Breaking Free from the Numbing Trap: Understanding Emotional Eating and How to Overcome It
Do you find yourself using food to manage your emotions? If so, you may be an emotional eater. Eating can be a way of silencing or numbing uncomfortable feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, guilt, shame, or resentment.
In her book "Daring Greatly", author and shame researcher Brene Brown discusses using activities like comfort eating and internet scrolling to avoid consciously feeling these emotions and shutting ourselves off from vulnerability. This can lead to us numbing ourselves to love, belonging, empathy, and creativity.
Many of us live busy lives driven by anxiety, fear, and feelings of being out of control. We give ourselves a hard time, believing we should be stronger, better, and able to handle everything. This often leads to feelings of pain that we want to numb.
A Coping Strategy
Numbing becomes a coping strategy. For some, it’s comfort eating (often as sweet or salty quick carbs). For others, it’s social media scrolling, binge-watching TV shows at night, or drinking wine every evening.
A clue that you are engaging in numbing activities is that you go into a trance state when you engage in them. You're not present in the moment.
Even the Japanese acknowledge this phenomenon and have a unique word they use called “Kuchisabishii” (said Koo-chi-sa-bi-shē,), which means "lonely mouth" or "longing to put something in one's mouth."
In Japan, this term is used to describe eating when bored or stress eating. People do this when they are looking for consolation, pacifying, or comfort.
The manifestation of this behaviour looks like standing in front of the pantry or opening the fridge door to look for something to eat when you are on a work break, have a pause in your day, or when you are just plain bored.
At a biochemical level, each time we have a snack from the fridge or pantry, we release dopamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters that are involved in managing our food cravings, decision-making, and feeling pleasure, from our hippocampus and amygdala in the brain.
We are self-medicating with external levers that, in the long term, are just not healthy for us. So, what’s the antidote to numbing behaviours and emotional eating?
The Antidote to Numbing Behaviours and Emotional Eating
Mindfulness!
Pay attention to your feelings and actions. When do you catch yourself seeking out food when you're not actually hungry? What are you craving? Is it carbs to give you a quick dopamine and serotonin hit? A daily meditation practice to help you focus on being present helps us be more present throughout our day.Exposing your eyes to natural light in the morning.
Go outside within the first 30 minutes of waking and avoid using blue blocker glasses and device filters during the day. When we get a lot of sun (exposure to UV rays), our appetite is reduced or at least easier to control. Neurons in the acruate nucleus in the brain release alpha melanocyte-stimulating hormone that helps keep cravings for food in check.Eating a mood-lifting diet.
Eating foods that are mood-raising and encourage a healthy relationship with food. Some good guidelines to follow for a natural mood lift are:Eat protein at meal and snack times. When we eat protein (think meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy), we feel satiated for longer and can often go from main meal to main meal without any need for snacking. We feel fuller for longer.
Eat a rainbow. Eat as many different colors and types of vegetables to get the right amount of fiber and antioxidants into your daily diet to fuel gut bacteria. Your gut bacteria actually produce important neurotransmitters like serotonin, GABA and dopamine. Those bacteria need to be fed and they love fibre.
Finally, feel all the feelings. I routinely encourage my kids (and myself!) to allow themselves to feel the full spectrum of emotions that come up for them. We don’t want to stuff down and suppress anger, fear or sadness. No emotions are bad, they are all valid and important to feel and then let go.
