Often, we don’t consider how our stress impacts our eating habits.  Stress can play a role in so many areas of a wellness journey.  When it comes to eating, many people, including myself, tend to emotionally eat.  This means when we are stressed or feeling good it can impact how much and how often we eat.  Some people stress eat, or eat when their stressed, while others may eat less when they are stressed.  While we may think not eating on a calorie deficit is good, not eating enough can create health problems, just like eating too much. Managing your stress can help avoid emotional eating and support wellness.

Understanding the Stress-Hunger Connection

According to Harvard Health, when we experience short-term stress our body’s response may be to temporarily put eating on hold.  It essentially shuts our appetite down.  However, if our stress is long-term then our adrenal glands release cortisol, which increases our appetite and could up our desire to eat.  When stress ends, then our cortisol falls and our appetite goes down.  This is why we sometimes find ourselves emotionally eating when we have been overwhelmed for long periods of time.

Stress can also impact our preference for more fatty or sugary foods. Our insulin levels along with cortisol may also go up, but our stress can also cause our ghrelin hormone may cause our hunger to go up.  We may seek sugary foods because they make us feel good and are comfort foods.  This causes them to counteract our reactions to stress.

Stress eating is a common coping behavior, especially among women.  Stress from all areas of life can play a role in weight gain, but it is more common with people who are already overweight to begin with.  How we react to stress can also impact our likelihood to stress eat.  For instance, some may have habits to grab food when their stressed while others may go for a walk.  Managing your stress impacts how much cortisol we produce.

Identifying Emotional Hunger vs. Physical Hunger

Along with stress, boredom can also be a contributor to your hunger.  According to the Cleveland Clinic, physical hunger is gradual and tied to the last time you ate.  In other words, you are hungry because you need to eat and haven’t in awhile.  Emotional hunger comes because of things like fatigue, worry, boredom or stress. 

There are ways to determine whether you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry.  First, ask yourself if you are hungry.  Check-in with yourself to determine if you are really hungry.  Then ask if it makes sense for you to be hungry.  Consider when you last ate, what your current calorie intake is and physical activity to determine if your body needs to reenergize.  Last, do a body scan to check the body conditions to find signs of physical hunger.  In essence, pause and close your eyes to decrease any distractions.  Listen to your body to determine what is really going on.

Effective Stress-Management Techniques

If you find yourself stressed or you are stress eating, determine some ways to support yourself in managing the stress.  There are several ways to manage stress, the idea is to find what works best for you.  The first option is to determine what is causing your stress and try to eliminate the stressor.  If it can’t be eliminated, the next step is to control or manage it.

Finding social support from family or friends is one way, but this can lead to more stress if the people you are with need support themselves.  Meditation can help relax your mind and body.  Taking a few moments in a quiet place to sit and listen to your body can allow you to acknowledge what is happening and refocus your attention.  Journaling allows you to write down your thoughts and get your emotions out, guilt free.  The great part is, no one needs to know what you write.

Another option, and one I prefer, is to get physical.  Physical activity helps get your emotions out or it can be meditative.  Head to the weight room or go for a run to physically deal with your emotions in a safe space.  Or, if you need to clear your head, go for a hike or spend time in nature.  It is not only physical, but can also be meditative.  Determine what works for you and add it to your repertoire to deal with stress.

Creating an Emotional Eating Prevention Plan

As stated above, when you find yourself stressed, find other outlets to respond to your stress beyond eating.  If you determine that you are hungry and it’s stress, change your environment or do something else to distract yourself.  Changing your environment, if possible, can reset and refocus your mind.  Find alternative activities.  Go for a walk, find someone to talk to or find something to keep your hands and mind busy.  If it’s boredom, develop a hobby that you can do to keep your hands busy while you do something like watching television.

Quick Interventions for Stress-Eating Moments

If you find yourself in a situation where you recognize you’re stress eating, then develop some responses.  As previously discussed, when you’re hungry take 5 minutes to do a body scan and ask yourself if you are really hungry.  Evaluating your hunger can help you start to reset and refocus your hunger.

Other strategies include mindful eating.  This requires you to pay attention to what you are eating and how you feel.  Reduce the distractions, taste your food and notice when you are full.  If you want to have something, then control the portion size.  Don’t make the food easy access and put it in another container, don’t take the whole bag.  When I recognize I’m emotionally eating, I take a bowl and put a serving size in the bowl, then go to another room to eat.  This requires effort to get to the food and makes me ask if I’m hungry.

If you do emotionally eat, which will happen, don’t make it spiral.  Understand it happens, reset and move on.  This is easier said than done but developing tactics to support yourself can help overcome this in the future.

Long-term Lifestyle Approaches

As you move through a wellness journey you will begin to develop emotional resilience to stressors.  You’ll also learn other tactics for handling stress.  Learning what works for you, such as incorporating other activities, hobbies or mindfulness can be a life changer.  This, however, takes time to develop habits.

There are points where you may not be able to do this on your own.  You may need to find a personal trainer or nutritionist to help establish strategies. In some cases, seeking professional help to handle stress may be necessary. 

In my own journey I had to seek professional help to support my mental health.  I overworked to compensate for other things that were happening in my life.  This led to more stress and more overeating.  When I was able to get my mental health in check, I was able to develop strategies to support my wellness journey.  This doesn’t mean I don’t get offtrack from time to time.

Managing Stress is Crucial for Sustainable Wellness

Stress will always be a part of our lives.  While we can’t get rid of all the stress in our lives, we can learn to manage it.  Learning to listen to our bodies and emotions will lead to managing emotional eating and develop healthy habits to combat stress.  Like everything else in a wellness journey, managing stress takes time to learn, but eventually you’ll know what works for you.