Rewire Your Brain to End Emotional Eating
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You feel like you're constantly battling food as if you are pulled toward it. The allure of 'bad foods' is irresistible, especially during challenging times like a stressful day, a lonely night, a fight with a friend, or a sudden car breakdown. Food becomes your refuge, a source of comfort and joy in these moments.
It's not about the food. Today, I want to talk about rewiring your brain. This concept is crucial for your journey to break free from emotional eating. Without it, the path to thriving beyond emotional eating will be much more challenging.
What does it mean to rewire your brain?
Have you ever heard of something called 'neuroplasticity'? Simply put, it's the brain's ability to create new neuronal connections. These connections are made through repeated thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. For example, when you were a kid you learned that touching fire hurts, so you must avoid it. How did you learn this? Well, first, your caregivers probably told you more than once not to touch fire; then, you probably touched fire and got burned. You learned that avoiding touching fire is best if you don’t get hurt through what you were told, what you observed and from your behaviors. Your experiences with all of this is what created that connection in your brain.
A learned behavior becomes second nature when it is reinforced through repetition. You don't have to consciously recall the pain of a burn every time you see fire or remind yourself not to touch it because your brain has automatically wired itself to prioritize safety. Similarly, with the right strategies, you can rewire your brain to automatically make more intentional decisions both on and off the plate.
Our brain's main job is to ensure our survival and safety. We learn behaviors to move towards pleasure or away from pain, not to seek happiness. So, if we want to interrupt a behavior, we'll need more than our conscious mind to decide. We'll need to dig deeper into the root of that behavior in the subconscious mind, to then rewire our brain.
What you learned and didn't learn
Beliefs (which could be seen as thoughts you don't think about, like "rain is wet") drive our lives. They help us operate in the world without analyzing every step and action we take. For example, suppose you see it's raining outside just before you step out. In that case, you'll automatically think about grabbing an umbrella because you've learned that otherwise, you'll get wet. You don't need to go outside, get wet, and then reflect on what you should do to avoid getting soaked.
The thing about beliefs is that we need to be made aware of them (remember, they're like thoughts we don't think about). Even though they help us make sense of our world, they can also limit what we believe is possible because of how they make us perceive reality and operate in the world.
If you learned, for example, that anger is harmful and that only 'bad people' have bursts of anger, or something similar, there's a good chance that you'll avoid feeling and showing anger because you don't want to encourage something considered nasty or harmful. Or maybe you just don't want to be seen as a bad person. By not giving yourself permission to feel anger, you'll cope with it in some other way to get away from the discomfort that anger brings. Having those beliefs about anger limits your ability to regulate yourself in a healthy way and learn from the situation that's triggering that emotion.
It's not about the food
Let's say that people around you didn't express their emotions or did in very explosive ways when you were a kid. Let's say that no one asked you about how you felt in different situations or were told you were overreacting when you showed certain emotions. Let's say that when you tried to express your emotions, you found someone unable to listen and help you regulate. Let's say that you never got the attention you needed in moments of emotional distress.
What would someone learn about emotions in these situations? How did they learn to regulate their emotions?
Emotions are not positive or negative; they're the body's language to our internal state. They're energy in motion. They give us information and have a purpose. However, most of us haven't grown up in an emotionally developed environment, which means that we probably didn’t have a safe space to feel and express our emotions. This creates beliefs that made us repress, avoid or distract from emotions. It’s important to point out that I’m not saying it’s our caregivers’ fault. They probably didn’t have the tools themselves and they did the best they could.
Suppose there was a lot of anger in your house which caused you a lot of anxiety. This environment may have taught you that it's safer for you not to express or show anger. If we don't know how to feel and sit with difficult emotions when they come up, we naturally move away from the pain (one of the brain's ways of surviving, remember?). Some people do it with alcohol, others with shopping, and still others become emotional eaters.
Food is the coping mechanism
Food is joy and connection. Yes, it is meant to be enjoyed, and food can comfort us and make us feel good. Because of this, it's not surprising that it can be used as a way to cope when we're faced with difficult emotions. We all turn to food every now and then to seek comfort. It's part of the human experience and there's nothing wrong with it.
However, for many people, food becomes their primary coping mechanism. This can make them feel like they have a problem with food because every challenge pulls them towards the kind of food they label as bad. With this comes guilt, shame, and feelings of powerlessness for being unable to control oneself. We focus on food because were pulled towards food. So we start engaging in diets and set food rules, which only contributes to feeling more out of control because restriction leads to feelings of deprivation. Our perceived inability to follow a diet makes us think there's a problem with us, which affects our mental and emotional health and perpetuates the emotional eating cycle.
How do you rewire your brain?
Develop the four selves (self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-reflection)
Most of what we do is automatic; we don't think and analyze everything we do, meaning we must first look at how we think, operate, and behave to make changes. It's essential to foster self-acceptance and understand that we do the things we do the way we do them for a reason. With self-compassion and self-reflection, we can start making intentional changes.
Identify limiting beliefs to challenge and change them
As mentioned before, our beliefs have the potential to hold us back and they can limit or prevent us from realizing the possibilities that can unfold before us. If we want to heal our relationship with our emotions and food, it is essential to pinpoint the beliefs that have helped us in the past but are now doing the opposite. We need to do this so that we can reframe these beliefs and create new beliefs that help us move forward.
Learn to accept discomfort and tolerate distress
Life is not meant to be happy 100% of the time. We've learned to avoid the discomfort of certain emotions by turning to food. Now, it's essential to change our focus and realize that we can sit with our emotions and choose how to react in a supportive way without resisting or ignoring the emotional response.
Develop healthy coping mechanisms
Food has been our way of coping and has become an automatic response to difficult emotions and distress. Accepting and tolerating emotions is the groundwork for developing healthy ways to cope. We can learn several tools and everyday habits that work for us rather than against us.
Create new healthy habits that work for you
Creating habits and routines that support our overall health and well-being will enhance our quality of life. These habits help us find the balance we need in all areas of life. When people struggle with creating and incorporating new habits, their focus and motivation tend to come from the outside. For lasting change, we need to take a different approach.
What's the result?
When you have the right mindset, just by learning tools to develop the four selves, you’ll see significant changes in your life. Why? Because you can't control what's outside of you. What you can control, however, is what happens inside you. This includes what's going on in your mind and, as a result, your actions.
You already know that beliefs can get in the way, so you understand that not challenging and changing them will create significant roadblocks. If you keep thinking that carbs are evil and completely avoid them then you'll end up feeling deprived. Then, when an emotion comes up you'll be more likely to give in and eat the food, even though you may have other ways to cope.
When it comes to emotional eating, fostering the four selves will help you better catch the triggers that pulls you towards food and you’ll have the tools to break the automatic response. By working on your beliefs you'll be able to relate to emotions and food differently, which will lead to feeling your emotions and tolerating discomfort without resorting to food.
As you become more aware of your internal state, you'll better understand what you need or what could help you in challenging moments. You’ll also have the tools to cope in an intentional, aligned way. You'll be able to look at situations from a more neutral point of view; without resisting your emotions, and without giving your power to the external world. With time, you'll cease to be a victim of the things that happen, to look at the opportunities in them and choose how you want to react to the events in your life.
Once you start this self-improvement journey, you'll understand the importance of taking care of yourself so you can be more you. Naturally, you'll start discovering and engaging in new habits, routines, and activities that bring you closer to the person you want to be.
Why rewire your brain
Emotional eating is not about food but about how we manage and regulate our emotions. When we lack the ability to do so in a healthy way, we seek comfort in something external that makes us feel better. When we have an unhealthy relationship with food, that ‘something’ is food, and we end up 'eating our emotions.'
Rewiring our brains is essential because they are like our computers: they have learned certain things that have made you operate in a certain way. By showing your brain a new pathway, a new way forward, you can overcome emotional eating and find a more balanced, healthy, and happy life.
If you’re ready to rewire your brain to finally end emotional eating for good, without restrictions, the doors to my new group coaching are opening soon!
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