How To Control Anxiety About Eating? 9 Effective Tips

Sometimes the desire to eat is not only induced by physical hunger, but there are many cases in which people turn to food to comfort themselves, relieve anxiety or reward themselves. In fact, knowing how to control anxiety about eating People often leave behind foods like junk food, sweets, and other foods that can be very comforting but unhealthy.

To stop eating due to anxiety or to eliminate the habit of using food to feel better, you must try to satisfy the emotional needs behind these types of attitudes. So, how can we control food cravings?

The relationship between anxiety and food

To find out if they suffer from food anxiety It is important to distinguish what attitudes lead you to satisfy emotional hunger with food. In fact, this type of psychological gluttony can be very easily confused with physical hunger. The main signs that your desire to eat is due to anxiety are the following:

• Suddenly appears: When it comes to food anxiety People usually experience it from one moment to the next. On the other hand, when it comes to physical hunger, it appears gradually.
• You want specific foods: When experiencing physical hunger, any food may seem appetizing to you. On the other hand, when you have craving of a specific food, especially if it is junk food or processed food, this means that perhaps it is time to control your anxiety.
• Eat a lot: Emotional hunger often leads to mindless eating, that is, not being able to stop eating even though you already feel completely full.
• Food does not satisfy you: When to experiment food anxiety you keep wanting more and more. In fact, you usually eat until you feel uncomfortable.
• You feel guilt or regret: When a person eats to satisfy physical hunger, it is unlikely that they will feel any guilt afterwards. On the other hand, when someone experiences desire to eat due to anxiety They usually end up feeling ashamed or guilty about it. It is recommended that you postpone the act of eating for 10 minutes, after this time, see if you really still want to. You can try to snooze several times.

How to control anxiety about eating?

If you think you experience anxiety to eat and you want to eliminate these types of methods to satisfy your emotional hunger, here we propose some tips that you can apply in your daily life to avoid turning to food due to this disorder.

1. Identify emotional eating triggers: The first step to knowing how to eliminate emotional hunger is to try to identify what makes you start to have the impulse to eat a lot and eat badly. Normally, these want to eat They are usually triggered by certain unpleasant feelings.
2. Track your emotional eating: It is likely that on more than one occasion you are trying relieve your anxiety through food In this way, you can try to identify the patterns that lead you to eat this way by writing down how you feel on those days when you can’t overcome anxiety and you start eating a lot due to your emotions.
3. Find other ways to feed your feelings: If you do not know how to control anxiety about eating As well as controlling the emotions that make you feel like eating, you will not be able to overcome these feelings. There are many cases in which diets fail because they offer nutritional advice that only works if you acquire conscious control of your eating habits. So to know how to end the anxiety induced by emotional hunger, it is important to find other ways to fulfill yourself emotionally.
4. Pause when cravings arise: The best way to overcome anxiety by eating is precisely trying to stop those cravings that produce these emotions. In these cases, a reflective break that allows you to understand why this desire to eat occurs can help you know how to stop this anxiety.
5. Learn to accept your feelings: The anxiety to eat It usually arises because people feel powerless over their emotions. Unable to deal with their feelings head-on, people try to eliminate anxiety through food. Thus, to know how to control anxiety about eating, it is important to allow yourself to feel those uncomfortable emotions that scare you.
6. Be more conscious about your meals: For stop eating due to anxiety It can be very beneficial to try to break the habit of eating quickly or eating on ‘autopilot’. When people overeat due to anxiety and stress, our body’s signals that indicate that we are no longer full and that we are no longer hungry often go unnoticed. So, if you slow down and savor your food, you can leave food anxiety behind and focus on enjoying more of what you eat.
7. Lean on healthy lifestyle habits: Another tip you can follow to know what to do for food anxiety, is trying to follow a healthy lifestyle. For example, making physical exercise a priority, sleeping eight hours a night, taking time to relax, or connecting with loved ones and friends can help you curb this type of emotional eating.
8. Speak well to yourself: If you finally succumb, you should not insult yourself or bring up undesirable images about your body, all this does is increase anxiety more and encourage the urge to eat to reappear. Keep in mind that when we try to change a habit the learning curve is not linear, sometimes we relapse a little to continue making progress again. In this case, ask yourself what have I learned?
9. Ask for help: Finally, the best way to know how to stop anxiety What induces you to eat abusively is precisely by going to a professional psychologist. Through therapy you can learn methods to deal with eating anxiety and the other symptoms of this disorder.

How to combat anxiety about eating with food?

In addition to following the advice to control anxiety that we have shown you, there are also a series of foods that can help you control anxiety about eating.

• Magnesium: Low-magnesium diets have been found to increase anxiety behaviors in mice. Foods rich in magnesium include leafy green vegetables such as spinach and chard, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
• Omega 3: It is mainly found in salmon and other fish.
• Antioxidants: Anxiety is thought to correlate with lower overall antioxidant status.
• Brazil nuts: They contain selenium, an antioxidant that may reduce inflammation associated with uncomfortable moods.
• Pumpkin seeds and/or bananas: They contain potassium, a mineral that has been shown to reduce anxiety in some studies. Pumpkin seeds also contain zinc. Zinc is most concentrated in the body in brain regions associated with mood control.
• Turmeric – Contains curcumin, which may reduce inflammation and oxidative stress associated with mood disorders.
• Blueberries: rich in vitamin C, another antioxidant that can prevent damage to cells that could promote anxiety.

These are some of the methods you can follow to know how to control anxiety about eating Enjoy your meals and a healthier diet on a physical and emotional level.