How do emotions affect our habits? The correct lifestyle of diabetics can significantly affect blood sugar levels and diabetes compensation. For these reasons, they constantly call for proper and balanced nutrition. However, few people realize that lifestyle is not just about making a menu. An integral part of it is emotions, according to which we think and act.
Emotions and related habits
Often a person eats not from hunger, but as a result of internal stimuli — emotions that cause so-called emotional hunger. If you are afraid, you are worried about something, you are nervous, lonely, etc., you often seek to get rid of these unpleasant conditions with food. Some people reduce their food intake in stressful situations, while others do not change their diet at all. Why is this so?
The habit of comforting your feelings with food is often developed in childhood – when you were kind, you were given candy or cookies. These should be not only negative emotional states but also moments of well-being that encourage food consumption. At the moment you are working on “autopilot”, but your automated behavior is an inappropriate bad habit that needs to be replaced with a more suitable one.
When developing new habits, it is appropriate to strengthen only the behavior that leads to pleasant sensations. You will also encounter a situation when you realize that you are using an inappropriate combination of the launcher and learned behavior on autopilot. In practice, this means that you will cope with a stressful situation by eating, for example, a bar of chocolate. The fast sugars contained will take care of relieving tension, but this is only a temporary condition, because after a while there will be remorse, and you will reach for food again.
How to overcome emotional hunger
Understand how the emotions associated with the situation “turn you on” and help you eat, even when you are not hungry. Emotions associated with stress and increased well-being can be a problem. Make a map of how much and what you eat because of the so-called emotional hunger.
The trigger for “extra food” can be various problematic situations to which you react with constant emotion – anger, helplessness. The final trigger is often not the situations themselves, but the emotions that the situations cause you, or the thoughts behind these emotions.
Put them on a map and determine how you will react to emotions other than food. Start with the situation and emotions that you think are the easiest.
Acquisition of new reactions
- During a crisis, take the time to realize that it’s just an emotional hunger. Try to name an emotion — you will leave it, and it will weaken.
- Avoid getting the autopilot into a state of arousal immediately after eating. Prepare for the trigger in advance and loosen the connection and trigger response.
- Replace the feeling of pleasure from “extra food” with a pleasant feeling from some kind of activity – I’ll call a friend, fill the bath with fragrant foam, and go for a walk with the dog.
- Yoga, relaxation, mindful breathing, or massage in the car will help you reduce mental stress.
- Tell us about what upset you. You don’t have to keep it to yourself.
- Think about a pleasant situation and consolidate this positive perception in some gesture that you will use in a stressful situation. After training, the positive emotions caused by the gesture should surpass the negative emotions resulting from stress.
Even a small step leads to big changes over time. Don’t forget to brag and reward with some little thing that will please you during the trip. Feedback, i.e. evaluating the success of your loved ones, also plays an important role.
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