As the pandemic is still on going, many people are turning to foods as comfort. The increase levels of stress can develop emotional eating habits during this hard time. This habit can cause abnormal eating habits that can damage your health condition.

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It is no wonder that many of us turn to food because excessive eating during stressed time is our body’s natural coping mechanism.

But the thing is, getting comfort from eating something may offer only temporary happiness from your negative feeling and never be a healthy solution.

Why Do We Turn to Food When Feeling Stressed?

Food is known as a fill to emotional void built in our body as counter to negative emotions. It can be your only source of ‘happiness’ at the moment and you tend to overeat anything.

Soon, the line between physical hunger and emotional hunger become blur and you’ll find yourself hard to stop from binge eating.

Once you turn to food in regular basis, it can change your cortisol levels and lead yourself to crave certain food as soon as you feel stressed or other negative emotions.

How to Stop Emotional Eating During The Pandemic?

We all face pretty same situation during this pandemic. Even the international health organizations acknowledge this condition, too.

But beware that emotional eating can make you feel worse and you may experience weight gain. It also can lead to higher risk of getting chronic disease, like high blood pressure and diabetes.

Here are some tips to stop yourself from emotional eating during this ongoing pandemic.

1. Ask yourself; am i hungry?

Physical hunger can be physically felt in your stomach and it comes gradually. When you feel to eat something, ask yourself first whether it is time to eat (breakfast, lunch, dinner) Or just because you want to eat something because of your emotions.

2. Understand yourself

Note down what can trigger you to binge eat; are you feeling stressed? Anxiety level hit the roof or you start craving sweets when you feel emotionally drained and sad?

Once you find out the root, you can try to cope with those issues by talking to your loved ones, seeking support, online therapy or online consultation, etc.

3. Get enough sleep

Health experts say that when you get enough sleep, you can deal with overeating better. It is because two hormones that help regulate hunger; ghrelin and leptin; are affected by sleep.

So when you have a quality sleep each night, chances are high that you won’t overeat your meals.

If you find that it is hard to control your emotional eating, you find and book a nutritionist on Okadoc to talk about your eating habits and help personalized healthy meal plan for you.