How to Stop Overeating When You’re Stressed

Stress eating and overeating occurs when food becomes a way to cope with our feelings.  We often use our eating as an emotional crutch to deal with stress, anxiety, or any other overwhelming emotions.  Here are some insights and strategies to help you manage and overcome this habit, drawing from my book “Eating Out of Control” and our podcast discussions on overeating help.

Develop Awareness of Your Feelings

It’s essential to become aware of your emotional state from moment to moment.  Overeating often creeps in when we’re not in tune with how we truly feel. Try to pause and ask yourself, “What am I really feeling right now?” before reaching for food.  And it’s also fine if you only do this exercise after your overeating, too.  It’s a valid exercise anytime you can commit to doing it, it will help you regardless.

Identify Your Triggers

Take some time to consider what usually triggers your urge to overeat.  It could be a mood trigger, a food trigger, a thinking trigger, or a body weight or shape trigger.  Making friends with all of your triggers can empower you to find alternative ways of coping.  Once you identify them, they won’t seem so scary and you will be feeling a little bit more like an expert on yourself.

Feel Your Feelings Fully

Instead of pushing your feelings away, invite them in.  Overeating often acts as a distraction from our feelings, especially the challenging feelings, but allowing ourselves to sit with these uncomfortable emotions can reduce their power over us. This practice helps us build our emotional resilience.

Communicate Your Feelings

Instead of suppressing your feelings, find healthy outlets to express them.  Write in a journal about how you’re feeling, scream into a pillow, stomp your feelings out into the ground or engage in any number of creative activities to get your feelings out in a constructive way.

Focus on Emotions, Not Food

Remember, the core of emotional eating isn’t physically about food.   It’s about our feelings and emotions.  By getting in touch with our feelings directly, we shift the focus away from food and get much more in touch with the true source of our distress.

Each of these steps is a part of a journey toward overeating recovery.  It’s important to approach these changes with patience and self-compassion.