Do you eat to help cope with emotional issues?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Sometimes.

Minor stress, like a long day, = I need a treat! (Preferably sugary. Ice cream or M&Ms, etc.) Something really terrible, though, causes me to lose my appetite completely, so that I have to force myself to eat enough to keep going. The worst thing that ever happened to me reduced me to toast and oranges for days.

Last summer, when we had no income and I was trying to take care of two kids in a hot summer with nothing, I found myself craving Frosties every few days. So, when I’m utterly broke, it turns out that I want Frosties, which is kind of an inconvenient desire if you have no money.

62

This, exactly.

olives, at least you realized it in grad school - I didn’t pick up on it until I was very much older.

63

I put “sometimes”.
There is a reason why some foods are considered “comfort food”.
When I was a little kid, my grandfather was very, very sick and he died when I was about 6 or so.
Still, I remember him showing me how to break up graham crackers, pour some sugar over it and then some milk and eat like cereal.
What I didn’t realize is that, due to his cancer, that was about all the kind of foods he could eat.

To this day, every once in awhile I get a craving for it if I feel depressed, or just want to settle in for a rainy night and watch Casablanca for the 148th time…

64

I find you to be an awesome, cool and hilarious poster, MOL, but these threads have been a bit frustrating. I took the time in the first thread to post cites that show eating releases serotonin and endorphins and you ignored my post completely, replying only to you with the face. Later on you’ve asked how eating can help you emotionally, when I had answered that back in the first thread.

I mean, the entire point of these threads is to show that there really are two kinds of people in this debate: people who do emotionally eat* and those who don’t. I mean, I’ve admitted I am an emotional eater and that I really can’t understand not being one, but I’m not saying several times how I just don’t see how it’s possible to be one at all.

  • For various flavors of emotional eating (some eat to cheer themselves up, or to cope with stress, or associate foods with different emotions, yadda yadda yadda. Emotional eaters will not always do all of these, just one or some).
65

Maybe I’ve been unclear. You’ll have to forgive me; I’m old and I drink a lot. I’m not saying that food doesn’t make you feel good. There’s a reason I don’t subsist entirely on plain, unseasoned rice, and obtain the rest of my nutrients through pill form. I enjoy eating food that tastes good. I do things that I enjoy because they make me happy. Yes, eating can produce serotonin, but the same is true of sunshine. If someone said to me, “Standing outside in the sun helps me cope with unpleasant emotions,” I’d say “How?” I like the sun too, but come on. Sunlight helped you through your breakup?

I guess here’s what’s making me seem like a goober. I don’t get people who eat, or shop, or sunbathe their feelings. I don’t do anything with my feelings besides *deal *with them. The only thing I can relate to even kind of is exercising, and not because it helps me cope, but because there are times (fortunately very, very rarely) when I am so consumed with rage that I have enough energy to stab a bunch of people, or to bicycle 20 miles. And while stabbing seems like a lot of fun, several people whose opinions I trust have told me it would be ill-advised.

One more thing: I was never unaware of the concept or existence of emotional eating or shopping, but I’ve always believed it was a behavior very few people engaged in.

66

Yes, but that’s what people who eat to help cope with emotional issues are trying to do, too. They just don’t know how to do it in a healthy way, but they’ve found eating to make them feel better. So, for them, eating is dealing with their feelings.

67

Ok.

68

I feel you. I’m also kind of mystified by people who have any method of coping with their feelings other than just coping with them, be it eating, drinking, taking drugs, cutting, or whatever. None of that works for me, and I’ve tried just about all of it. I once told a therapist that I *wished *I were a cutter or an alcoholic or something, because then I’d have at least some refuge from my pain, albeit temporary. I could say, “Either I can be unhappy for the next 4 hours, or I can have a six-pack/break out the razors/have a pizza, and then feel fine for the next 4 hours.”

But I can’t. If I’m angry, depressed, whatever, I can’t drown out the bad feelings with good feelings, no matter how good they are. In fact, when I’m upset, I have a hard time having good feelings at all. Food doesn’t taste good, sex doesn’t feel good, humor doesn’t make me laugh, alcohol makes me cry into my glass. At best, I can get blitzed out of my mind to the point where I forget that I’m me (or just don’t care that I’m me anymore), and since I can’t live like that 24/7, my only option is to deal with my feelings head-on.

So while I know, of course, that there are people who can actually alleviate bad feelings with (insert good-feeling thing here), I’ve never understood it, because it just doesn’t work that way for me at all. I know that it does work for some people, but I have no idea how. When people say, “Well, obviously, eating makes you feel better, duh!” it’s just as obvious to me that, no, it doesn’t.

69

And you’ll have to forgive the people who have lost patience with you; it’s roughly the 20th time people have tried to explain the exact same concept to you with you not even acknowledging most of us are talking, much less that we’ve answered your questions. Repeatedly. After a while it starts to feel like watching someone strain against a door until they break a sweat, bitching about why it won’t open and pointedly ignoring you pointing out the big red sign that says “pull to open.” It’s that level of frustrating.

70

I said “other”, because I lose my appetite when I’m really upset, and my appetite is normal when I’m happy, but I like to eat when I’m bored. I might indulge in something if I’ve had a bad day, but not “eating a box of cookies” indulge, just a small treat. Or I might go out for something good to celebrate something, but again, not a binge and not even necessarily something unhealthy (now I want sushi). But I have to be hungry, I don’t just eat for the sake of eating in these situations.

I’m not sure boredom counts as “emotional eating” (I don’t count it as such, but others might). I try to not be bored, as long as I’m occupied with something interesting, I only eat when I’m hungry.

71

Relax your sphincter. **zweis **said I ignored her post about eating making people feel good, which I did, because there was nothing in it I felt necessary to comment on. Here she addressed me again, but instead of ignoring it this time, I responded. Yes, I repeated myself, and yes you folks keep repeating yourselves. We aren’t getting anywhere here.

72

If it makes you feel better, I’d much rather have been ignored.

73

Well, it doesn’t really take care of the problem in the long term. Eventually the stress always comes back to bite me in the ass anyways.

Another point is that eating (or cutting, or playing video games, or whatever) can be classic avoidance behavior. Some people just get the ugly stuff out of the way right off the bat. A lot of us do not. I have a highly avoidant personality. I don’t like conflict, tedious or unpleasant work, or intense feelings (particularly anger). So I put these things off. Eventually I have to deal with them anyway, but it’s my instinct to just run away. It is not advantageous in the long term and in fact often makes things worse. But humans are pretty famous for screwing themselves over on a fairly regular basis.

I have worked hard my entire life to be more disciplined. I’ve accomplished a lot so I must have some degree of discipline. But that doesn’t erase the fact that my first impulse when faced with a difficult problem is oh hell I’m getting out of here. Whether I check out with food or the Straight Dope or exercise or actually running out the door in terror doesn’t make a difference–it’s all avoidance. Some methods are more effective and more empowering than others. I have learned that a hard run helps me more than a pig-out session at Panera Bread, and that video games are a better mood boost than internet. I have learned this by recording all my activities and assigning a numerical value to their impact on my mood. So I know myself, my behaviors and my motivations for those behaviors pretty well at this point.

And now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about the way I am wired. Usually when I am first confronted with a problem my emotions are running high and I am filled with negative energy. Retreating allows me to calm down, gather my thoughts and form a coherent and rational strategy. It prevents me from doing and saying things without thinking them through. If I ran away from my problems forever, this would be a bad thing, but once I’ve got a strategy I’m pretty good at implementing it, and I usually handle my shit pretty well. So this can both be a character flaw and an advantage, depending on how you let it shape your behavior.

So for some people, eating is avoidance behavior. For others, it’s ‘‘me time,’’ the equivalent of a spa bath or whatever it is people try to do for themselves so they don’t feel like cogs in a machine. For some people, it’s love or a status symbol, and to others, it’s just this thing you have to do to stay alive.

In conclusion, people are different.

74

How long is this making you feel better for? An hour? Two hours? Half the day? This is a completely serious question. I (clearly) can’t even wrap my head around this making me feel better at all, but I am as curious as little George. This is me, and then I’ll shut up.

On any given day, here are potential conversations between me and any random Imaginery Person:

  1. IP: Hey, do you want a turkey sandwich?
    Me: Hell yes! (Eats sandwich, is happier than before the sandwich)

  2. IP: Hey, do you wanna ride your bike by the river?
    Me: Hell yes! (Rides bike in the sun by pretty river, is happier than before the ride)

  3. IP: Hey, do you want these shiny earrings?
    Me: Hell yes! (Puts on shiny earrings, is happier than before the earrings)

Now here’s me when I’m feeling like a large pile of ass:

1a) IP: Hey, do you want a turkey sandwich?
Me: No
IP: But you like turkey sandwiches.
Me: Yes, but I have no desire for a sandwich now.
IP: Things that make you feel good ordinarily should make you feel good when you’re down.
Me: You’d think so, but not really.

2a) IP: Hey, do you wanna ride your bike by the river?
Me: Not in the mood.
IP: But riding your bike makes you happy.
Me: Not today.
IP: But exercise creates serotonin, therefore bicycling should fix you right up.
Me: Serotonins can go fuck themselves. Can’t you see I’m angry/sad/depressed/betrayed? A bike ride, as serotonin-producing as it is, isn’t going to do anything. So please just leave me alone with your tricks, and I’ll cope with my emotions like a normal person. I’ll deal with it, and feel well soon enough, but what you’re selling me won’t work. These gimmicks completely fail.

3a) IP: Hey, do you want these shiny earrings?
Me: (Glares)
IP: I’ll go now.

I thought since we were kids we realized that distractions (food or whatever) are horrible failures for helping people feel better. Yes, a lot of things typically create euphoria, but we quickly find they don’t work so well in the face of emotionally trying situarions. When I was in first grade I realized “Do you wanna play Coleco?” was a pisspoor question for helping a friend cope with emotions. Yes, we all like Coleco, but nobody who was in a bad mood actually felt better when playing, not just because it sucked, but because it in no way took away from a person’s shitty feelings. So I learned, before I was even old enough to do long division, that the only way to live though suckiness was to just deal with it. I honestly thought --no bullshit!-- that we all knew this, and offered up food or Coleco as gestures. Every time a friend is down, so we tell her favorite joke, or buy her ice cream, tell her favorite joke, give her her favorite wine, we know none of this is going to erase her mood, but we do it anyway. We want to try to make her feel better, even though we’re pretty sure we’re offering futile gestures. There’s no way any of this is actually making anyone feel good. Any good feelings stemmed from the gesture.

So when someone goes

  1. IP: Hey, do you want a turkey sandwich?
    Someone: Excellent. That will make me feel better.

I think WTF??!!???! Long term be damned. It makes people feel better in the *short term? Apparently this “we” I’ve kept referring to does not exist. Clearly the snacking or shopping helps for some, and I’m in my own little universe in this regard, but it just seems like goddamn dirty craziness to me.

In conclusion, I’d reckon as much.

*Not really.

75

I think you’re overemphasizing the importance of “just dealing with it” as a coping method.

IANAPsychologist or anything, but I am a nursing student who has taken psychology, mental health, and health promotion courses. In all of these I’ve learned that external coping strategies can be very useful and beneficial, and aren’t necessarily to be avoided. Of course, some strategies are worse than others for various reasons (e.g. tub of ice cream vs. going for a bike ride, using drugs vs. talking with or playing a game with a friend, binge shopping vs. dressing up nice for the day). Avoiding all external coping mechanisms in favor of “just dealing with it” is not a virtue.

You say many of these coping mechanisms are “futile gestures” and “there’s no way any of this is actually making anyone feel good.” But depending on what you’re offering, and on the individual person, your “gestures” may indeed help them feel better.

Of course, if a person’s only method to ever dealing with a problem is a coping mechanism, they might not be able to solve their problem long-term, but this doesn’t mean coping mechanisms are a bad thing. They help you cope in the short-term, and be able to deal with your problem somewhat until you can tackle it from another direction. If someone didn’t have a short-term coping mechanism, even if it’s not a perfect coping strategy, then they might be so overwhelmed by their problem that they can’t properly deal with the problem.

76

Eureka said what I was going to say - emotional stress, particularly depression, won’t change my appetite but it will make me more inclined to say screw eating properly, I need comfort food. Of course, then I feel like crap for the pizza and Klondike bar, which makes me more depressed, which cycles into bad habits.

77

I put down Yes. But then again, I’m down with Behaviorism and Classical Conditioning.

I’ll sometimes deliberately do this with people I love so that if I miss them, I can have something comforting to remind me of positive feelings. Sometimes food works out that way, sometimes it’s other things. But since food is one way to do it, I put down yes.

Like I don’t want a chocolate chip cookie when I miss my family. But I DO want my sister’s homemade cookies and cakes when I miss my family because they give me positive associations. So when I leave home, I always love it when she makes me cookies, and I tend to save them for such moments.

Or with certain friends, I just tend to order specific foods with them when we go out, because I deliberately want to associate X with Y. And so then later in life when I forget about these sorts of things- I come upon eating X sometime later and it reminds me of the good times of hanging out with Person Y. Apple Cider is one of those that I’ve used to do this.

Yeah, I’m weird. But so is science!

78

Thanks Waenara. That said a lot of what I was going to.

MeanOldLady, you asked how long these coping mechanisms work. I honestly don’t know. It all depends on the situation.

I only use food when I’m bored. I guess it works because I’m never bored when I’m eating! :smiley: But I honestly try not to do that (or to munch on something healthy when I cannot resist).

For strong emotions, I do sometimes use physical activity as a coping mechanism. How much and how long it works is really dependent on what I’m going through.

When I’m really stressed, I’ll take a brisk walk or go for a run. It does help. Usually, when I’m really moving my body, I can channel all that stress into the physical activity. I don’t know whether it’s some sort of flight-or-fight thing, whether I’m now conditioned to respond that way, or whether I’m just too exhausted to be stressed. All I know is I am *much *less stressed after a good workout. Once I’m calmer, I can examine what’s making me so stressed and deal with it. I have a hard time doing that when the stress is going up to 11!

Also, sometimes it’s just not the right time to deal with the emotion I’m feeling. For example, last week I felt tears coming while at work. I am not going to cry in the office. That would be a disaster. So I took a really brisk, energetic walk around our corporate campus. Again, translating the strong emotion into physical activity helped it go away. It was temporary and the situation making me sad was still there. But I didn’t break down in the office and that was a good thing.

79

Most often, the for me the connection goes the other way. If I’m hungry, I feel like shit. Ask my family and my SO and they’ll tell you that I turn into the worlds biggest grouch if I don’t keep myself regularly fed.

When I get depressed, I tend to avoid eating. This leads to a nasty feedback loop where I’ll be too listless to feed myself, so I feel bad, so I sort of curl up in an unhappy ball until I finally manage to get some food.

Very occasionally I’ll seek out comfort foods after a particularly bad day.

80

I eat less when I’m emotional. Stress makes food completely unappealing to me; all I want to do is drink gallons of coffee.