It sounds strange, but chewing food can be a salvation for those who have trouble expressing anger and anger. This is how one of the ancient evolutionary mechanisms works. What other unexpressed, suppressed emotions do people eat up - and what to do about it?
What do people usually eat? First of all, emotions, feelings and experiences. The second includes overly dramatic memories that are repressed and are currently beyond the reach of consciousness, as well as psychological trauma.
Something that triggers the impulse to “take care of yourself,” relieve stress, reduce anxiety. One way or another.
How we block emotions when we can't express them
Let's figure out what happens in the body and psyche during the emergence of emotions.
Since emotion is a process that occurs in three areas at once: physiological reactions, mental states and display on the face, on the body (as a consequence of physiological processes), - by suppressing an emotion, we can and try to suppress only its external reflection (facial expressions), mental states and slightly physiological manifestations.
That is (attention!) we are trying to suppress the consequences of those primary impulses that are beyond our control. We block and suspend the natural course of these processes.
Imagine: you’re at the stadium in sportswear, you’ve almost raised your leg to run, you’ve just shifted the weight from your back leg to your front leg, but suddenly you decide that you don’t need to run.
What is the body's reaction? You almost fell, because you need to somehow maintain your balance, lower your raised leg, level yourself. It would be much smarter to start running, take a couple of steps and then stop in the usual way than to block your movements. This blockage is a kind of stress for the body.
From this example, you can understand that the physical impulse to “run” has not gone away. In the same way, the impulse from the emotions that have begun remains in your body. And he didn’t go anywhere and didn’t express himself in any way. It sits in the body and psyche. He oppresses you, irritates you, infuriates you. Consider yourself suspended in the air, just like that time at the stadium.
Western culture and the psychology of food perception
Indeed, nowhere is food more of a cult than in Western civilization. Food is perceived not just as nutrition for the body, but as:
- awards;
- communication;
- status;
- cultural code;
- belonging to a group.
It is noticeable that food, through this perception, from the 1st stage of the basic need “physiology” (satisfaction of hunger, thirst, sexual need, etc.) climbs higher and already claims to be both the 2nd “need for safety” and the 3rd -th “need for love and recognition, belonging to a social group”, and even at the 4th stage “need for respect and approval” of Maslow’s pyramid.
The West is characterized by an attitude towards food as a reward: “treat yourself to tasty treats”, “I love this, but I don’t like that”, “let’s throw a party”, etc. The habit of instilling in children a special attitude towards food:
- indulge in sweets;
- reward food for good behavior and actions;
- choose your favorite and least favorite foods;
- show care and attention through feeding, etc.
an attitude towards food as a pleasure in people brought up in the Western cultural code, including in Russia.
, replacing higher needs for safety, love and respect with food.
But it’s hard to think differently when you grew up in a culture where the question “Have you eaten?” equals “I am interested in you, I care about you, and these words are my attention.”
How do we process unexpressed emotions? Let's chew!
At the psycho-emotional level, situations that we have forbidden ourselves to react to require at least some way out.
For example, flaring anger and anger, suppressed by you, may require an outlet, at least through chewing! And don't laugh! Remember: how did the human race survive? When you see an enemy in front of you (boss, husband and, yes, your own child in some situations too), an ancient instinct comes into play. For thousands of years, our bodies and psyches have been conditioned to respond to stress in two ways: fight or flight.
What does "fight" mean? Fight and destroy. Tear it with your teeth. That's all. Imagine how many thousands of years our ancestors actually fought and ended this process with victory?
And it only took a few hundred years before we adapted and began to smile and “behave decently” instead of “eat the bastard!” With bosses - because we are financially dependent on them. With husbands - because... everyone has their own. Say it out loud, I'm sure you'll have a lot of reasons.
With children it’s a different story altogether! You're a mother, you're a good mother! Despite the fact that a child can really make things so bad that another person (not his mother) cannot “decently” tolerate such behavior for more than 15 minutes. What is 100–300 years compared to millennia?
What I mean is that our body does not know how to process suppressed emotions on its own. It cannot whoop!.. - and dissolve its hormonal surges and changes in the chemical composition of the body in the air due to the hormones splashed out after emotions.
It must react to this somehow! Therefore, when we suppress anger, worry, anxiety, sadness, these emotions do not disappear without a trace. No matter how positive you are, no matter how joyful (or even just calm) you show, the real emotion still remains inside you.
And then someone accumulates and accumulates, and then the minimum reason - and tears. The other “resets” everything on fitness. And someone is eating! Chewing, for example, is like processing anger, and sweets are like pity and self-love.
What can people eat? Almost any negative emotions and conditions. Anxiety, worry, stress, anger, anger, resentment, boredom, loneliness, sadness, irritation, uncertainty, abandonment, abandonment.
How to stop stress eating?
Experts: Alexey Moskalev, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Mintimer Missarov, psychotherapist, member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Why does the hand itself reach for the refrigerator?
The reason is physiology. Stress is the body’s reaction to psychological, emotional or physical overload, during which two hormones are released - adrenaline and norepinephrine. They are formed from tyrosine, and this is one of the 20 amino acids that make up food proteins. Every day we receive several grams of tyrosine through food, but stress quickly burns up its reserves. Then the brain receives a signal to “eat something urgently.” For emotional people, this signal sounds especially loud. The psyche quickly remembers reactions, and the neurons of the brain reinforce the “anxiety - food” chain. This is how a habit is formed.
“Let’s say Maria’s boss calls her in the evening,” psychotherapist Mintimer Missarov gives an example. “She experiences a spectrum of stressful emotions: anger that her boss calls after hours, shame that she cannot refuse him, and anxiety that she will not cope with the task. Maria is nervous, worried and makes a sandwich with sausage, then drinks tea with a pack of cookies and so on. By nightfall she feels guilty that she has “overeaten again.” This is not the first time this has happened to Maria; she has a habit of overeating.”
A person needs to drown out the unpleasant sensations generated by stress and return to a state of minimal comfort as quickly as possible. The problem is that over time, this emotional comfort becomes increasingly associated with food. And we eat even when there is no feeling of hunger.
"Soothing" 300 kcal
The process of piece-making itself stimulates the desire to eat in other, larger volumes. And even if we assume that, being nervous, you snack on healthy food, it is not a fact that next time it will be at hand. An emotional impulse will force you to go to a place where you can quickly and for little money hide from the raging world with a high-calorie blanket. Of course, these are fast food restaurants! We think - what will I get from one piece of pizza or hamburger? But this is self-deception - the sandwich contains about 300 kcal per 100 g, which means that with such a regular “soothing”, excess weight is soon guaranteed.
In addition, “fast” food increases appetite, forcing you to snack again and again, while also being weighed down by a feeling of guilt. This whole scenario of food debauchery affects the well-being and state of the gastrointestinal tract. In addition to the test for the gastrointestinal tract, the mucous membrane of which is irritated by fatty foods, there may also be problems with concentration, decreased immunity, not to mention gastritis and other inflammatory diseases.
“Nutrition can become both a risk factor for the development of depression and a protection against it,” says biologist Alexey Moskalev. “A healthy diet should include fish, vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains, while refined, processed foods and sweets increase the risk of depression.”
Eating out of boredom
According to research by American scientists from the University of Michigan, overweight people overeat at work 2-3 times a week. At the same time, they snack even when they are not hungry, explaining this by “stress at work.” Do they really experience strong emotions every day? Not always. Stress can also appear against the backdrop of routine work, a lack of vivid emotions, or, simply put, from boredom. We are dealing with emotional burnout and low levels of dopamine, the pleasure hormone. For many, the easiest way to add variety to their lives is through food. Trying not to be seen by their colleagues, some begin to eat furtively and quickly. The level of oxytocin produced during joint communication at the table automatically decreases, and control over the amount eaten disappears. At this moment, a person does not think about calories. A classic case of psychogenic overeating. Today, this problem affects more than 430 ml of people who spend more than 8 hours a day doing routine work.
Experiment
English Daily Mail journalist Phoebe Jackson-Edwards, on instructions from the editors, ate only fast food all week, as a result of which the percentage of fat in her body rose from 23 to 25. Her summary: “By the fourth day, the taste of fast food seemed disgusting to me. Getting up in the morning was difficult for me, and the day passed in a state of apathy and fatigue. Facial skin has become problematic. All my friends commented on my unhealthy appearance.”
How to get rid of the habit of overeating?
The very first step is recognizing the problem. If you were able to admit this to yourself, that’s already half the success. The second step is to start keeping a food diary. “This way you will understand what triggers push you to food, what specific situations and emotions are associated with bouts of overeating,” says psychotherapist Mintimer Missarov. - Instead of eating, switch your attention to something else, for example, turn on music, go for a walk, do yoga, or do the square breathing technique - inhale-hold your breath-exhale-hold your breath for equal durations, for example, in four counts. You will immediately notice how anxiety recedes.”
The third step is to download the “food diary” application and after dinner, select the products that made up your menu for the day. Did you eat one cookie with tea? A handful of nuts? Most likely, you will learn a lot of new things about the calorie content and composition of your usual dishes.
The fourth step is to think through your menu and include healthy foods in it. For example, the antidepressant effect of omega-3 is concentrated in fatty fish, seafood, flaxseed oil, nuts, spirulina algae, quinoa grains, leafy vegetables and legumes. However, a diet with disproportionately high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, which are especially abundant in processed foods, increases the release of inflammatory cytokines and increases the likelihood of depression.
According to biologist Alexei Moskalev, mood is closely related to the levels of neurotransmitters. For example, the amino acid tryptophan acts as a precursor to neurotransmitters such as serotonin (“the joy hormone”) and melatonin (“the sleep hormone”). There is a lot of tryptophan in legumes, poultry and seafood. But you cannot “sit” only on such a diet, since the products of tryptophan decomposition in the liver (for example, the “hormones of misfortune” kynurenine and indole) play a negative role and lead to inflammation, so it is important to maintain a balance in the diet - both excess tryptophan and and its disadvantage.
If you understand that the habit does not go away, the weight is growing, and you cannot cope with emotions, you can contact a psychologist. A specialist will help you understand the beliefs that reinforce unpleasant emotions. Examples of such beliefs: “I’m afraid to be alone,” “I can’t express emotions,” “I won’t succeed,” “I don’t like what I do.” Working with these beliefs will help balance your emotions at a deep level.
You should learn to relax and rest more, get enough sleep, and choose a fitness routine that suits your liking.
It’s not for nothing that a person begins to involuntarily walk from side to side when he’s nervous - this is how the body tries to fight stress, so any movement can help cope with feelings. Published: May 26, 2021
4. The desire to hide, to protect yourself
Excess weight, which sometimes occurs precisely as a result of overeating, may have so-called secondary benefits. If a woman subconsciously avoids men, then the extra pounds become a kind of barrier that reliably protects her boundaries.
This behavior may be the result of sexual abuse or childhood negative attitudes about sexuality. For example, the mother was terrified that her daughter would “bring it in the hem,” and the father did not mince words, commenting on the teenager’s revealing, in his opinion, clothes. And he reacted instantly, protecting himself from threats associated with sex and relationships by gaining weight. And today, food helps us maintain the physical shape that keeps us safe...
Solution: learn to build boundaries when communicating with men, work on the topic of safety. Allow yourself to be attractive by untying the knots in your head that “sexy means provocative,” “femininity equals provocation.”
How does emotional eating work?
- Trigger or pain point. This could be an event or action that creates a stressful situation or emotional tension (bad news, depression, quarrel, illness).
- The desire to get rid of stress, relieve tension. You know exactly what you want to eat. It will be cake, hamburger, candy, pizza, ice cream.
- Process. You choose food, order or go to the store, devour it quickly and confidently.
- Satisfaction from the food eaten. You feel full, a full stomach and even a little discomfort. At this stage, the hormone dopamine is released, which brings satisfaction and happiness.
- Regret. You realize that you have eaten too much. To calm yourself down and drown out the shame, you plan not to eat in the evening or go to a tough workout. Such compensation for what you eat only exacerbates the craving for overeating. Since you know in advance that the extra piece of cake can always be worked off later.
"I don't need men"
Photo: depositphotos/photographee.eu
Maria, 31 years old
I've been living without sex for five years. “And I live quite well” - that’s what I usually tell my friends. At first glance, everything is really not bad: I have a job, parents, friends, work again. And I also have food. At some point in time, it became my main joy. No one would have noticed this if I had not gained 40 kilograms in two years. Even I wouldn’t have noticed this if one day they hadn’t said “oh, fat woman” instead of the usual “hey, beautiful.” I remember this day very well: I came home, put on my favorite lilac robe, turned on the TV, opened a package of chips and began to cry. I ate and cried. This happens to me often. I think about being fat, get upset and start eating.
Basically, I have two sources of joy: food and masturbation.
I often host “proud independent woman dinners.” For example, I cook lasagna, order pizza, buy a cake - it’s all one dinner, so you understand. It seems to me that I can eat endlessly, the main thing is that it tastes good to me. After the food runs out, I masturbate. This ends my independent evening. To be honest, I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to be with a man. For me, it is much calmer to satisfy myself than to endure an appraising gaze on myself. I hate my body. And this makes me eat even more. I can’t talk to someone about my problems: my mother predicts eternal loneliness for me, my friends laugh and say “just stop eating,” and I don’t even want to think about going to a psychologist.
“To begin with, a person suffering from psychogenic overeating needs to “fix” the image of the inner “I”: remove the feeling of anxiety and loneliness, learn to love and respect yourself. After this stage, it is necessary to normalize eating behavior: remove the habit of eating everything and make sure that the overall diet is uniform,” says psychologist Evgeniy Idzikovsky.
2.Bad mood
Food, and especially sweets, quickly lifts your mood. Someone has upset you, or you’re stuck at work, which means you need to eat a chocolate bar or a bun. Remember: these are fast carbohydrates, their effect is too fleeting. Very soon you will again feel sad, tired and need to buy candy again.
Solution: learn to eat well. Dishes, serving, serving, rather than the food itself, will lift your spirits. Eat in small portions, chew slowly - savor, enjoy. So you will eat less and bring yourself more joy.
Also, look for other ways to cheer yourself up.
5.Love expressed in treats
Sometimes an unhealthy relationship with food is a consequence of your relationship with your mother. First, the mother feeds the baby, and feeding brings pleasure and gives a feeling of security.
Then mother and grandmother express their love and care through food: “I baked it especially for you,” “finish it, don’t upset me.” A stable connection is formed in the head: “food equals peace, tranquility, safety.”
Solution: learn to feel the love of loved ones through their attitude, comfort through self-care, learn to relax and rest without the help of food.
How to recognize emotional overeating from physical need?
Signs of physical hunger:
- hunger manifests itself in the stomach,
- feeling of emptiness and rumbling in the stomach,
- mental and physical strength decreases,
- weakness and irritability appear,
- After eating food, hunger disappears.
Signs of emotional eating:
- the desire to eat appears when something bad happens.
- I want to eat something unhealthy, fatty or sweet instead of lunch or after a meal,
- You can’t get enough of a regular portion, you eat more, you constantly snack.
Learning to love yourself
— How to correctly introduce the “system” into your life so that the body normally accepts our desire to lose weight and does not rebel?
Article on the topic
Bad business. Who suffers from anorexia nervosa - Smoothly. There is no need for sudden movements, otherwise our women spend half their lives having dinner at 12 o’clock at night, and then in one day they want to accustom their stomachs to eat before 18:00. Usually people who start eating at night do not eat breakfast and do not have a normal lunch. So where do we start? A hearty, good breakfast, even if it doesn’t go down your throat. Then gradually move your last meal to an earlier time; within a week, shift the time by an hour. In two weeks you will have moved the time by two hours, and so you will reach the 18:00 mark. Then gradually move sweets at lunch, first for a snack, then for breakfast, or replace desserts with prunes and apples. There should be no stress, otherwise the risk of relapse increases. But if you still break down, then feel free to return to the “system” without any fasting days, because after the fasting day, one way or another, a loading day will come. And don’t forget that you need to weigh yourself every day in order to understand what is happening to your body, and so that there are no situations where you gain a bunch of kilograms in two weeks. Especially when there are New Year's weeks, they are the most “fun” and unexpected in this sense.
— Many women get burned on other diets. How to overcome this disappointment, because it often prevents you from achieving results?
“You don’t have to overcome it, you just have to try.” You know, our people have one big problem - they think a lot. They also like to ask questions: “Why do you need to do this and not another? Why can’t you have potatoes with meat, but you can have them with vegetables?” Don’t think, just do as they say. You have some kind of situation, so see how to get out of it. You just don’t have to wait for a miracle and instant results. It happens in different ways, sometimes the weight stops coming off - this is normal, you need to continue to stick to the chosen course, don’t be nervous, if this happens, it means that the body needs this stop.
— Should you reward yourself for the pounds you’ve lost?
- Yes, buy yourself a kilogram of sweets! Just kidding (laughs). Buy yourself a good cream. The more we take care of ourselves, the better, because our main motivation should be self-love. And it is being developed gradually. It’s like in life: sometimes a woman is courted by a man, and she doesn’t like him, but if he continues to show her signs of attention and seek her favor, then, most likely, he can win her heart. The same thing happens to ourselves: if we call ourselves names and cannot say a kind word, we don’t buy anything for ourselves, then this is how we feel about ourselves, and vice versa, if we love ourselves, demand respect from others for ourselves, then self-esteem grows and losing weight becomes much easier.
