What is Stress Eating and How Do You Control It?

Stress eating is a common response to life’s problems. Whether we call it stress eating or emotional eating, we’re often plagued with the desire to eat for comfort, especially in the modern world where hyper-palatable, inexpensive food is readily available everywhere we turn.

Unfortunately, while not all stress eating is inherently harmful, overeating due to stress can have negative impacts on your health. Also, eating while in a state of stress is not good for your digestion. Stress eating is a form of avoidance, so the problem that led you to eat won’t actually get solved, and the emotion won’t get processed.

If stress eating is having a negative effect on your life, keep reading to find out more about solutions and alternatives.

What is stress eating?

The term stress eating can be used interchangeably with the term emotional eating. Stress eating” points to the trigger, and emotional eating describes an overall pattern of eating according to mood.

Let’s be clear: most people’s eating habits are influenced by their emotions to some level, and that’s okay.

What we want to avoid is a consistent, habitual pattern of using food to self-soothe to an unhealthy extent, instead of primarily using food to fulfill our nutritional and energy needs, for moderate enjoyment, and for community and celebration.

Let’s break that down. Stress eating can be harmful when:

• It is a consistent and habitual pattern.
• It involves using food as a coping mechanism for negative emotions and experiences, often in place of other, healthier coping mechanisms.
• The focus is on self-soothing rather than nutrition, connection with others, and traditions/celebration. Eating for connection, traditions, and celebration is seen throughout history and in all of the healthiest cultures in the world today, and it provides a more stable basis for our food consumption than we find in stress or emotional eating.

HelpGuide defines emotional eating this way:

“Emotional eating is using food to make yourself feel better – to fill emotional needs, rather than your stomach.

Unfortunately, emotional eating doesn’t fix emotional problems. In fact, it usually makes you feel worse. Afterward, not only does the original emotional issue remain, but you also feel guilty for overeating.”

Stress/emotional eating can overlap with eating disorders, including binge eating disorder, bulimia, and others. Your medical and mental health professionals can help you determine whether you’re experiencing a disordered eating pattern.

Symptoms of stress eating.

HelpGuide offers a series of symptoms you may have if you are an emotional eater:

• Feeling like food is your friend.
• Rewarding yourself with food.
• Eating when you’re not hungry or past the point of fullness.
• Feeling like you can’t control yourself around food.
• Eating until you’re overly full regularly.
• Eating so you can feel better.
• Eating more when you’re stressed or upset.
• Feeling safe when you have your favorite foods.

Stress eating can have many triggers and can also have deep-rooted psychological causes, including food insecurity (especially in childhood) and trauma. If you struggle with emotional eating, please know that shame has no place in your recovery. Walking in freedom includes finding freedom from the shame and guilt that often happens in the emotional eating cycle.

This image from HelpGuide illustrates that cycle:

To stop this cycle in its track, the only way is to stop doing one or more of the actions in the cycle.

Eating while stressed.

Wanting to eat when you’re stressed is an invitation. It’s an invitation to pause, become aware of your body and mind, and take a moment to ask yourself, “What do I really need right now?”

Maybe you need to eat; maybe you’re really hungry. But it’s also possible you might need to move your body, talk to someone, go outside for a minute, or even just take a few deep breaths. It takes practice to learn how to respond to your needs at that moment. And it’s okay to make mistakes.

How to stop stress eating.

Tackling stress eating won’t involve perfection, finding the ideal way to eat, or never once eating a bite more than your body needs. Rather, it involves tuning in to your body’s natural rhythms and learning ways to meet the deeper needs that your emotions are signaling.

If stress eating has taken over your life, you will probably find the most success in overcoming it through a multi-pronged approach:

Learn techniques to deal with emotions.

When we’re used to covering our emotions with food, facing them can feel scary. But dealing with the emotions on their own is the only way to resolve them, even if it just means sitting with them and then letting them go.

Find healing for deep wounds and trauma.

As previously mentioned, habitual stress eating may be triggered in childhood due to food restriction, insecurity, abuse, or any number of other issues. Sometimes this happens due to circumstances in adulthood as well. Addressing those wounds can open the door for healing in many different areas of your life.

Learn to identify physical hunger versus emotional hunger.

Sometimes we need to re-learn our body’s natural cues. Food can be inherently comforting and enjoyable, but when we’re taking in more than our bodies need, we’re adding stress instead of relieving it. Learning how to identify which type of hunger you’re experiencing, and how to eat balanced meals that help your blood sugar remain steady, can help you enjoy food even more when it’s time to eat, without turning to it to self-soothe when you’re not really hungry.

Understand your triggers and learn to pause when they hit.

The urge to overeat can feel overwhelming, but even taking a minute to pause, identify what’s happening, and separate the trigger from the action, is a wonderful first step. Once you realize the exact situations that tend to trigger you to overeat, you’ve empowered yourself to make a different choice.

Develop new, healthier coping mechanisms for stress and low moods.

When we don’t have many healthy coping mechanisms available to us, the temptation to overeat can seem overwhelming. Learning to identify the other self-soothing options you have available to you can be difficult, but it is possible.

Create healthy habits around eating so that you have a default pattern in place.

Emotional eating creates chaos, especially when you don’t have the time, energy, or money for extensive meal planning and preparation. Introducing simple meal and snack defaults into your diet that are easy to prepare and that you truly enjoy can make a big difference in your ability to avoid emotional eating.

Add nutrient-rich foods to your diet, rather than focusing on restriction.

Part of the emotional eating cycle often involves recovering from the guilt phase by making promises to yourself to eat perfectly starting tomorrow, starting Monday, etc. But restricting your favorite foods often leads to craving them even more.

Although some people find that eliminating trigger foods altogether is helpful for them, others find that their cravings dwindle when they don’t view those foods as completely off-limits.

Either way, focusing on adding in nutrient-rich whole foods like whole grains, lean protein, fruits, and vegetables, will nourish your body even if you still indulge in less nutrient-dense options.

Keep a food and/or mood log so you can identify patterns.

Tracking your food and emotions without judgment turns you into an observer, rather than just a participant in a half-subconscious cycle. This is another step you can take immediately to start empowering yourself in your eating habits.

Enjoy healthy traditions around food, including eating in community, eating regular and balanced meals, and being mindful and present when you eat.

The alternative to emotional eating is not a dreary diet of raw vegetables, only eating out of necessity when your stomach growls. God provides food for us to enjoy and to nourish ourselves. Throughout history and in every culture, food is a way to celebrate, connect, and live. Enjoying food guilt-free will boost your mental and physical health far more than focusing on shame and restriction. It’s not always easy to get there, but it is possible!

Counseling for stress eating.

Often, when we are learning an entirely new way of relating to our habits and lifestyle, individual counseling can provide the accountability and support we need. Finding freedom from food guilt and shame is part of the grace we have in Christ, to know that we are not being judged and scolded for struggling with overeating or food addiction.

In Christian counseling for stress eating, you’ll be able to explore any emotional healing needs you have, ease your stress through talk therapy, and work with your counselor to identify the techniques and habits that will work for you.

Food is not the enemy; it is God’s provision for our needs. But when we’re stuck in a cycle of emotional eating, it’s easy to feel trapped and hopeless. Finding food freedom can change your life from the inside out.

If you are interested in Christian counseling and scheduling your risk-free initial session, call us today. We are here for you.