If you’re stuck indoors at the moment, you might find yourself eating more than you need to. For some people, boredom is a great reason to eat and relieve the stress of not being able to do anything. Left unchecked, emotional eating can lead to obesity and all sorts of health problems, so it’s good to be aware of the triggers so you can work on them.
We use a few overeating profile assessments to help our clients identify their triggers which we can then work through with CBT and hypnotherapy. Below are a few trigger groups so you can explore where and when you feel the most triggered to eat when you don’t need to!
Socially
- Conflicts or arguments
- Being around people that are eating or being encouraged to eat
- Feeling inadequate around others
- Peer pressure
Emotional
- Negative emotions, like anxiety or depression
- Positive emotions, like happiness or relaxation
- Boredom
- Feeling distressed or excited
Situational
- Seeing advertising about food
- Passing a shop with nice food
- At a party or celebration (this could be social too, but it’s more about the environment)
- Eating out
Thinking
- Making excuses about why it’s OK to eat
- Negative thinking about weight and unable to control eating
- Excessive worrying
- Thinking about how things should be
Physiological
- Experiencing pain or physical discomfort
- Trembling, headache or feeling light-headed, associated with not eating enough
- Fatigue or feeling tired
- Hunger pains or urges to eat although you’ve recently eaten.
You can go through the 5 categories and see which areas cause you to unconsciously overeat the most. Sometimes just being aware that these situations can cause us to eat more than we need to can be enough to make changes in the way we react to these experiences in the future, however, some people need some additional guidance and tools which is what we’re here for!
If you are stuck inside at the moment and are finding yourself reaching into the fridge every 30 minutes when you’re not hungry, try changing your energy, do something else, make yourself do 10 sit-ups or 50 star-jumps! Make it interesting and make yourself work for it!
Have fun!
Namaste
Janine
“The first and best victory is to conquer self.”
Plato