I don’t know about you but I am a chronic stress eater, especially when exams are coming up. Relatable?
This stress reliever has been a burden for many years and I thought it would be a good idea to figure out how to curb this bad habit. Whether you stress eat, emotionally eat, or eat out of bordem (especially in COVID-19) here some top tips for trying to stop:
- Make sense of your feelings: This involves recognising why you’re eating (other than being hungry). Jotting this down will help make sense of why you want to eat this way. I like to start with:
What am I feeling? Stressed.
Why? Exams are coming up.
Is eating until you feel sick helpful long-term? Yes/No – No. I’ll put on weight I don’t need. The chances are, after jotting these feelings down, I’ll have a snack and not 100.
- Tame your stress: I like to do this by having peppermint tea and practicing self-care often (every 2 days or so). The benefits of peppermine tea include: it helps relieve tension headaches and migraines associated with stress, helps relieve your sinus so you can breathe better, improves energy (although it makes me super sleepy and relaxed), & improves concentration. This has become nightly self-care for me before bed. You can find more benefits here.
- Take away temptation: This involves of course deleting uber eats, not buying junk food or fast food. Fight the temptation!!
- Don’t deprive yourself: Of nutrient dense foods such as fruit and vegetables, legumes and grains. Chances are they are going to fill you up more and you’ll be less tempted to splurge on junk food! Find a list of nutrient dense food here.
- Reward yourself: At the end of the week order takeout, eat that choccy biccie or have some ice-cream, just remember portion control! Find a great article on portion control here.
- Learn from set-backs: Yes they are going to happen, that’s just life. Firstly, forgive yourself for the eating, there’s nothing wrong with having a setback. Try to learn from the experience (what happened/why) and make a plan for how you can prevent it in the future (journaling, having goals etc).
- Focus on the positive changes: you’re making in your eating habits and give yourself credit for making changes that’ll lead to better health.
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