of dealing with a painful situation or an upcoming event.

Venting emotions through food is an urge many people experience, despite its risks to our bodies and health and the health problems it can cause, such as diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. Some of us try to fill an emotional void by filling the stomach to soothe feelings and emotions, while others can fill that void through healthy outlets such as prayer, supplication, exercise, relaxation, meditation, and reading. Emotional eating often leads to overeating, especially foods that are sweet, fatty, and high in calories. The result may be depression, anxiety, weight gain, guilt, and regret because the person realizes they have eaten food their body may not need.

Signs of emotional eating

  1. Feeling hungry and needing to eat suddenly, without warning.
  2. Eating thoughtlessly, without being aware of the foods you are consuming.
  3. The feeling of hunger comes not in response to signals from the stomach that your body needs food, but because you are thinking about food and cannot move past that thought.
  4. No matter how much food you eat, you do not feel satisfied or full; instead, your desire for food increases.

What is the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger?

To answer this, ask yourself: Does eating become tied to your emotional state and mood whenever you feel angry, face a financial crisis or work pressure, feel sad, or become bored? If the answer is yes, you are experiencing emotional eating.

The only natural motivation for mindful eating should be physical hunger. This feeling is a signal sent by the body and immediately understood by the brain. The person then responds consciously, eating in a way that matches the body's needs as they recognize them from moment to moment. People who experience emotional eating, however, have motivations for eating other than hunger. Negative emotions create a sense of emptiness, sometimes called an emotional void. Their hunger is therefore not genuine physical hunger; it may be emotional hunger arising from feelings and emotions rather than a physiological need.

Tips for overcoming emotional eating

  1. Pay attention to your urge before eating.Ask yourself whether you are physically hungry or trying to distract yourself from the responsibilities around you by eating.
  2. Eat your meals mindfully.This will help you regulate your eating behavior, as emotional eating often happens without conscious awareness.
  3. Stop eating while watching televisionor while talking on the phone or driving, because you will not be aware of what you are eating.
  4. Use healthy outlets for negative emotionsand the pressures of life by engaging in physical activity, relaxing, and breathing properly.
  5. Avoid following a diet so strict that it deprives you of many foods.
  6. Learn from your past experiences.This will help you become more aware and mature, enabling you to work through difficult emotional circumstances calmly and resolve them without turning to emotional eating.

I will say it again, dear reader: Emotional eating is one of the most harmful forms of psychological release. If you experience emotional eating, do not hesitate to contact specialists in mental health and clinical nutrition to help you identify the causes and motivations behind the problem and develop a healthy relationship with food that is not tied to emotions and emotional reactions.