Food: The Comfort Connection

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Related Episodes:

• Emotional Eating at Work
• Is Food a Reward?
• How Your Childhood Affects Eating Habits Now

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Full Episode Transcript:

Food: The Comfort Connection

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. So today I want to talk about something that I know a lot of you career women do, because I did the same thing for many years. That is, using food as a reward, oftentimes for a tough day. That can be a tough day at work, a tough day at home, a combination of the two, or even just a difficult or uncomfortable situation or circumstance.

And the title of this podcast episode is “Food: The Comfort Connection”, because that’s really sort of what prompts us to use food as a reward. The comfort from the food. The food is providing a very short-term pleasure, which is a feeling of comfort, and that can feel like a major reward after a tough day or circumstance. Because who doesn’t want to be comforted after something uncomfortable has occurred?

So, in this episode, I’m going to give you some reasons of why you may be linking food and reward together. I’m also going to give you some strategies for some of these to help you to decrease or even stop completely using food as a reward, or a comfort.

Because we all know, we’re not choosing the steamed broccoli or the baby carrots to reward ourselves after a long, stressful day. We choose the foods that are much higher in calories, because they are high in sugar, fat and also oftentimes salt.

Okay, so the first thing that I want you to know, which is perhaps the most important thing, is that if you’re using food as a reward or a comfort, you are completely normal. This is a very common behavior, especially for career women. It’s common for career women especially because of lots of different stressors and circumstances.

Balancing work and home schedules, pressure to produce at work, putting out fires at work or even at home, and if you’re a parent, the additional things you deal with there.

Alright, so I’m going to go through some reasons why you may be using food as a reward. Just one of these might resonate with you, or several of them might resonate with you. But again, this is completely normal, and that’s just because our human brains were designed in a certain way for survival purposes. And now, it just translates to something that’s not quite as useful and can even be harmful to your emotional and physical health.

That’s mainly because of the types and amounts of foods you may be eating, and because instead of managing your emotions in much more effective ways, food is just sort of putting a little Band-Aid on it temporarily.

So, a very common reason to use food as a reward after a tough day is because the food is providing a feeling of comfort for uncomfortable emotions. So, think emotional eating. Any emotion that’s uncomfortable such as stress, tension, anxiety, irritation, overwhelm, we don’t really want to be experiencing, right? Or at least 99.8 percent of us don’t really want to be sitting there feeling stressed or anxious or overwhelmed.

So, a quick and easy way to feel better or feel comforted when you’re feeling an uncomfortable emotion, is to eat food. Especially certain types of food, because they are going to spike dopamine and serotonin more so than others. Chocolate cookies are going to spike dopamine and serotonin more than steamed broccoli.

That’s why you tend to go for foods like cookies or chips over the broccoli, even though you know broccoli has more nutrients in it. And even though you may be on a weight loss or eating habit journey, of course your brain is going to be pulled in the direction of the cookies and chips, rather than the broccoli. Again, completely normal period there’s nothing wrong with you.

At some point in the past, most likely in your childhood, actually I can say that with 100% certainty that it was in your childhood, you eat delicious food, and dopamine and serotonin were released in your brain. You felt the pleasure from the dopamine and the comfort from the serotonin. Because you experienced the pleasure and comfort from those two hormones, also known as neurotransmitters, your brain linked the delicious food and feeling good or feeling comforted.

Fortunately, after you get a spike in these two hormones, you then get a big dip, which can contribute to desire to keep eating more and also cravings in the future. So, when you keep feeding into this whole rise in dopamine and serotonin, it just sets you up for overeating and for establishing really strong cravings in the future.

The more this sequence of events occurs with feeling something uncomfortable, eating a delicious food that spikes the dopamine and serotonin to get the pleasure and comfort, the stronger the link gets.

So, if you ate a lot of those delicious foods when you were younger, then most likely the link between food and pleasure and comfort was strengthened significantly. Especially if you were in a lot of uncomfortable situations and then either your parents gave you food to provide you comfort, or you were able to just go and get the food yourself to provide you comfort.

It doesn’t even necessarily have to have occurred often in childhood either. If later in life you ate a lot of those delicious foods, at times where you are feeling an uncomfortable emotion, the stronger the link is.

So, how do you stop emotionally eating question or how do you stop using food as a comfort with an uncomfortable emotion? There are a few ways.

One of the most effective ways is to learn how to feel your feelings. Or learn how to feel your emotions. We don’t want to feel those uncomfortable emotions, which is why we use the food to sort of escape from it. Or cope with it. It’s the easy way. And when everything else is going on in our life, we want the easy way, right?

But the way that I teach you how to feel your feelings, is actually pretty simple. And once you get the hang of doing it, it becomes easier. Our brains just like to think that we have to go with the easiest way, which is the food. But that’s just making things worse. Because you’re not really feeling your feelings, they just get buried. And they just pile up higher.

It’s like having dirty laundry in your closet. Unless you take the laundry down to your washing machine, it’s going to stay there stinking. And it’s just going to build up and get more stinky.

Emotions are like that too. If you just ignore them, and let them keep piling up, without actually feeling them and then letting them be on their merry way, the uncomfortable ones will get more and more uncomfortable. They’ll get more stinky just like the laundry. You don’t want that.

Another way to stop emotionally eating and using food as comfort, is to find other things that can provide a feeling of comfort instead of food. For example, one of my clients likes to cuddle with her dog after work. This provides comfort for her. You can make a list of five to 10 things that provide you comfort, that are not food-related. It could even be a cup of soothing tea, or just lighting a candle and reading a book for 20 minutes.

So next up as far as a big when it comes to why and how food ends up being a reward and a comfort, is just getting into the habit or the routine of it. Remember how I mentioned a little bit ago, the sequence of events that occurs? So you feel something uncomfortable, or you had a tough day and you’re feeling relief that it is over with and you’re seeking out a reward. You go for the food that your brain already knows provides that dopamine and serotonin hit or release. You feel the pleasure and the comfort.

If that whole sequence has become a habit because you do it so frequently and in a similar context each time, meaning time place or circumstance, then that can be a reason why at this point you’re continuing to use a certain food or certain foods as a reward. You might feel like you’re completely out of control of your behavior because you’ve been doing it so frequently. It’s become it. It’s become automatic. You don’t even really think about it, you just come home from work and go straight for the chocolate or the chips that are in the cabinet.

What works well for helping this, is of course the above things that I mentioned about learning how to feel your feelings and even finding some alternatives to provide comfort or a rewarding feeling. In addition, because a habit has been formed, that habit has to be broken.

So, to break a habit, you need to make the behavior more difficult to do, and you need to see the reward as less than you’re currently seeing it. What I mean by this is right now, if this is a habit for you, your brain continues to do it, because it’s providing some sort of reward.

So, you need to find something that’s healthier, that’s a greater reward, so that the reward you’re currently getting from the food isn’t quite as good as the new reward. The new, better reward might be finding something like I mentioned earlier that is not food, but provides a rewarding, comforting, or fulfilling feeling. Like the reward of knowing that you are going to be a healthier, happier you once you break this habit. Because most likely this habit is causing some sort of emotional, mental, or physical negative outcomes.

Just knowing that once you get on the other side of this, you’re going to be healthier and happier, is very rewarding, and that can be added to the things you brainstormed earlier. Your brain may be currently telling you “but the cookies are so tasty and rewarding”. But really when you think about your future and how you really want to be feeling and showing up in the world, the short-term pleasure from the cookies really worth it? I know you know it’s not. You just have to remind your brain in the moments that it’s not. It’s like “hey brain, I know the cookies are tasty, but I’ve got goals and I have plans, and you’re not going to get in my way.”

And I want to mention that mindless eating is something that sort of falls under the habitual part of this. You’re not quite fully aware that you’re eating to feel better or using food as a reward, because you’re just so in the habit of doing that that it’s mindless.

So intentionally being more mindful when you’re eating can be very helpful as well. This means paying attention to and really appreciating each bite of food that you’re taking.

If you are using food as a reward, and you’re having difficulty breaking this habit, something you can try is just savoring each bite of the food that you’re using as the reward, instead of just sort of mindlessly eating and not paying attention and then overeating.

Because at least by being more mindful, you’re being more intentional. And that can be a good first step of breaking out of the habit of using food as a reward or comfort. And if you want to learn more about mindful eating, I have several blog posts about it on my website katemjohnston.com. I also have at least one or two podcast episodes on it.

Alright, two more reasons why you may be using food as a reward. One is social and cultural influences. Meaning, social gatherings, celebrations and even cultural traditions that often revolve around food. Because we all know, a birthday celebration always has to have a birthday cake. And every holiday always has to have a wide array of food. Now of course it’s fun to use food as a celebratory thing, and it’s not like this happens most days of the week, but if you feel that it is contributing to some negative results for you, then it may be something that you wish to address.

A really great thing to focus on in social situations like these is focusing on the other people around you. Focus on the thing or the person that’s being celebrated. Focus on the meaning behind whatever cultural tradition is occurring. Focusing on these things more so than the food will help to just make you feel better overall, but it’ll also help you to see that you don’t need the food as a reward. You don’t need to link the food with having a good time. Because now you’re starting to link connection with having a good time.

OK, the final thing that I wanted to talk about as far as the reason why you may be using food as a reward or comfort is because of a lack of self-compassion or self-love. Food may be the only way that you know of to show yourself some self-love or self-compassion, so in this sense it’s like a gift, maybe more so than a reward. Especially if no one taught you how to have self-love or self-compassion. Or especially if you weren’t given love during your childhood or weren’t given compassion.

Now getting love and compassion from an external source such as parents is super important, but also learning to get it from yourself or to have it for yourself is super important as well. And if you’re lacking any of these, you may have learned to just give yourself food to feel a lot better.

This may have been your way of showing yourself some love. But let’s find different ways to show yourself some love and compassion. Because food is just a short-term thing. It’s external, it’s meaningless. But how you think about yourself is internal, and long lasting. How you think about yourself affects how you feel about yourself.

So, if you want more self-love, you’re going to have to start thinking more thoughts that promote that feeling of self-love. And you may have to start very gradually. But this is something that is very important, or at least this is my philosophy with helping my clients changed their eating habits, is making sure that there is self-love and self-compassion there. And if there’s not, then increasing these.

Alright my career women, think about which of these you fall into. Also, be sure to supplement this podcast with a weekly email from me every Sunday morning to kickstart your week, especially coming off the weekend, when eating habits can be a little more tricky. To get the Sunday morning email, just go to “Weekly tips” on my website or if you’re listening directly from a podcast listening app like iTunes, Spotify, or Amazon, you’ll see a link there to sign up for the weekly tips. It’s quick and easy.

Thanks so much for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you next week.