7 Helpful Tips on How To Avoid Stress Eating

Eating is not just a way to relieve hunger. We also eat because we’re stressed, sad, tired, bored, or seeking comfort. Unfortunately, stress eating often leads to unhealthy habits, weight gain, and poor health. Learn how to break the cycle of stress eating to make healthy eating a part of your daily life.

The Link Between Stress and Unhealthy Eating

Scientists who study nutrition know that there’s a strong link between stress and unhealthy eating patterns. Being chronically stressed makes you prefer energy- and nutrient-dense foods. That means that stress makes you more likely to reach for foods high in saturated fat and sugar. As a result, stress eating is a major risk factor for obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other chronic health problems.

Understanding why we reach for unhealthy foods when feeling stressed can help us make better choices. A complex network of brain regions regulates your hunger and eating behavior. Food is inherently rewarding, meaning that eating triggers a response in your brain’s reward circuitry. When you eat ice cream, snack on a cookie, or indulge in a bag of chips, the same regions of your brain activate as when you do drugs. The release of feel-good brain chemicals makes you more likely to eat the same foods again. Basically, your brain is screaming “More, more, more!” even if you know that eating those foods isn’t the healthiest choice.

Engaging in healthy eating -- especially when it’s not part of your regular routine -- requires something called cognitive control. Cognitive control is regulated by another part of your brain that steps in when you’re ready to act impulsively. In normal situations, your cognitive control ability means that you can say, “okay, I know you want that third cookie, but it’s probably not the healthiest choice.”

Unfortunately, when going through stressful times, your brain gets fatigued. You simply don’t have the mental resources to prevent yourself from listening to that voice telling you to eat unhealthy things. Even worse, the stress hormone cortisol makes it more likely that you will convert energy to fat. This makes losing weight after 50 even harder.

7 Ways to Avoid Stress Eating

The good news is that once you understand the link between stress and your eating patterns, you can take steps to counteract it. Use the following strategies to avoid stress eating and develop better eating patterns for healthy aging.

1. Recognize true physical hunger cues.

Hunger is a basic physiological drive. However, many of us have become out of touch with what hunger feels like. Failing to recognize true hunger cues means that we might succumb to cravings when we’re actually feeling sad, angry, or stressed. Check out the following hunger cues. If you’re not feeling all four, you’re probably not hungry.

• You’ll have a feeling in your body. True hunger is a bodily need. That means you’ll notice signs, such as irritability, a growling stomach, dizziness, shakiness, or a headache. These are signs that your body truly needs food.

• You won’t be picky about what you eat. When you’re actually hungry, you need to get food to fuel your body. That means you won’t be picky -- you’ll eat nearly anything put in front of you. If you’re thinking, “oh, maybe I could use a little snack, but I can’t decide what sounds best,” you’re probably not actually hungry.

• You’ll only feel better when you eat. True hunger doesn’t go away after getting up to take a break, having a drink of water, or waiting a few minutes. If your hunger goes away, it’s more likely that you were feeling bored or stressed.

• You’ll know it right away. Real hunger isn’t a mystery. If you’re truly hungry, your body will tell you! You’ll know right away that you need food. Anything that makes you wonder if you’re actually hungry is telling you something else. If that happens, it’s time to think about whether you’re feeling emotional, bored, or eating out of habit.

2. When you get a craving, check in with your emotions.

One of the biggest changes you can make to avoid stress eating is to implement a quick “pause” before reaching for food. Whenever a craving strikes, take a moment and ask yourself a few questions. Am I feeling hungry? Is this emotional hunger? Is this the food I want to be eating?

Simply giving yourself a chance to understand your emotions and stress triggers can make a big difference. It gives your brain an extra moment to exert cognitive control. That means that rather than giving in to an urge, you can make a healthier choice.

3. Make healthier foods easily available.

Changing your environment to be health-friendly is an important part of losing weight after 50. If your house is stocked with junk food like potato chips, you’ll eat a lot of junk food. Instead, focus on making healthier foods easily available. Healthy snacks like cottage cheese, celery sticks and peanut butter, fresh vegetables with hummus, or whole-fat Greek yogurt with berries are great places to start.

You can also combat stress eating by putting healthier foods in easy-to-reach places. Place a bowl of fruit on your kitchen table, or keep a small portion of nuts in your desk drawer. This encourages you to reach for a nutrient-rich snack when you need one, rather than a sugar-laden or high carbohydrate treat.

4. Stick to a regular meal schedule.

When we get busy and stressed, our eating behaviors are all over the place. You may skip meals or find yourself mindlessly snacking at weird times of day. When it comes to avoiding stress eating, a regular schedule is your friend. As much as possible, try to maintain a regular schedule of three small meals per day plus two snacks.

Eating more frequently may seem like a counterintuitive goal when maintaining weight after weight loss. However, it’s the best way to ensure your blood sugar stays in a healthy range. If you don't, it can lead to blood sugar crashes that cause “hangry” stress eating. A regular meal schedule also keeps you on track, preventing impulse snacks or meals.

5. Stay hydrated.

It turns out that many people misinterpret their thirsty cues as hunger. When an “I’m hungry” feeling strikes, consider whether you’ve had enough to drink. Studies have shown that drinking water before a meal can reduce caloric intake by as much as 30%. Make it your goal to stay better hydrated throughout the day and to enjoy a glass of water before (and with) your meals. There is no hard and fast rule about how much water you need. Aiming for 8 glasses per day is a good starting point. You’ll know you’re getting enough if your urine is clear or pale yellow and you rarely feel thirsty during the day.

Also keep in mind that you don’t only have to drink water to stay hydrated. Milk and herbal teas are other options.

6. Practice mindfulness and being present.

Too often, we live in a narrative in our heads, which often focuses on the past (“I can’t believe I ate that second piece of cake. I’m getting so fat.”) or the future (“What should I make for dinner tonight?”). Mindfulness asks us to become more aware of the present moment. To start, sit in a comfortable place and simply follow your deep breaths, in and out, in and out. Take note of your five senses. If your mind drifts away, gently bring it back to the present and focus on your breath.

Practicing mindfulness each day not only reduces stress, but it can also help you adopt healthier eating habits, too which is called mindful eating. Rather than chowing down lunch while hunched over a computer, take the time to mindfully enjoy your food. Slow down and really taste it. This increases your natural feeling of satiety, meaning you’ll feel full with less food.

7. Exercise regularly.

Regular exercise is an essential part of any dieting and healthy living plan. Aim to get at least 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. This is a healthy way to lower your stress levels. It also helps to reset your hunger levels, helping you avoid stress eating by recognizing when you’re truly hungry.

Making changes to your lifestyle is hard, and breaking the stress eating habit takes practice. An online health coach like Mighty Health can be with you every step of the way.