Episode 22: Emotional Eating - Managing Your Emotions

Emotional regulation is our ability to increase or decrease the intensity of our emotions. When we’re better able to control our emotions, we feel more control over emotional eating. This episode covers all things emotions, including a 5-step process for building emotional regulation skills.

Part 2 of a 5-Part Series on Emotional Eating.

Episode Transcript:

If you already feel upset, sad, frustrated, angry, if you feel a negative emotion, it is really hard to then decrease emotional eating. It's much easier if you can turn down the emotion. If you feel less angry, less frustrated, less sad, it's an easier to have less emotional eating.

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hi, Friends! Welcome to the podcast this week. Today we are continuing our series on emotional eating. Last week was part one where we talked about how your perceived stress level can impact emotional eating. Today we are diving into how our ability to manage our emotions can impact emotional eating. And just like with stress, obviously emotions, especially the negative ones are connected with emotional eating. That is literally the definition of emotional eating. But not every person who feels a negative emotion ends up emotionally eating. And even within ourselves, not every time we feel a negative emotion do we feel a desire to eat. So we know there's other factors. The main one that is identified in the research here is having the skills to manage negative emotions. So that's what we're gonna talk about today.

There's a lot of information that we're squeezing in and I promised to try to keep these episodes short and actionable. So here's our Game Plan for today. We are going to start with an overview of what emotional regulation even means, what it is, then I'm going to share a study with you about how all this information relates to emotional eating, and we will wrap up with a step by step process that you can put into action today to start managing your emotions, and decrease emotional eating.

Emotions are a physical sensation in our body and some of them are very intense. Emotional regulation is the skill that allows us to turn that intensity up, or turn the intensity down depending on what we want to happen with that emotion. I like to think of it as being a volume control knob, like, let's say the one in your car for the radio. Just like when we're in the car, we can turn the volume up, we can turn the volume down, and that often depends on what we want to amplify or what we don't want to hear.

So when we are on a drive and we are feeling great, and we're with our friends and the sun is shining, the windows are down, what do we do? We want to turn the volume up. We want a good song on the radio and it really is an enjoyable moment. As we continue this drive, let's say we start to see flashing lights behind us and we're getting pulled over or maybe we come across a bunch of traffic or we don't know where we are, we start to get a little bit lost. What do we do in those cases? We reach for the radio and turn the music down. It's the same with our emotions.

Our ability to turn them up or down is going to impact our actions, our behaviors, our feelings, and eventually our eating habits as well. The thing that becomes tricky is that when we feel negative emotions, it can be really hard to turn them down. We might start thinking about them, then we kind of ruminate on it. We can't really move past it. We start assigning meaning to it or maybe even some judgment and all of a sudden, boom, everything has been amplified, and it's stuck at that volume. The good news is that emotional regulation is a skill so it can be learned and it can also be improved.

Emotions, and how we feel, originate from our thoughts. That's the basis of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. There's also an amazing Self-Coaching Model by Brooke Castillo that you may be familiar with. It's called the CTFAR model. CTFAR stands for:

Circumstance, Thought, Feeling, Action, Result

The idea behind this model is that there is a neutral circumstance, something that happens, then we have a thought about that circumstance, whether it's a positive thought or a negative thought. That leads us to a feeling and the feeling will likely be positive or negative depending on if the thought was positive or negative. And when we're feeling a certain way then we act same way. We act in a positive way, or we act in a negative way, which leads us to the result.

Emotion regulation research tells us that it is more helpful to focus on what they call antecedent-focused skills. If we're using that CTFAR model, we're looking at what happens before (the antecedent) before the emotion. So that would be the circumstance and the thought, and trying to change the circumstance or change the way we're thinking about something are going to be more helpful for regulating the emotion or the feeling.

What's less helpful is focusing on what the research calls response-focused skills. So that would be something that is only looking to change the action or the result. This makes sense when we think about it in practice, because if you already feel upset, sad, frustrated, angry, if you feel a negative emotion, it is really hard to then decrease emotional eating. It's much easier if you can turn down the emotion. If you feel less angry, less frustrated, less sad, it's an easier to have less emotional eating. We can see how that plays out and why the antecedent-focused, focusing on changing our thoughts, can be a lot more helpful than just trying to change the action itself.

So let's look at a study about how this relates to emotional eating. This is a study that was done in 2010. As always, it will be linked in the show notes for you if you want to read about it more.

In this study, we're going to have three different groups of participants and each of them are going to watch a film clip. Before they watch the film clip, they're given different instructions depending on which group that they are assigned to. All of the groups are watching the same film clip, the article says that this clip is "violent and brutal". So I don't know it does say what movie was from I didn't recognize it. But they have done other research, like pre-research to show that this particular clip does elicit negative emotion in participants.

So our participants are assigned to one of three groups. Our first group is our control group. They are basically given no instructions other than you're going to watch this film clip. They're a neutral group that we can compare to.

Our second group is told to use a response-focused approach. So for this, they're basically told to suppress their emotion. They're told how to act. They are told that researchers are going to be watching their facial features and watching them express the emotion throughout this clip. So they need to control their face, control their body language, hold in any emotion, don't express any emotion, just ignore it. If we're comparing this back to our volume knob, suppression is basically like you have the radio turned up, and you get pulled over, and you don't turn the radio down, you just leave it and pretend that it's not happening.

Our third group is given an antecedent-focused approach. The skill they're taught is called reappraisal. They're told helpful thoughts before going through this experience to help them process the emotion. This group is told, "Hey, we're going to show you this violent film clip, I want you to just to stay objective. Try not to over associate with it. Just remember, this is not real. These are just actors". They're given it perspective to separate them from the emotion that they may be feeling.

Those are three groups, we've got our control group, we've got our group that's going to suppress their emotion, and the other group that was told, hey, this is just a movie. These are just actors, this is not real.

So all three groups watch the film, and afterwards, they're going to participate in a taste test. This is part two of the research project. And the taste test is not actually a taste test, but that's what they participants are told that this is.

The researchers bring out a few different snacks. They bring out comfort food type items, things like chocolate and chips, and they also bring out some non-comfort foods, which they say is basically just plain unsalted crackers. Not very exciting. And before the researchers bring the snacks out, they weigh everything so they know how much food is there. Then they tell the participants, "okay, try everything. You can have whatever you'd like, taste test it".

After everyone is done eating, they bring the snacks back and they reweigh all the snacks so they can see how much of each item was eaten.

And what the results showed is that all groups ate about the same amount of the non-comfort food, those plain unsalted crackers. So clearly there are certain foods that have more of appeal, probably with emotion, right? We tend towards certain things, but also plain crackers are boring. So I don't know how much we can read into that.

They also found that the control group with no instructions and our reappraisal group with the helpful thoughts, they ate about the same amount when it came to the comfort foods, the chocolate, the chips, and both of those groups ate more than the non comfort foods, but not a huge amount more.

However, our suppression group that was told to not express their emotion, they ate significantly more of the comfort food, it was actually about twice as much as the control group.

So what we learn from this is that when we suppress or ignore our emotions, it leads to increased emotional eating, and turning down our emotions or regulating them finding ways to process them in a healthy way that can help us with emotional eating.

So how do we learn to develop that skill? What does that look like to be able to learn to turn the volume down on some of these hard emotions?

With my clients, I use a five step process that I'll share with you and then we can run through it with an example. All of these steps start with the letter P, so hopefully that helps you remember them.

So our first step is to perceive. This is basically recognizing when we feel triggered. Awareness is always the first step. When it comes to recognizing behaviors and changing behaviors, we have to know what is triggering them and have the awareness come up.

Our second step is to pause and to pay attention. For this, you will actually pause. So if you are doing something, you stop what you're doing, take a breath. And to pay attention, we're going to notice the physical sensations in our body. Is your heart rate increasing? Maybe you're feeling a little bit hot. Maybe your hands are getting clammy. Figure out how you're physically feeling in your body, and then name that emotion. Identify it. What is it that you are actually feeling in that moment? What emotion is being turned up for you?

Our third step is to practice compassionate curiosity. This is a phrase that I made up, but it means is we're going to get curious. We're going to be asking ourselves some questions, and we're going to do it in a compassionate way. Meaning we're not going to judge ourselves, we're just going to look at the facts and and look at the objective information that we can collect. We're going to remember that we're human, and that humans have negative emotions. It's not a bad thing. It's just part of the human experience. So we're not going to judge ourselves or say that things are good or bad, or you should or shouldn't be feeling a certain way. This is a neutral, safe space. We're going to get curious about it. By getting curious, we're going to look at the thought and the circumstance that came before the feeling that you are now in. What was the thing that happened that triggered you? What was the thought that you had that led to the feeling that you are now sitting in?

Our fourth step is we're going to do a positive reframe. We are going to look at how we can change either the circumstance or the thought in a positive way. That's going to help change the feeling that we are now sitting in. We will replace the thought with something more helpful, or we will change the circumstance. I will say sometimes we don't have control over the circumstance. We always have control over the thought. But both are an option if you're able to change the circumstance.

And the last step is to proceed. So now that we've had time to process on this, to think of a new thought, we're going to decide what it is that we need, and we're going to act. That might be sitting still. That might be going for a walk. That might be going in the other room and journaling or drawing or whatever it might be or yelling, whatever it is that's going to feel better and help you process the emotion.

Alright, so we've got our five steps. So let's run it through with an example. To show you what it might look like, I asked my friends on Instagram, what are some common situations that you find yourself emotionally eating? There are two main themes that popped up in all the responses, kids and work. I got a lot for kids, so that's the one that we'll walk through.

Let's set the scene a little bit. So let's say it's around dinnertime. You just got home, maybe you were grocery shopping. You walk in the door your kids are running everywhere. The table is a mess and you say "hey kids, can you clear the table so that we can get dinner going and move on with our night?" and instead of clearing the table they are running around? It is chaos in there right? They are throwing things. They're adding more things to the table. No one is listening. You're feeling that emotion start to bubble up and just like, "Oh, I just need some chocolate chip cookies." We are having a moment.

So our first step perceive, we're going to recognize when we're feeling a little bit triggered. When we start to recognize that frustration popping in, maybe the anger popping in, that's our first step.

Next, we're going to pause and pay attention. So I'm going to stop yelling at everyone to listen to me. I'm going to stop trying to put the groceries away. I'm going to just stand for a second and take a breath and I'm going to identify how I'm feeling. I'm getting a little warm, my blood pressure is rising, I can feel myself getting that frustrated. That's the actual feeling that I have, frustration and anger. So we've now identified it.

Third, we're going to practice that compassionate curiosity. We're going to recognize the compassionate part, I would say this is a very human experience. I can tell you from the messages that came in, when I asked for responses, this one came in frequently. So if you have felt this, you are not alone. This is a very human experience. We're also going to get curious about it. So what was the thing that happened? And what was the thought? So maybe the circumstance was I asked for people to clear the table, and nobody cleared the table. And what thought did I have? Maybe that thought, and this one did come up several times as well, was if I were a better parent, these kids would listen to me. So now I feel down on myself. Now I'm disappointed. Now I'm frustrated with myself and that is what is leading me to want to grab the chocolate chip cookies. That thought is having a negative impact on me.

Step four, we're going to positively reframe it. What is a more helpful thought that will help me to feel differently about this situation? Maybe I could choose to focus on how joyful my kids are being. They're chaotic, but they're happy, that's a positive. Maybe I can focus on how the kids feel safe enough to really express themselves, right? They feel at home. I have created an environment that feels like home for these kids. I'm not a parent, so I'm sure those of you that are parents know thoughts that may be more applicable there. But there's a lot of different things that we could choose to focus on, that's going to change how we feel.

Then our fifth step is going to be proceed. We're going to decide what we need in this moment and we're going to act on that. That could be recognizing that dinner is going to be late today. I'm going to accept the fact that dinner is late and these kids can play and that's fine. Or maybe that's I'm going to go in the other room and just sit for five minutes and do a quick meditation or a breathing exercise. Or maybe I'm going to say, "hey, we need to get our energy out. Let's all go for a brief walk. Let's get outside, and then come back and try this again".

Once you've been through those steps, you can choose a way to proceed, that feels helpful and that aligns with your values. Rather than going into our unconscious habits of just turning to food, something that maybe has been helpful before likely has been that's why we keep coming back to it. We can process this whole experience and choose how we want to proceed from here.

Hopefully that helps illuminate a little bit of what the process looks like. It is a simple process. It is not an easy process. That's where practice comes in. Maybe I should add that as the sixth step practice, right? You repeat this over and over again, it takes time.

There's lots of other emotional regulation skills. This is one that the research shows has been helpful, but there are many other ways and individual ways that we all are able to turn down the emotions.

So this week, I would encourage you to consider on what has been helpful for calming your emotions in the past, and how might you use those skills when it comes to emotional eating?

We all have different experiences, things that have worked for us, things that really mesh well for us. How can you use those strengths and those skills that you have in emotional eating and processing emotions?

That is what I've got for you today. Hope this was helpful and I am excited to be back next week for part three of our emotional eating series. Have a wonderful week and I look forward to talking with you then!

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.

References:

1. Crockett, A.C., Myhre, S.K., & Rokke, P.D. (2015). Boredom proneness and emotion regulation predict emotional eating. Journal of Health Psychology, 20(5), 670-680.

2. Evers, C., Stok, F.M., & de Ridder, D.T.D. (2010). Feeding your feelings: Emotion regulation strategies and emotional eating. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(6), 792-804.

3. Spoor, S.T.P., Bekker, M.H.J., Van Strien, T., & van Heck, G.L. (2007). Relations between negative affect, coping, and emotional eating. Appetite, 48(1), 368-376.

4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/emotion-regulation

5. https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotional-regulation-skills