Questions to ask yourself in “the pause”

Sometimes we eat without thinking about it.

Maybe we’re bored and the food is just there, and it looks good. Or maybe we're feeling some other emotion, such as anxiety.

People who eat in response to their emotions are generally trying to avoid some negative feeling or another.

It may seem like something happens, and you automatically eat in response to it.

But in reality there are several steps in the middle.

Whatever happening around us, circumstance, happens.

And we have a thought about that, which we often believe to be fact, although that is not always the case, and that’s a topic for another conversation.

We have emotions in response to the thoughts, and feelings, or physical sensations, in response to the emotions. Finally we act in response to those emotions and feelings.

For people who eat in response to their emotions, what this translates to is using food as a buffer to distract us from their undesired feelings.

We do this because we were conditioned to do it from early childhood, and because it works, at least temporarily. While you are eating, you are numbed from whatever the feeling was that you were trying to avoid.

The problem is that this relief is short-lived.

Soon after you eat, in addition to possibly feeling physically uncomfortable, whatever feeling you were trying to avoid comes back.

And even worse, now it’s accompanied by shame and recriminations for having eaten in response to it. So you’re even worse off than before.

Not to mention, whatever the original problem was has not been solved. Because in reality, the only problem food solves is hunger. And if you have emotional hunger, an unmet need, you can’t fix that with food.

So what do you do?

You. Slow. It. Down.

Try to find a pause between the circumstance and the eating. Slow it down, so that you can see the steps in between.

• Find your thought, and notice how that feels.

• Next, notice the emotions.

• Then notice the physical sensations in your body.

Just let them sit for a moment. After about 90 seconds, the chemical cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters will be subsiding.

If you allow the feeling and emotion happen, they will pass. Pushing them away only makes them come back stronger later.

Ask yourself if you are truly physically hungry. And consider drinking some water to see if the problem is really thirst masquerading as hunger.

If you are not truly physically hungry, see if you can identify the unmet need.

That is, what is the need you are trying to meet by eating that food?

Can this need to be met in some other way? For example, if you are feeling lonely, perhaps a better way to meet that need would be to call a friend you haven’t talked to you in a while, and catch up.

One thing that can help you when you are having an urge to eat is to physically change your state. Remove yourself from the situation. Go for a walk around the block, take a shower, do something else.

I like to think of this as being like getting out of a burning building before you call 911.

Get yourself to safety first. But, once you are out of that building, you still need to call 911 so your house doesn't burn down.

For our purposes, this means you still have to do the mental work and the emotional work to figure out why you wanted to eat to begin with.

If you just remove yourself from the situation, you have treated the symptom, but not the cause, and you have not solved the problem long-term.

You still have to face the problem.

Finally, after all that thought, or even if you end up eating without doing all that work, if you do decide to eat, do it with intent. Don’t just scarf it down mindlessly.

Take the food, put it on a plate or in a bowl, and put the package away if it’s something that comes in a package. Bring the plate or a bowl to the table and sit down and eat it mindfully. No TV, no phone, no book or magazine, no crossword, no Facebook. Just you and the food.

And if you find that it doesn't taste as good as you thought it would, or that maybe you did actually need something other than food, stop eating and save it for later.

Catching yourself in the pause can be hard to do, especially at first.

But guess how you get better at it.

Practice. Map out your plan in advance. Think about what you will do and ask yourself in the moment. Write the questions on a sticky note and put it on the fridge or pantry where you will see it when you need it.

This is why we have fire drills and earthquake drills, right? So we will know what to do in the moment without having to figure it out when we are in a panic or emergency situation.

What are some questions you might ask yourself when you find yourself wanting to eat when you know you aren't really hungry?