Control your anxiety to eat by understanding your emotions

Has it happened to you that you start eating something without knowing why? Do you feel that it is very complicated to control the anxiety to eat even knowing that you should not? Well, stop listening to your stomach and ask yourself what emotion is behind.

1. Control the anxiety to eat is not stop feeding, it is to understand your brain

When we feel anxious, with worries of some kind, with fears about the future or about something, the brain looks for answers to mitigate or reduce those emotions of insecurity. And one of the most primitive ways in which our brain seeks false relief (even if it is temporary) is through food. What is the inconvenience? When the stomach empties, anxiety returns and the problem is still there.

When we eat, the message our brain receives is that we can survive longer; the blood goes to the stomach and calms us down. How many people fall asleep or sleepy after eating?

The wonderful moment of the siesta is precisely that: the food calves the beasts and the emotions, but it is not the most appropriate remedy. Rather, it can become the source of a vicious circle where anxiety and food destroy the lives of many people.

2. I am very hungry and have low self-esteem

Many cases of eating disorders -like eat compulsively– have to do with abuse or emotional deprivation in childhood. When that happens, food is used as a defensive mechanism.

The same happens in people with low self-esteem and too many insecurities. When we feel dissatisfied, when uncertainty and the feeling of emptiness lurks, we try to fill it and, sometimes, the first impulse is the want to eat.

On the contrary, the more self-esteem and confidence increase, the safer and more satisfied we feel; more in control of our lives and improve our strength of will, acceptance and self-respect.

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For that reason, emotions have a much more important weight than we can imagine in cases of anxiety to eat or any other type of eating disorder. It's not a matter of remove the appetite, but really understand why the brain sends you those misleading messages and answer the question of why do I have anxiety.

3. Quench hunger (non-existent) with harmful foods

Also, when we have hunger attacks without knowing why, we usually do not think about healthy foods, but rather the opposite: we do not even think about preparing a salad because we look for fast pleasure, so we resort to easy, caloric things and with a tendency to sugar (anxiety to eat sweet… does it sound like?).

And the contradictory of all this is that we eat without appetite because there is no real and physiological need to eat. What we are really doing is alleviating a psychological need. Precisely that is what we really have to analyze and learn to distinguish, and never consider stop eating.

Be a detective and find out the causes. Ask yourself: why do I really have anxiety? At what times does it happen? Is it right after when I start eating? Have I reached the point of having an anxiety attack?

If you think about the answer, you will surely see that your visit to the kitchen coincides with moments of stress and excess of worry. Therefore, we must learn to realize this fact to change this harmful habit of visiting the pantry or the refrigerator, and change it for healthier habits.

But above all remember that the better you are internally (emotionally), the more you grow as a person, the more you increase your confidence and the more you believe in yourself, everything will flow as it should. That will be the best remedy to improve in all aspects of your life.

Other news about eating anxiety

– Famous with depression and anxiety: the divan of the stars.

– Four signs that warn that anxiety is a problem for you.

– What to eat if your hunger attacks before going to sleep.