Today, just about anyone encounters stress on a daily basis. You can say that stress has now become a fact of life. And when stress continues to persist, it can cause your overall health and wellness to fail. In fact, it can even lead to a condition known as Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS). One of the best ways to combat this is by making some rigorous changes to your daily diet. It also helps to slightly change your perspective on how food can help you through these tough times. Specifically, it would help to learn how to make emotional eating work for you so that your adrenals can recover, and you can avoid suffering painful and dangerous symptoms of the condition.
For years, many have seen emotional eating as something that should be avoided. This is because several experts have argued that eating emotionally has been linked to nausea, fatigue, increased feelings of guilt, as well as a host of weight-related health issues. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
Emotional eating is defined as a condition wherein a person has a tendency to eat after experiencing stressful or difficult feelings. When a person chooses to eat emotionally, they choose to do so even when they are not experiencing physical hunger.
The problem with this is that oftentimes, emotional eaters tend to crave for comfort foods that have little to no nutritional value. These include sugary cookies, pastries, and ice cream as well as fast food items such as pizza, burgers, and French fries. Because of this, it is argued that emotional eaters tend to gain weight unhealthily and suffer from various health problems as a result.
However, a study conducted by Maastricht University in Maastricht, Netherlands, argued that studies on emotional eaters have failed to demonstrate that there is an actual increase in food intake when emotional situations arise. Moreover, there are also a number of studies that correlated positive mood with increased food intake. In fact, a study conducted by King’s College London found greater caloric intake among participants with positive moods.
If this is the case, then it is possible for one to eat emotionally to support a better mood and therefore, have a better outlook on life despite the stress. This surge in optimism that is supported by food can then be used to address stress and combat adrenal fatigue.
Typically, the body is ready to respond to stress by way of the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response. This is comprised of several response circuits which feature organs and functions in the body that allow the body to come up with a ‘fight or flight’ response.
Among these organs are the adrenal glands which are involved in producing hormones such as cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. When stress is allowed to persist, the adrenals are forced to keep producing cortisol until such a time when it can no longer keep up with demand. This results in hormonal imbalance which triggers adrenal fatigue.
Now, one of the most effective ways to help the body recover from adrenal fatigue is by providing it with good constant nutritional support. Eating emotionally can help with this as it can ensure that you would be taking several small meals throughout the day. This can supply your body with energy and beat exhaustion.
Eating emotionally can be a good thing especially if you are dealing with adrenal fatigue. To keep the practice healthy and adrenal-friendly, however, it helps to follow some guidelines:
Think about foods that would make you feel better the moment you eat them so that it can help improve your overall mood. This way, you can essentially lessen stress in your body and keep your adrenals from becoming further overworked.
Believe it or not, there are certain foods that naturally improve the mood. These include oily fish, oats, turkey meat, and lentils.
The key here is to find snacks that are just as tasty but are considerably lower in sugar. For instance, instead of your usual potato chips, you may want to try some slightly salted nuts or sweet potato chips.
Eating emotionally can become a problem if you do not watch your portions. Do a research on the proper snack serving size for your favorite foods and follow these accordingly.
Now that you have a better idea on how to approach emotional eating in a much healthier manner, it’s time to find out what sort of healthy snacks you can easily whip up on your own. These are the type of foods that would not pose any threat to your already overworked adrenal glands. Hence, you would stand a better chance of recovering soon enough. Moreover, these foods can also provide your body with much needed energy throughout the day so that you don’t end up suffering from sudden sugar spikes and drops.
On the other hand, it’s always best to go over all the ingredients to see if you may have an allergy or intolerance to any of them. If you feel like this might be the case, it might also be best to pay your physician a visit. This way, he or she can help rule out any allergy issues to your body.
That said, here are a number of great adrenal-friendly snack recipes that you can readily turn to in case you feel the need to emotionally eat:
Feel free to try any of these recipes and include them in your snack options for the week. You can also consider making these in big batches so that you would have something healthy to munch on every time you feel that you should emotionally eat. As you can see, emotional eating can be healthy and good for you. In fact, it can even support you in your adrenal recovery.
Emotional eating involves consciously turning to food to make yourself feel better and happier. Hence, this can help improve your overall mood and reduce your stress levels. What's more, this can also help ensure that you take snacks frequently throughout the day, which you need to beat exhaustion.
