Stress eating can be real anxiety for the best of us (that can easily become a bad habit).
Feeling anxious from a negative thought can cause overeating and shoveling food into our mouths. This feeds our natural desire to enjoy pleasure. But then we regret our decision the next day, as it shows up on our body and then can turn into anxious body thoughts (in the mind-body connection).
Below are some ways to break the stress-eating vicious cycle, especially around the winter holidays.
Especially in December, we can’t avoid messages about the new year being around the corner, that brings awareness to what we need to do to finish up the year, and then that reminds us of the hoopla of what happened and disappointments of what hasn’t yet. We just want peace, joy, and love.
By no fault of your own, holiday anxieties can be triggered in your mind-body, and aggravate stress eating as a comforting behavior that disturbs healthy living aspirations.
One way you can start to change this is to find a healthy set of friends (or a virtual community) who will support you and you can share your successful moments with. Choose these optimistic friends over complainers. You want to leave your near-year ending on a sweet (not sour) high note. Stay encouraged, growing, believing, and finding new year inspiration.
On that note, I have some holiday stress management encouragement…
Because we all bear some kind of stress as humans. At a bare minimum, you may have been thrown a few monkey wrenches within the year and an uneventful holiday ending.
You may have thought you’ve had enough, and you would just coast the rest of the year and take time off, and then something suddenly came up. You’re asked to make an off-course decision or two, be more creative than you’ve been (thinking outside the box), and work harder in your uphill climb despite facing ups and downs.
You’re not alone.
Look on the brighter side of things, you’re needed and you have a chance to make an impact in some unique way.
Those you-matter thoughts help your inner peace, that you can get back and are just a few steps away in your meditation practice, prayer life, or relaxed walk.
By a simple choice, you can change your mind and attitude just like that if you want to, despite your feelings or moods.
You always feel better than you did after the fact. You never know what thoughts and ideas are on the other side, but the time you put in is rewarded.
You’re better off if you find some way to be optimistic, even if it’s just borrowing a belief. Sometimes you have to just do it, to adopt a new way.
Recently I was tasked to virtually decorate my Zoom screen background for a holiday meetup… those are common this year, right?
I don’t how you feel about yourself in a digital world, but coming up with a digital holiday background isn’t in my go-to wheelhouse bag of tricks, and maybe not in yours either. So I dug deep and basically looked around (…isn’t that how we were resourceful when we were younger?), and that led me to bring out the soft felted stockings and artificial decorations from the Christmas storage bin.
I’m an arts and crafts type. As a scrapbooker, I like handmade, decorating with brads and ribbons, and the whole nine yards for anything you can touch and feel… Continue reading “8 Ways to Avoid Stress Eating Anxiety and Holiday Stress”