Emotional Eating Explained: The Real Reason You Crave Food When Stressed

Emotional eating explained: Here's the real reason you crave comfort food when stressed, the difference between emotional and physical hunger, and healthy ways to break the stress-eating cycle.

Most people have experienced emotional eating. You might just feel like having chocolate, chips, or fast foods after a long and stressful day and even when you are not hungry. Why, though, does stress bring about food cravings? The secret is in the great correlation between your brain, hormones and emotions. Learning about emotional eating is going to help you in stopping this cycle and forming more helpful coping mechanisms.

What Is Emotional Eating?

Emotional eating is something that occurs when you eat to comfort or to avoid confronting some challenging emotions rather than to be satiated by hunger. The urge to eat can be brought about by stress, anxiety, sadness, boredom, loneliness and even happiness.

1. Emotional hunger, unlike physical hunger can occur anytime
2. Desires certain comfort foods that are typically high carb or sweetened foods
3. Feels urgent
4. Often leads to overeating
5. Left you with a guilty conscience.
6. Physical hunger, in its turn, accumulates over time and may be appeased through a wide range of foodstuffs.

Reason Why You Want To Eat When You Are Stressed

1. Cortisol, the major stress hormone, is released by your body when you are stressed. Cortisol makes you hungry and sends your brain the signal of finding fast sources of energy. That is why you tend to have cravings of high calorie comfort foods.
2. Fatty and sweet foods increase the so called feel good chemical of the brain, dopamine, temporarily. Nevertheless, after the dopamine spike resumes, stress or guilt can come back to the person and a vicious loop of stress eating occurs.
3. The more stressed you are it leads to hunger and when you are stressed, comfort food will temporarily make your nervous system relax.

Psychology Of Hunger: Emotional Hunger Physical Hunger

Comfort and reward have a strong association with food since childhood. It is common that many individuals are conditioned to equate treat with celebration, love or relaxation. Eventually, the brain will be conditioned to associate food and emotional safety.

When life is too much, your mind seeks something familiar that is comforting. Eating will become an easy and fast solution.It is important to learn how to differentiate between emotional and physical hunger to be able to cope with stress eating.

You can Ask yourself:

1. Do I have a craving to a particular food?
2. Would I take something wholesome at the present time?
3. What emotion am I feeling?
4. When you are not actually hungry and feel like eating, then may be you are reacting to an emotional stimulus.

How To Stop Emotional Eating?

There is no need to stop the emotional eating cycle by prohibiting comfort foods. Rather, it is a question of creating consciousness and healthier coping mechanisms.

The following are some of the practical strategies:

1. Take a minute before eating and find out how you feel.
2. Use breathing exercises such as deep breathing or taking short walks.
3. Keep a food and mood journal
4. Make sure that you are taking balanced meals during the day.
5. Sleep well because sleep deprivation makes one crave more.

Overall, In case emotional eating is uncontrollable, one can talk to a therapist or nutritionist. Emotional Eating does not involve the absence of will. It is just your brain attempting to control stress and emotions in the quickest manner that it can. It is only through knowledge of the science that lies behind stress and food cravings that you can then react to it without a sense of guilt, but a sense of healthy response to the situations in your life.

Disclaimer: Dear readers, this article provides general information and advice only. It is not at all professional medical advice. Therefore, always consult your doctor or a healthcare specialist for more information. TheHealthSite.com does not claim responsibility for this information.