Psychologist: These four emotions are the most likely to lead people to overeat.

In real life, many people have this experience. Obviously, they are not hungry at all, but they just want to eat. Without chewing something in their mouth, they feel uncomfortable all over.

Many friends around me have the habit of storing snacks at home. If the refrigerator is empty, they will feel insecure.

But this can easily lead to a consequence, that is, people with poor self-control can easily get into the habit of overeating because food is readily available.

In addition to the physiological factors, many people overeat, in fact, more reasons come from the psychological level.

Psychologist Doreen Fuqiu pointed out in "Food and Emotion: Psychology behind Appetite" that every kind of food we are eager to eat corresponds to a specific emotion and problem that needs attention.

Hungry for food is a signal that we are troubled by something in life, and we want to reduce the pain caused by this kind of trouble through delicious food.

The author Doreen Fuqiu used to be an overeating patient. Just like drug addiction, she always craves ice cream and bread crazily.

even though she obviously felt full, she kept stuffing things into her mouth.

Overeating has brought a devastating blow to her health and life. In order to improve this situation, she began to study the psychological roots of eating disorders and craving for food.

"Food and Emotion: Psychology behind Appetite" is her research result. This book reveals the meaning behind our desire to eat a certain food, and gives the way to save ourselves from eating addiction.

1. Are you an emotional eater?

what are your usual eating habits? Do you occasionally have emotional eating?

The most typical manifestation of emotional eating is that whenever you feel tired, in a bad mood, stressed and bored, the first thing that comes to mind is to want to eat.

In other words, as long as emotional eaters encounter strong negative emotions, they are prone to overeating. Usually, they binge on two or three specific foods.

sometimes, they will develop an obsessive-compulsive disorder that they have to eat snacks quickly at home. They feel happiness, comfort and companionship from food, and they regard food as their best friend. Making them give up food is as painful as where will you go.

There is another kind of emotional eater. They can restrain themselves and maintain a good and stable eating habit for a certain period of time, but once they go out for a big meal with friends, or because of other incentives, they will release their long-suppressed appetite and start overeating.

Even though they are full, they still "convince" themselves subconsciously, "I'm still hungry, and I haven't had enough to eat", thus inducing and guiding themselves to continue eating.

2. What four emotions are likely to lead to overeating?

behind overeating, it's actually emotions. In the book, the author mentioned four common emotional problems of overeating people.

(1) Fear

When they are worried about the future, when they are afraid of losing their love and jobs, when they are insecure and afraid of losing control of their lives, and are always in a state of worry, anxiety and depression, they are prone to overeating.

(2) Anger

When they encounter all kinds of unfair situations in their lives, are wronged, cheated, abused and betrayed by others, and have a lot of resentment and dissatisfaction in their hearts, they tend to appease their anger through food.

(3) Nervousness

When their life is too stressful and they have too many responsibilities, they will be highly nervous and afraid to relax. They always seem anxious, their emotions become impatient and they always feel exhausted. In order to relieve this kind of nervous pressure, they began to keep eating their favorite food.

(4) Shame

When they made some unforgivable mistakes in their lives, they felt very guilty and blamed themselves; At work, when their ability is always not affirmed, or even many things are screwed up in their hands, they will feel useless, hate themselves, feel inferior to others, and feel that they don't deserve good things. In order to make themselves feel better, they have a great desire for food.

3. What are the emotional needs of different kinds of addictive foods?

Excessive craving for food often means that we still have something unsatisfied or unsolved in our emotions and emotional needs.

Different kinds of food correspond to different emotional needs.

chocolate

Through investigation, the author found that chocolate is the first choice for emotional eaters.

The thick fragrance of chocolate and the sweet feeling of melting in the mouth are easy to remind people of beautiful love.

Some psychologists even think that chocolate is the most ideal antidepressant, because chocolate creates a feeling of being loved, cherished and understood.

So chocolate fanatics are often romantic people. They have a strong desire for love, but because of their unrealistic fantasies about love, their expectations for love will always fail.

The more disappointed they are, the more they want to make up for their inner trauma through chocolate and satisfy their yearning for beautiful love through food.

Bread, cake, rice and pasta

One of the most attractive smells in the world may be the steaming bread freshly baked.

If you dip sweet and soft bread in jam and put it in your mouth, you will feel like you are in the Garden of Eden, and all your cells will be in high spirits.

People who are crazy about starch or carbohydrate foods often feel fear and tension. In real life, they are often under great pressure.

In order to bury this tension and anxiety, they tend to choose the kind of food that is "solid", so as to create an illusion that their lives are "stable".

candy

when we were young, when we did good deeds and behaved well, candy was the easiest thing to be rewarded.

The moment you get the candy, it's like the moment when an athlete stands on the podium to receive the prize.

The desire for candy actually means the desire for sweetness, reward and entertainment.

spicy food

many friends around me are all spicy and unhappy. Before eating, they always deliberately put a lot of condiments in the bowl, otherwise they will feel that eating is tasteless.

spicy food can make people feel that kind of high-intensity excitement and stimulation on the tip of the tongue.

So some people may turn this emptiness and depression into a strong desire for spicy food when they don't get enough excitement and excitement in real life.

4. How to deal with emotional eating?

The author believes that emotional eating is the culprit behind every obese person, every half-way dieting plan and every diet-related disease.

so how do we deal with emotional eating?

(1) Breaking the automatic eating habit

The so-called "automation" means that when a person is in a bad mood and his heart is full of negative energy, his first thought is to eat.

To change our eating habits, we need to break the "automation" and stop to listen to our inner voice.

these few minutes can help us to recognize the emotions behind our appetite.

for example, if you want to eat now, what do you want to eat? What kind of emotion does the type of food represent in your heart? Anger, nervousness, fear or shame?

Maybe you will still eat after ten minutes, but developing the habit of "delaying the impulse to eat" will make us more rational than before, at least we know why we are obsessed with this food.

(2) Find other ways to relieve emotions instead of food

Choosing food to relieve emotions may be the simplest, least laborious and most efficient method in the short term.

but the problem is that when we finish eating, we will extend other negative emotions.

For example, if you are losing weight, after overeating, you will feel guilty and blame yourself, and you will start to criticize yourself for not having self-discipline and self-management, and you will become more unhappy.

So we should try to choose those decompression methods that can bring forward circulation.

for example, exercise. It can help us to decompress, and at the same time, after completing the exercise, we will not produce any negative energy in our hearts, but it can bring us confidence and strength, which is a positive cycle.

(3) Embrace the spiritual life

We always eat nonstop and overeat because we have many uncomfortable emotions inside.

when we don't know how to deal with these emotions, food becomes our savior. Food can temporarily restore us to a state of peace, comfort or excitement.

It can be said that everyone who is crazy about food is because the basic needs of fun, safety or love are not met.

Therefore, in order to truly solve the problem of overeating, the most important thing is to know how to manage your emotions, embrace your spiritual life and keep your inner peace.

when our hearts are full of love and gratitude, we are not easily disturbed by the outside world, our emotions will become relatively stable, and the impulse to keep eating will be less and less.