Understanding and Overcoming Emotional Eating with Hypnosis

Do you find yourself eating often when you aren’t hungry? Have you ever wished you could stop but you can’t figure out where the compulsion is coming from? Maybe you tend to eat more when you’re sad or stressed, or maybe stress makes the idea of eating seem too overwhelming so you eat less when you’re anxious. If any of those resonate with you, chances are you’ve struggled with emotional eating. According to research, 27% of Americans say they eat to manage stress and 75% of overeating is caused by emotions. Food marketing in the US focuses heavily on assigning emotions to food, so if any of these sound familiar, there’s a reason.

Phrases like “stress eating” and “comfort food” are used casually in conversations about sweet treats and the occasional Taco Bell quesadilla at 1am, but scientifically speaking both of those hold a lot of truth. When we’re stressed, our bodies release cortisol which increases our appetite so we’re motivated to bulk up for survival. But if the stress doesn’t go away, neither does the cortisol, and neither does the appetite. Cortisol may also be responsible for the types of food we crave when we’re in emotional duress. Sugar & fat filled foods seem to counteract stress, which may be leading to cortisol telling our bodies to seek them out when our stress responses are triggered. So when you’ve had a really bad day at work or you’re going through a breakup or just having a rough depression day, your body really is telling you to drive to the gas station and stock up on your guilty pleasures.

So what does any of that have to do with hypnosis? Well, a lot of what anything has to do with hypnosis: it’s very heavily connected to our subconscious thoughts and feelings. While we may often be very much consciously aware of what’s stressing us out or causing our emotional imbalances, a lot of the longer-term effects of grief and anxiety end up getting pushed into our subconscious to protect us from them. As we’ve discussed often, that doesn’t work very well for long-term conditions so those repressed effects just end up causing more trouble for us. Hence, the pint of ice cream in the tub on a random Tuesday night.

Hypnosis induces a heavily relaxed state, allowing the walls of our conscious mind to take the backseat so we can address the issues that are hiding out in the subconscious levels. For emotional eaters, this means we can find the root of our triggers and process them out, as well as retrain our mind-body reactions to them. So if being yelled at on the phone at work makes you want to go home and eat an entire sleeve of Oreos (definitely not a personal example), with hypnosis, you can figure out why your body connects that negative experience with the need to overeat and reprogram it to want to go for a walk or do some yoga and meditation instead.

In a society ruled by food and diet culture, we know that recovery from eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with food and our bodies can seem impossible. If you’re feeling hopeless or searching for answers and a chance to get better, reach out to us here and schedule a free consultation. Hypnotherapy might be just what you need to take your life back.