Emotional hunger, learn to distinguish it
The arrival of good weather inevitably equates to many people to try to lose weight getting to. Many of these diets end in failure, not only because the meal plans promise miracles or because they are not well organized, but because certain psychological aspects interact that boycott the weight loss process.
What is emotional hunger?
Food not only serves to nourish us. Too active directly the feeling of pleasure, so it is becoming more and more a kind of drug for western society. Not only does it give us satisfaction, but it is also legal and does not produce altered states of consciousness, so we can continue normally with our day-to-day responsibilities without suffering social stigma.
Consequences of emotional hunger
When we use food as a source of stimulation and pleasure, we tend to neutralize all negative emotions (sadness, anger, restlessness, boredom, exhaustion, frustration ...) from the complacency generated by the intake. Food becomes a comfort, an anxiolytic, etc.
The foods we select for this function are usually made up of , that is, calories that do not have nutritional capacity (food and / or salt such as pastries, ultra-processed, alcohol, sweets, etc.), which are in turn highly.
This explosion of pleasure activated by taste goes directly to our nervous system (rather than to our stomach), secreting a whole series of substances such as dopamine, which directly activate our reward system, causing us to repeat this type of intake over and over again. time. In an attempt at emotional control, we activate the most absolute lack of control.
Thus, there is a crossing of needs. We fill an emotional void, physically filling the stomach. But the stomach can never restructure us psychologically, just as the brain will never provide us with calories to nourish us. Let's undo the mess.
Differences between physical hunger and emotional hunger
The first way to short-circuit the problem is to understand when the physical hunger and when emotional, and learn to differentiate them. This will allow us to choose what type of "food" we need: food or psychological readjustment?
Let's see the differences:
- Source: physical hunger is produced by an energetic need of our body, while emotional hunger is activated by our way of feeling difficulties or problems.
- Appearance: physical hunger appears progressively, while emotional hunger appears suddenly, as a result of some trigger.
- Type of food: with physical hunger we may feel like it, while with emotional hunger we tend to look for the less healthy foods.
- Tempo: physical hunger allows us to taste food slowly, while emotional hunger leads us to imminence, it is more impulsive.
- Attention: physical hunger allows us to attend and be aware of what we eat, while emotional hunger is automatic and disperses our attention to problems.
- End: physical hunger ends satiety, while emotional hunger goes beyond appetite and leads to excesses.
- Post-ingestion: satiating physical hunger generates feelings of well-being (because a physiological need has been met), while emotional hunger activates feelings of guilt.
How can we treat it?
Understand what is behind your emotional hunger. What should you really pay attention to or refocus differently in your life?
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Create new habits: the will is educated, he trains. For this it is necessary to have very specific objectives and maintain repetition; This is how new habits are established, we are animals of habit. How to do it?
- Make a food planning: design in advance what you are going to eat and when.
- Identify and record your negative emotions throughout the day. Write down situations, thoughts and feelings that cause you discomfort. How are they related to food? Also record what you ate, how much, where, when, with whom ...
- Practice mindful eating from mindfulness exercises.
- Modify thoughts or unhealthy behaviors.
- Think short, medium and long term. When we use food to calm ourselves or obtain pleasure, we only obtain this effect for a few seconds or minutes, while we chew and swallow. Once the food is no longer in the mouth, guilt is activated.
Many times, this guilt is much more painful than the negative emotion that triggered it, as it reminds us of our inability to manage our own problems and at the same time provides feedback. In the short term it relieves us, in the medium term it makes us feel bad and in the long term worse, since we perpetuate the problem.
Freeing ourselves from our recurring difficulties is when we open the door to evolution and personal development. Changing what doesn't work increases our biopsychosocial well-being.
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- When we use food as a source of stimulation and pleasure, we tend to neutralize all negative emotions (sadness, anger, restlessness, boredom, exhaustion, frustration ...) from complacency.
- The first way to short-circuit the problem is to understand when physical hunger invades us and when emotional hunger, and learn to differentiate between them. This will allow us to choose what type of "food" we need: food or psychological readjustment?
- Let's try to understand what is behind emotional hunger and create new habits, since the will to can train.
Health Psychologist and Psychotherapist at Teladoc Health
(Updated at Apr 15 / 2024)