Eating disorders are related to our emotional world. A person who has anxiety about eating is probably because he has certain emotional conflicts that you have not been able to clarify and above all resolve, so to calm the momentary anxiety that this brings with it, he chooses to consume food excessively. At first, especially after having consumed some food, the person feels satisfied and has a sensation of balance and momentary tranquility, however, shortly afterward, feelings of guilt and uneasiness come to them for having done so.
There are people who are somehow more vulnerable to excess stress and worries in their lives that we do not know how to deal with, so they opt for unhealthy habits like this, apparently seeking to be calmer, however this can have many consequences. This is why in this PsychologyFor article: remedies for anxiety over eating, We are going to give you a series of tips that will be very useful to solve this problem.
Anxiety is an increasingly common condition in society and generally It appears more in women than in men It is said that approximately 20 percent of the Spanish population has suffered from some symptoms related to anxiety at some point in their lives, such as experiencing tachycardia, shortness of breath, sweating, body tremors, among other symptoms. When we talk about anxiety we are referring to those physical and emotional reactions What our body experiences when we are faced with real danger. However, when the danger is not real, anxiety becomes pathological.
Causes of anxiety about eating
A reaction that frequently appears in a person with anxiety is wanting to consume large amounts of food in a short period of time and at any time when they feel anxious. But, who hasn’t experienced that when they feel stressed they want to eat something?
It has happened to the vast majority of people at some point that when we feel stressed in a situation, such as when we are going to take an important exam, we have to attend a job interview, etc. We tend to finish some candy, a whole bar of chocolate, finish a box of cookies, etc. Until then it can be considered normal since it was due to a very specific situation and will not happen to us again for a long time. However, when we feel anxious and distressed all the time and on all those occasions we choose to eat that way to “feel calmer” we are talking about we have a problem<
Eating anxiety: treatment
Next, we are going to give you some tips that, if you put them into practice, will be very useful to help you solve your anxiety over eating problem.
Proper diet. It is necessary that you eat an adequate and healthy diet low in sugars. What sugar does is that the more you consume it, the more you want to continue consuming other foods that contain it.
Choose healthy foods. Avoid foods that will harm your health, so only have on hand those that you know are healthy, such as fruits, vegetables, etc. This way you will only have the option to choose healthy foods.
Put a stop. Every time you feel the need to go eat something, try to control yourself and before doing so, reflect on whether you really feel hungry or is it just your anxiety that tells you to eat something even if you are not hungry.
Stop blaming yourself. Stop blaming yourself and indiscriminately punishing yourself every time you give in to food temptation. Remember that doing so will only make you feel worse and worse and therefore fall into these types of actions more often.
Psychological therapy. It is highly recommended that you attend psychological therapy, especially if you have been experiencing anxiety problems for a long time. Psychological therapy will help you find the causes of your anxiety, it will help you understand them better and help you perceive difficult and stressful situations in a more positive and healthy way. Of course it will help you regulate your emotions and obviously increase your emotional well-being, so you will not have the need to carry out unhealthy habits to feel calmer.
More remedies for food anxiety
Finally, if you need more remedies to control food anxiety, we recommend taking note of the following solutions:
Avoid shopping and cooking when you are hungry. It is normal that when we are hungry we crave everything and we can feel that we can eat many things to satisfy ourselves, so it is important that when you go to buy food you do it when your stomach is full so as not to fall into unnecessary temptations and to avoid Don’t buy more than you need. Keep a shopping list with the things that are really necessary and focus on the list, don’t buy anything else that doesn’t appear on it. It is also not good to cook when you are hungry as you are more likely to make larger quantities of food.
List of activitiesMake a list of activities that you can do when you feel anxious and every time you feel like binge eating, try to compensate for that desire by doing each of these activities.
Breathing exercises. To reduce your anxiety levels, you can rely on doing some breathing exercises that will be useful to manage your emotions and control yourself when you want to act on impulse and binge eat.
Meditation. Meditation is also an excellent tool that will make your mind calmer and more relaxed, so it will undoubtedly help you regulate your emotions and reduce your desire to relieve your anxiety with food or any other harmful habit. In fact, it will also help you reduce your anxiety levels in general, so you will experience less and less desire to eat unnecessarily.
This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Remedies for anxiety over eating we recommend that you enter our Cognitive Psychology category.
References
Madrid, VM (sf). The anxiety to eat. Retrieved December 17, 2018, from https://www.areahumana.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/La-ansiedad-por-comer.pdf
