
Dr. Amanda Baten
Am I stress eating??
It seems for most of us that the last 2 years have resulted in a state of chronic stress. The stress is understandable, as there are rapidly evolving circumstances and uncertainty, like the ongoing pandemic, climate change, war, and global distress.
One way that people deal with stress is by over-eating or changing their eating habits, subconsciously or intentionally, for better or worse. This may be particularly true during this time if this has been a stress coping strategy in the past. Addressing this problem, I start by encouraging my patients to accept that there are things outside of our control and try to better understand what the emotions are and mean.

To better gauge whether you are engaging in emotion-driven eating, ask yourself - am I hungry or am I trying to distract myself or numb out with eating?
The most important thing here is to understand that your feelings are your data: the information that YOU are communicating to YOU.
Tolerating negative feelings can be difficult. Most of us tell ourselves that these feelings are “too terrible” or unmanageable. Understanding the feelings, for example, of sadness, fear, disappointment, frustration, AND, tolerating them, helps us to know how to strategize, problem solve, find a solution or means of dealing.
During these extraordinary times, many of us don’t have effective strategies to deal with all the unknowns. This can promote more anxiety, boredom, loneliness, and overall discomfort. Moreover, many of us have numbing techniques or ways to distract ourselves from difficult feelings, and emotional eating is one of those strategies that are not likely to be productive to overall health and wellness.
