Self-soothing program: A new way to replace emotional eating

Alternatives to emotional eating

Besides changing irrational thoughts, the second strategy for reducing emotional eating is to find other ways to comfort yourself when you feel bad. First, recognize that everyone, even the bravest cowboy or the most disciplined sailor, sometimes needs comforting.

When you were a child, if your parents were attentive, they would notice when you were upset and ask what was wrong. They would then handle the situation differently depending on the circumstances, such as giving you a Band-Aid for a scrape, holding you tightly, or simply making you comfortable in some other way (hopefully not with milk or cookies). Now that you're an adult, expecting your mother to hold you tight when things don't go well at work is unrealistic. At this point, you should develop a plan to comfort yourself, rather than turning to food as a source of comfort. You can find the cause of your discomfort and confront it directly, instead of soothing yourself with food.

Of course, comforting yourself without food is more difficult than finding food in the fridge or going out of your way to McDonald's delivery window; it requires some planning and effort. But it's worth it.

The first step is to accept the basic premise that it's reasonable to spend time doing something beneficial for yourself. When I make this suggestion in my workshops and classes, emotional eaters usually have a reason to explain why they can't do something that makes them feel better. Alice's reason, "I don't have enough time to..." is typical. Given her busy schedule, she would certainly object to this self-soothing activity because "I don't have time."

When we discussed her schedule, the time she spent eating fast food, and the time she took to prepare it, it became clear that a lack of time wasn't the primary reason for her self-comfort; the main reason was that she didn't think it was worth the time. Before she could find time to think about herself, she always needed to do other, more important things first.

Taking a few minutes to make yourself comfortable is often seen as a waste of time or self-indulgence. This thought usually stems from the belief that one isn't worth wasting time on and that other needs are more important. Do other similar statements sound familiar? Are you too busy to take a few minutes to be kind to yourself? Do you feel embarrassed or ashamed if you do spend some time doing something beneficial for yourself?

If similar viewpoints sound familiar, it's important to recognize the distorted thinking within them. Like Alice, you're making a "should" statement. You're taking it for granted that you should be doing other, more worthwhile things instead of fulfilling your very real human needs. If you examine this idea, you'll realize that expecting yourself to be productive all the time is unrealistic. Even cars or other machines need downtime for maintenance. You, too, have the right to take a break from work to "do some repairs."

Furthermore, if you add up all the time spent-considering whether to eat, preparing and eating fast food, and the time consumed by guilt and self-reproach-you'll find that you may have used a period of rest to soothe yourself, and not that you haven't lost any time. You may also find that taking some time for self-soothing during the day is like recharging your battery so you have more energy to complete your daily activities more effectively.

The second reason or justification against self-comfort is harder to refute: if you believe that doing things that are beneficial to you is not worthwhile, you will always feel guilty and find it difficult to benefit from doing those things. If you have these thoughts, ask yourself why doing things that are beneficial to you is not worthwhile.

This feeling of guilt is often based on something related to obesity. It's a psychological filter because you're only thinking about your weight, ignoring all the good things you do or accomplish. It can also be emotional, because if you're embarrassed about your weight, you might feel like you've done something embarrassing that disqualifies you from being good to yourself.

You might be telling yourself that you have to lose weight before you're qualified to comfort yourself, or you might be telling yourself that because of your weight, anything you do to comfort yourself will feel embarrassing. Recognize how frustrating this circular reasoning is. You need to be kind to yourself to lose weight, but you must lose weight before you can be kind to yourself!

Create a three-column table in your notebook. In the first column, write down your unthinking thoughts about self-soothing; in the second column, write down the twists and turns of those thoughts; and in the third column, write down your more rational thoughts.

Now that you have corrected your unthinking ideas about self-soothing, you can develop a plan to make self-soothing methods your daily habit.

My self-soothing plan

To make self-soothing a frequent, spontaneous part of your life, you must find short activities that are easy to integrate into your daily routine. Think about things you enjoy doing, and start with that, but don't get too carried away. You might enjoy watching Broadway musicals or flying to Paris for a weekend, but we're not looking for memorable events, just a small activity that provides a pleasant break in your daily life.

Would you be willing to put down what you're doing and take 10 minutes to do the following:

Call or email a friend;

Reading magazines;

Playing with pets;

Nail art;

Strolling around in the garden;

Surfing the internet;

Prayer or meditation;

Take a walk in the neighborhood;

Practice yoga or dance;

Playing games on the computer;

sunbathing;

Write a diary;

Doodles or drawings;

Look at the photo album;

Knitting, sewing, or crocheting.

None of the activities mentioned above are magical; the purpose of this list is simply to help you choose activities that you can incorporate into your daily routine when you need comfort or are tempted to eat. Create your own list of comforting activities in your notebook. If you can only think of one or two, write them down, and the following week, pay attention to the types of things you enjoy doing and add them to the list.