Emotional Eating

Emotions are an essential part of being human. They give our experiences meaning and allow us to understand who and what we are. Whether they come in the form of anger, loneliness, inspiration or joy, they are incredibly powerful. When faced with unwelcome emotions we turn to various things in order to help us cope.

For some of us our coping mechanism might be to relax and unwind in a hot bubble-bath. For others, it may be to go for a quick jog around the park to ‘let off steam’. Some of our coping mechanisms however, are of a less constructive nature. Smoking, drinking alcohol or even using recreational drugs are ways of coping with emotional pain.

There is a far more common form of numbing painful emotions that you may be all too familiar with. Comfort eating, over-eating and eating food that simply doesn’t agree with you are all forms of emotional eating. They are all attempts to fill emotional voids created by anger, loneliness, sadness, self-loathing, grief and other forms of emotional pain.

You might not think that reaching for a chocolate bar in times of emotional crisis is particularly damaging. However, cooked and processed foods suppress emotions in a similar way to drugs. They sap your energy, cause mood swings and reduce your mental clarity. This leaves you more prone to feeling emotionally overwhelmed, and so a vicious cycle begins.

In order to stop emotional eating you must first begin to heal your emotional pain. Eating a diet which is high in raw food cleanses your body of toxins and releases stored up emotions in the cells. This creates a healthy physical and mental environment, leaving you far better equipped to deal with the underlying causes of any emotional pain.

Life coaching is a great way of clarifying your emotional needs and finding healthy ways to deal with them. Equally, counseling or therapy can help provide you with perspective and allows you to offload negative thoughts and emotions in a safe environment. There are also various complementary therapies worth considering, such as energy healing or guided meditation.

The most important thing to remember is that everybody has the potential to live a healthy and fulfilled life, not burdened by emotional pain or self-destructive habits. The key to finding that path is different for everybody. The first step on your journey to overcoming emotional eating is having the courage to work on healing your emotional pain learning what triggers your negative eating habits day to day.

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