As Filipinos, we naturally have an emotional connection to food. We love to celebrate occasions and have a feast. Even during difficult times, for instance, at a wake, food has never been absent. We share food during joyful times, as well as sorrowful moments. These instances, however, do not pertain to the problem that is called emotional eating.

Is food the first thing that comes to your mind whenever you feel exhausted, down, or upset? Do you find yourself turning to your comfort food in order to soothe yourself? While it may be acceptable to want to eat some comfort food occasionally, habitual use of food as a response to emotions or a way of dealing with negative emotions and difficult feelings is an unhealthy coping mechanism. This is called emotional eating.

Individuals who have an unhealthy relationship with food, especially those who follow very restrictive diets for weight loss, have a higher tendency to succumb to emotional eating—oftentimes, resorting to a cycle of deprivation and overindulgence. Only to find themselves wallowing in guilt and shame.

Emotional eating is not the same as the clinical diagnosis of an eating disorder like bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. It could, however, be a symptom of disordered eating that could lead to an eating disorder if left unchecked or unmanaged.

Emotional eating has many triggering factors that include stress from work, school, or other responsibilities. Financial worries and burden, health issues, relational conflict, major life events, and other external factors that may affect one’s psychological state can drive a person to turn to food for comfort and seek that temporary release of feel-good hormones or brain chemicals.

Unfortunately, using food to cope with our negative emotions does not solve our problems, nor does it fill the emptiness or that emotional void. Moreover, it could make us physically sick. All those excess calories and junk food will not only make you gain weight, but also wreak havoc with your overall health in the long run, not to mention make you feel worse mentally and emotionally.

Emotional eating is associated with the lack of introspective awareness or the inability to realize how one feels. It is also linked to alexithymia, the inability to understand, process, or describe emotions, leading to being unable to address the main cause of the problem. Emotional dysregulation, or the inability to effectively manage emotions, is another internal cause of emotional eating. Therefore, overcoming emotional eating must be managed with strategies that help one come into terms with how they are feeling, identify triggers, and learning healthy ways of coping beyond food.

The first thing to do is to remove temptation, especially at home or within your workplace. Do not stock up on comfort food that will be easy to grab when emotions are high, when you’re mad, or at their lowest when you’re feeling depressed. Emotional hunger is different from physical hunger. Thus, not having food intake will not cause you to have low blood sugar, nor will it make your stomach grumble. If you have an automatic response of resorting to ordering comfort food online, it is best to make these apps not readily accessible, or better yet, delete them. Being intentional and prepared for episodes of emotional eating will help tremendously. This will give you time to delay self-gratification and switch to mood surfing mode.

Practicing mood surfing is a way of preventing your mood from getting worse. Instead of giving in to your impulse and eating your way out of misery, mood surfing will give you the opportunity to ride out your emotions and desire to eat. Eventually, that strong desire to eat will pass if you intentionally decide to delay gratification. How are you supposed to go about it?

Identify the emotions you are feeling or the mood that you are in. Be present. Are you sad? Are you scared? Worried? Hurt? Confused? Feeling betrayed? Guilty? Lost? Hopeless? If you cannot identify your emotions, it would help to search online for an emotions list to help you describe how you are feeling. It would be tempting to escape these negative emotions and just get that quick dose of happy hormones from a bar of chocolate or a bag of chips, but remember, you are delaying gratification and trying your best to practice mood surfing.

After you identify your emotions, identify your triggers. What or who made you feel that way? You do not need to take action to solve your problem at this point. You just need to identify a person or people, a situation, or something that has impacted your mental and emotional state.

After identifying your emotion or mood and triggering factor or factors, continue mood surfing by practicing relaxation techniques to divert your attention away from food, as well as to calm your nervous system.

The most important thing to do is to close your eyes and take a deep breath, followed by a long exhale. Do this several times while focusing on your breath. You can also begin to pray. It does not need to be long or formal. Just call out to God to help you. Simply pray and ask for help in simple words. As you begin to gain control of your emotions and yourself, you will feel better and be able to think more clearly. It takes practice to intentionally delay self-gratification and mood surfing, but it will definitely help you overcome emotional eating.

Explore other ways to de-stress through relaxation techniques like walking, exercise, reading the Bible, prayer and meditation, art therapy, music therapy, visualization or guided imagery, journaling, yoga, Tai Chi, and more. Mindfulness and relaxation techniques have been proven to help regulate emotions.