stress busters 

How often have you said or thought, “I am stressed”? What is stress? Stress is any change that you have to adjust to. Stress can be things like losing a job, getting sick or getting into an argument. However, good events can also require change like getting married, having a family, or getting a new job. Stress comes primarily from three sources: our body, our environment, and our thoughts. 

Let’s focus on thoughts. Your thoughts are how you interpret your experiences from the past and/or present and predict your experiences in the future. Dwelling on some unpleasant experience in our past is stressful. Solving or not solving a problem in the present is stressful. Worrying about what might happen in the future is stressful. 

Stress can come from having too much or too little to do. We typically respond to stress with a “fight or flight” response. With our busy lives, we often find it hard to find time to relax. This constant state of alertness can trigger many physical illnesses. Cognitive therapy can help you to develop healthier thought patterns to alleviate stress. 

Since adapting to change is a fact of life, we will always experience stress. But we do have some important choices regarding stress including:

We can often choose the kind or amount of stress we experience.

We can choose how we respond to the stress we experience.

We can choose to take care of ourselves when we experience stress.

In order to do these things we must learn the art of self-responsibility. We must learn to be proactive in our response to stress and learn to take good care of ourselves when we are stressed by using healthy coping skills versus destructive coping skills, e.g., overeating, drinking, yelling or panicking. Good self-care may require us to change several old habits. As adults, we must learn to balance our other-responsibility with

self-responsibility. We must learn to act in our own self interest to protect our physical and mental health from the negative aspects of stress. If you want to learn more about implementing these stress management techniques, please contact a licensed therapist.

Do you eat when you’re feeling sad, lonely or bored?

Do you celebrate or reward yourself with food?

Is there a food you crave when you’re stressed or worried?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be an emotional eater. More and more people are starting to recognize that they eat in response to emotions and moods. It makes perfect sense! We are subconsciously conditioned that food makes us feel good. From the time we put our favorite foods in our mouth we get an immediate feel good endorphin release, and then to top it off we also can get a feel good serotonin surge. There is no doubt about it, food feels good. Emotional eating is the practice of consuming large quantities of food- usually “comfort” or junk foods- in response to feelings instead of hunger. 

If we can be alert to why we emotionally eat, then we can be better equipped to deal with the how of fixing it. The first step is to identify your bothersome feelings. Some of the most common emotional eating cues are: anger, hopelessness, lack of control, feeling unappreciated, boredom or loneliness. If you want help in identifying your triggers, start keeping a journal of the feelings you have next time you take a trip to the fridge. 

After identifying your emotional eating cues, the next step is to brainstorm and find alternatives to eating. Keep this list of ideas and post them where you will see them in a moment of need (maybe near the fridge or pantry). Some common alternative means of coping or emotional rescues are sharing problems, journaling, spending time with friends/family, listening to music, reading, watching a movie, dancing, or engaging in your favorite hobby. Remember, undoing habits that originally developed when you were a child is a major change, and therefore will require persistence, dedication and maybe professional help.