Do You Stress Eat?

Do you stress eat? If so, nbd, you aren't a monster. You are not alone.

All of us stress eat from time to time.

Instead of talking about the eating, let's talk about the stress.

For fun, let’s imagine that I offer to you today to take something off your plate that is really stressing you the heck out.

What could I take off your plate? What would be the one thing I could help with that would allow you to breathe a huge, heavy, delighted sigh of relief?

Recently one of my friends started seeing a therapist. This friend vented to the therapist explaining that he doesn’t even know how he feels half the time. He will feel generally frustrated or generally annoyed, but not be exactly sure if there is a specific reason or just a general feeling.

The therapist said to start a new habit of checking in with himself throughout the day. For example, "At 12:00, ask yourself how you are feeling. Consider the circumstances around how you feel and then move on." But often after people have ignored the internal chatter in their head for years and years, they struggle to identify how they feel, let alone why they might feel that way.

He hated the task. He tried it one day and said it was useless and bringing him no sense of relief. Tried it again, same. We were on a walk the other day and I asked him, “If I could take one thing off your plate what would it be?”

At first he hesitated and said, “I don’t know, everything?” Then, he thought more and replied, “If you could take the next eight hours off my plate, I would feel relief. I am dreading my work meetings.”

What is the source of your stress?

Try these four steps.

To find out the source of negativity, burnout, anxiety or concern in your life, try this four step process.

1. Imagine: Someone trustworthy and knowledgeable about your responsibilities comes up to you and asks, “ What is one thing that I could take off your hands that would cause you to have significantly less stress today?” Imagine that this person would take care of the issue or at least take the first steps necessary to resolve the issue. What would your answer to that question be?

2. Recognize that whatever you wrote down (solvable or unsolvable) is certainly causing you a lot of stress, and it is part of a normal human experience to feel burdened by stress in your life. When you begin to feel isolated in your stress, remember you are not alone.

3. Identify how you might provide yourself that relief that we imagined offering in step 1.

a. Reach out to a knowledgeable and trustworthy person.

b. Share aloud the enormity of the burden and the stress it is causing. Do not apologize for being stressed.

c. Find perspective. Look for examples of people who are going through similar experiences and if possible, share yours with someone who truly can understand the intricacies of what you are experiencing.

d. Write a list of things you could actually do to resolve the issue or situation that is causing the stress. You might not be able to fix it or take it away, but lessen the burden in some way. Circle your favorite one that seems most doable and try that.

In times of stress, we often begin to consume more than we create.

We are stuck in a cycle of doing nothing, rather than doing something because it all feels TOO BIG . This is a cognitive distortion that is common, and it is called magnifying the negative. Instead of focusing on what little things we can do to relieve our burdens, we need to focus on what we can do (even if it isn't the absolute perfect, ideal solution).

Oh, and regarding the eating part. If what you are stressed out about is that you are hungry, eating will definitely help. But when we get in the habit of consuming when we are stressed (whether it be tv, social media, food or something else) we can begin to rely on that method of procrastination to our detriment. The hard truth is, eating probably won’t offer the relief you are looking for and might even cause you more stress More on that later.

Thanks for thinking about this with me.