Only within the last decade has the idea of emotional eating
being a contributing factor to obesity been considered.
And this is largely because emotions in general have been
ignored for centuries. We've had far more training in how to
ignore emotions or pretend that we don't feel them than we have
in how to deal with emotions. Yet, it's emotions that end
marriages and start wars.
Several decades ago, Theodore Isaac Rubin MD, psychiatrist,
wrote the Angry Book. Although it is primarily about anger, the
mechanisms revealed in the book can be applied to any emotion.
In the book he highlights how we have each learned to "seal
ourselves off" from anger. Fact is, we've learned to "seal
ourselves off" from many emotions. Case in point: Have you ever
had anyone tell you how to feel anger? Have you ever had anyone
tell you how to feel frustration?
The same question could be asked for boredom, depression,
confusion, uncertainty... Let's not ignore emotions such as
happiness, joy, and excitement--no one has taught us how to feel
these feelings either.
In fact we've been more often coached in avoiding these feelings
because: Our blood pressure will go up. They are useless
feelings. No one will want to be around us. We'll be setting
ourselves up for the big let down. You should know what you
want...
Where does food enter in this challenge to feel emotion?
Avoidance mechanisms of emotions include habits such as smoking,
drugs, alcohol, and food. However, food is very easy, relatively
inexpensive, and acceptable to the general population and has
had a learned association from an early age.
When you cried as a baby, you weren't given a cigarette to smoke
or a beer to drink; you were given food to calm you down.
When you can home from an embarrassing problem at school you
weren't given drugs to shoot up with; you were given cookies and
milk to calm down.
The association with food and emotions has been ingrained in
each of us since we were infants. Since we were never given a
training in how to deal with emotions, it's little wonder that
we eat in response to many emotions. The end result is that we
use food to dilute feelings. Food is the drug of choice for
millions of Americans. Food is readily available with hundreds
of thousands of purveyors providing us a multitude of tastes to
please our palates.
And the irony is that rather than focusing on how to embrace
feelings--getting at the root of the problem--the focus is on
diets and techniques to lose weight. Emotional eating is rarely
entertained as the root cause.
An effective approach to eliminate emotional eating involves
asking important questions "What is missing here? Why are you
not getting the results you've been promised?" It is clearly
insane to keep dieting when the results are so poor. It's more
important to gain a grasp on how to stop emotional
eating--eating emotional stress than it is to read the scale.
Besides focusing on the scale doesn't empower you to be a better
more enlightened person, whereas learning how to overcome
emotional eating empowers you in all aspects of your life. If
you're a sales person, you'll be a better sales person. If
you're an assembly line worker, you'll be a better assembly line
worker; a mother, a better mother... Overall, you'll build self
worth and find that what you really want to eat is far more
nutritious and less in quantity than you ever before imagined
possible.
About the author:
Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E., NGH certified, a prominent figure in
the field of hypnosis with his best selling hypnosis and stress
management cds at http://www.DStressDoc.com and
http://www.PanicBusters.com. His aim is to make it possible for
anyone to manage emotional binge eating. For more information
please visit http://www.dstressdoc.com
Author: Richard Kuhns
9 months ago
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