Using food to unwind
Welcome everybody. We’re gonna be talking about using food to unwind.
This is such a common thing that I see with so many of the people that I work with, right.
It really was also something that I used to do all the time too, which is why I wanna address it. So today we’re gonna talk, be talking about why we use food to unwind foods, one wine, what we’re teaching our brain when we eat.
To take the edge off and how to start to change this habit.
Okay. Now, if you’ve listened to me, talk about desire and paying attention to how your thoughts create desire. You may have noticed that some of your thinking is connected to using food, to unwind at the end of the day. So you might have had thoughts.
I just need to relax.
I really deserve a break.
I wanna treat.
Um, I just cannot deal with this day. I need to feel better.
Right? All of these thoughts are very connected to the sense of needing to take the edge off right, needing to unwind.
Now, before I go any further, I wanna be really clear that using food as a way to relax or treat yourself, there’s nothing wrong with that.
The only reason why I bring this up. And I wanted to talk about this today because for so many people, it’s part of the reason why it can be a struggle to cut back right now, a bowl of popcorn or bag of chips. It definitely can relax you. Okay. Carbohydrates allows the brain to make new serotonin, okay.
Serotonin makes us feel calmer. And as a result, we believe we can cope. So you can imagine how, after a long day with a lot of thoughts rolling around and for a lot of people they’ll notice or they’ll find that many of those thoughts are quite negative, right? That quieting your brain activity with a hit of serotonin can be actually really appealing.
Right now, what people don’t like when it comes to using food to one wine is when they find that they don’t like how much they’re relying on it. Right. Maybe they don’t like that. They thought that they would have one serving of chips and they end up having the whole bag. Right. They don’t like the extra calories that come along with it.
They don’t like the fact that they’re sitting on the couch eating instead of visiting with their husband or kids. Some people will talk about how the food makes them really sleepy and unmotivated. And they find that they’re falling asleep on the couch really early. And then they’re waking up later in the night with just very disturbed sleep.
Just keep in mind that our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive our actions.
All of the emotions, both positive and negative are always created by our thoughts. So when we tell ourselves that we really need a break from this day, what we’re really saying is I need a break from how I feel. Right. Or I need a break from my emotions, which have been created by what I’m thinking.
So let’s back up and give a little bit of context first.
To how you feel in your body and noticing the physical changes and you do that through a body scan.
If you want to stop turning to the pantry to feel better night after night, you have to learn that you can handle any emotion that comes your way.
So that’s it. Let me know how it goes.
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