Do You Feed Your Mood?

Let’s face it — stress, anxiety, and depression are not usually treated with a fish fillet and a pile of steamed veg… In fact, hundreds of clients I’ve worked with around psychology, eating, and mood would tell you that what they eat in the spur of an anxious moment — to fill an emotional void or just as a stress/boredom reliever — is almost always the opposite of what would help with their long-term health goals.

We often, literally, eat our feelings. Food, alcohol, caffeine — they are often used as rewards. Sometimes we use food as something “for me” when the rest of life is chaos and feels outside of our control. Diets often fail because they tend to be punitive. There are always rules to follow, involving some form of holding back, restricting, and — from a psychological point of view — curtailment of our freedom. And here’s the crux of the diet problem: humans do not like having their freedom curtailed. Back in the 1960s, psychologist Jack Brehm carried out research and defined this as “reactance.”

Let’s take the idea that you value the long-term benefits of a “healthy” diet (for our purposes, we’ll say high in vegetables, fruits and plant foods, grains, nuts, seeds, lean proteins, and relatively low in high sugar and highly processed food). You value the idea and feel ideally — if you could achieve it — it would be the best thing for you. Then imagine I come along and say:

“You know, you really should make the switch and start to eat healthily, it would be much better for your health…”

What happens here? Instinctively, you might start to think of all the reasons this change is difficult to make:

“I’m very busy/stressed at the moment, it’s not as easy as just changing…”

Here’s the horrible irony with reactance: even when pushing against an open door, we can increase the likelihood someone will not take a positive action simply because we have attempted to push them towards it! Contrary lot, ain’t we?

In practice — after years of group weight management therapy in our long-standing Small Changes Project — I can attest to how much we do not like, or respond well to, being told what to do.

One way to look at food and mood for yourself is to use a food/mood tool — where you make a note, either physically or mentally, of what you are doing, e.g.:

You are in charge here. The idea is not that people need to always avoid muffins! (You might, however, like the idea of avoiding your mood deciding what you eat — and having a muffin top.)

The tool might help identify how often you are eating certain things in relation to your mood. Often, clients do this and clearly relate how mood affects their intake. My own binge tends to be Tim Tams (a superior form of a Penguin biscuit if you’re from the UK).

Another interesting point I hear from clients:“X (a person they are struggling with) does/says Y and I get angry at them… Later, dwelling on this, I eat/drink something instantly gratifying to counteract my poor mood.” With enough attention, these clients reflect:“X is actually determining whether I drink/binge eat…” Often this last reflection is the spark that leads to change.

Top Tips

• Eat slowly (I’m such a hypocrite)

• Don’t eat ‘al-desko’ — go for a break and enjoy your lunch

• Give yourself a break — don’t eat in response to an immediate urge; wait 10 minutes to decide if you really want it as a cherished treat or if it’s just an urge to soothe an emotional response

• Try mindful eating — notice the smell, feel, and taste of your food, and eat slowly

• Use reflection before you act

When I eat a whole packet of Tim Tams… it’s not because I have an energy deficit or a nutritional need for thousands of calories. Asking myself what has happened (the trigger) in the time leading up to the response (binge/drink) is a good idea. Following this, I can identify any other behaviours that might better suit the situation — you decide — but take a short walk, meditate, or do some grounding breathing in the office bathroom.

This might take a few trials to really get going. You might notice what’s going on but still not stop the binge. If this happens, forgive yourself, notice that you identified what happened to form the trigger–response pairing, and try again next time.

Reference:

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A Theory of Psychological Reactance.