Stress and comfort eating!

Which way is it? Do you get stressed and comfort eat? Or do you comfort eat and then get stressed?

In truth, it doesn’t really matter much which way it goes because bombarding your body with either stress or sugar over extended periods of time is simply a sure way to disaster – for your health, happiness and effectiveness.

I am aware that the ‘system’ which drives the economics of our world gives little opportunity to live without stress or sugar – or does it? 

For many people caught up in the nine to five (or often eight to seven) employment, being stressed and eating fast food of some sort may seem your only option. This is also true for many of the lone working or self-employed.

The fact is, you do have choices. However, first you need to become conscious of how you are thinking, how you respond to those thoughts and what actions you then take. Secondly, you need to become aware that of course you could think, feel and do differently - you most certainly do have choices. While we remain unaware of the fact that we choose to be unaware, we run the risk of sleepwalking through our own lives, missing much that is precious and missing the opportunities that can make life much more satisfying. We are not cogs in the wheel of the giant economic system.  

It is my passionate belief that our lives and our presence on this planet is more meaningful than being a mere cog in the systems wheel. However, to make our lives mean something to us, we do need to be conscious of how we think and what we think, the actions we take because of what we think and then to become conscious of what our bodies are telling us, about whether we are on the right path or not.

I realise that we are easily caught in the Catch 22 of feeling as though:

• we don’t have time
• don’t have time to consider anything other than what we already have on our plate
• don’t have time to notice  the words that we say to ourselves
• or where the words that we say to ourselves, take us
• don’t have time to consider that we could just think different thoughts
• don’t have time to choose to eat differently
• don’t have time to eat differently.

And all this not having time is stressful – this stress changes our biochemistry, making it in turn difficult to see that there are vastly wider possibilities than the current stressed state can envisage. 

So in this stressed state, many turn to comforting, sugar-laden foods (and most prepared foods are exactly that). When your every cell is screaming for nutrient-rich foods with antioxidants, phytonutrients, minerals to repair the damage that the stress is causing; the only thing that your cells get from the easy option of the ready-made sugar-laden ‘fast food’, is nutrient-empty, calorie-rich inflammatory foods that actually cause more harm to your stress damaged cells.

So what is the way out? 

If you recognise that you are unhappy, stressed, forever feeling that you don’t have time, addicted to sugary processed/prepared foods, feeling unsatisfied with aspects of, or much of your quality of life – then getting help to assist you to choose better options in your thinking, feelings and actions might just save your life. We only get into habits because we have repeated what we do so much that we are no longer aware that we do what we do. Getting independent support is often the only way to break the pattern, otherwise you would have done so already.