Food As An Emotional Modifier

Some people eat when they’re in a bad mood. Most people, actually. Comfort food is a well known concept and we all have foods that are associated with home, safety, and good feelings. Some people don’t eat anything at all when they’re in a bad mood. Oftentimes depression can come with loss of appetite, and restrictive eating disorders are the extreme of “I feel bad I won’t eat”. Human beings use food to adjust and react to their moods.

For the most part this is considered unhealthy. Emotional eating is often at the heart of eating disorders, and many dieticians find that working with their clients to come to a healthy place with their emotions leads to a stabilization of diet. (FIND LINK) When we call someone an emotional eater, we don’t mean it as a compliment. Our thoughts/feelings are supposed to be radically separate from our bodies, and it’s unhealthy to seek out a physical solution to an emotional problem.

Except for the times when it’s not. Recently, I’ve started to try to regulate my emotions using food. “EATING DISORDER!” I hear you cry (or so I assume, I always cry out in distress when reading blogs). Well, not exactly. I’ve been trying to regulate my emotions using food by eating on a regular schedule, listening to what my body is craving, and eating until I am full. In addition to regular mealtimes, I’ve also been trying to notice when I’m getting cranky, anxious, sad, or otherwise unstable in some fashion and whether it has any correlation to how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. Guess what? It often does. I’m low energy and low happiness first thing in the morning, and I hit a low in the afternoon before dinner. Guess what these two time periods have in common? It’s been a while since I’ve eaten anything and I’m probably low on calories. Not having enough calories will make anyone more emotionally vulnerable.

Secret knowledge dropping time: our emotions are highly dependent on our bodies. Being tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, or sick will affect how you process what’s going on around you and what your reaction to the world is. Not all of these are things we can adjust immediately. If I’m having a bad day at work I can’t simply take a nap and feel more rested and thus stable. But I can go grab a snack or put on an extra sweater. I can use my body in a positive manner to influence how I’m feeling.

More often than not, things that are unhealthy for us are that way because they are extreme in some fashion. This doesn’t apply to anything (please do not go take moderate doses of arsenic), but for many things, we can use them positively if we understand how they actually interact with our bodies and minds. Exercise is another great example of this: too much or too little can throw us out of whack, but a moderate amount of exercise on a regular basis, and strategically applied exercise during times of stress can do wonders.

I don’t necessarily promote the view of the body that sees it as a machine (I think we’re far more integrated into our bodies than we will ever be with machines), but it can be a helpful metaphor when thinking of how to modulate your emotions. What kinds of things might this machine need to function better? Have I been getting too much or too little of any of the necessities? How can I make a small change right now to bring things back into balance. It’s not magic, but it is certainly a helpful framework for in the moment actions.

When Negative is Positive

I posted last week about my lovely sweet kitty passing away, and since then I’ve been largely quiet on the subject. This is probably because my general coping strategy is to try to get rid of anything that makes me feel bad. I am amazing at distracting, at acting opposite to my emotions, at looking like I’m coping fairly well by going to work and doing everything I’m supposed to do. Interestingly enough, this strategy often gets praised: people tell me that I’m doing well, that I’m getting through things, etc. In conjunction with this, I’ve seen a lot of people lately talking about taking the negative influences out of their life. I think that one of the coping methods that our society promotes right now is to simply abandon, ignore, or run away from things that hurt you. On some level this is good: leaving a toxic relationship behind is a great idea, or getting yourself away from a horrible job. If you cannot fix a situation, it might be the best idea in the long term just to leave it.

 

However I think that this method of coping has gotten extended from one that applies to long term or never-ending situations (in which it’s good) to something we apply to short term situations (which are often good learning experiences or can gain you something in the end). Excising things that are negative is a good coping strategy when there is something in your life which is bad for you and will not end, and whose positive consequences don’t outweigh the negatives. It is not useful in situations that are short term and which you need to be in: for example you need to grieve a loss in order to heal from it. You might need to be able to cope with being temporarily bored because boredom will happen in your life. You should be able to tolerate an unpleasant class because it will end and you know that you need the credits. Removing ALL of the negative things from your life leaves you unprepared to process and tolerate distress. It also often requires stuffing some of the negative emotions you do feel simply by not thinking about bad things that you can’t get rid of (for example the loss of something). Those emotions have nowhere to go, and generally build. A healthy relationship with emotions requires you to be able to tolerate distress in order to process it. Avoiding all distress doesn’t let you do this.

 

I think that in general as a society we have lost the skills for distress tolerance because we have so many tools available to us to be able to take ourselves out of negative situations. Unfortunately, this means that we often might miss out on a big payout at the end, or leave ourselves floundering when something we can’t avoid comes along. Now I think that when we see a clear physical payout, we’re fine with putting in hard work and tolerating distress: we can work long hours or wait in line for tickets to our favorite band, but that’s because we know exactly what we’re getting out of it.

 

However in emotional terms we’re far worse at this. I think that in relationships people are not very good at putting up with bad times, because they assume it means things will always be bad. We may be willing to tolerate boredom (although only with our smartphones at our sides), but when we’re put into a situation that makes us feel unwanted or anxious, we bail. We haven’t learned that we can learn skills to help us calm down, to stand up for ourselves, to effectively get what we want and need, and to still validate the other person in a given situation. We haven’t learned that some bad emotions can teach us things.

 

The problem with this is that when we hide from things that scare us or make us feel bad, we never get around to processing that information, and our brain never gets to the point where the threat feels like it’s gone. We walk around carrying this DANGER sign in our mind indefinitely, still feeling every loss or anger or frustration or fear that we haven’t yet turned off. Our brains need to be told that a threat is gone by understanding the new shape of the world, and in order to do that we have to look at things that hurt. This can be hard. It’s uncomfortable. It feels bad. But it’s also necessary and good, and in the long run will leave us with less stress and anxiety, less anger, and less worry, more content with where we are.

 

There are ways to feel negativity without it getting out of control. You can give yourself a concrete amount of time to feel it, give yourself something positive to look forward to afterwards, or have other people around. Emotions don’t have to be overwhelming.

 

And so I suggest that we all take a minute today to be with whatever’s bothering us. Just a minute. A contained moment by ourselves to feel it, well and truly, and then to move on and let it be.