How to Stop Stress Eating for Career Women

It’s easy to think you need to remove the stress to stop stress eating.

Or that you need to have more willpower.

But what if neither of those is true? What if you can feel stress and not eat in response? What if you don’t need more willpower either?

I’m sharing how to stop stress eating for career women, in an easier way than you’d think. No extra willpower required and no expectations of eliminating stress either (Because let’s face it, that’s nearly impossible anyway.)

No Need to Get Rid of Stress

Stress is a normal human emotion. It was meant to be experienced and in fact, was (and still is to some extent) necessary for survival.

High, chronic levels of stress can have a negative impact on your health and you’ll certainly want to decrease that. However, occasional stress, or lower level stress is not life-threatening or “health”-threatening.

Therefore, unless you’re experiencing that higher level, more chronic stress, it’s not a harmful emotion.

Which means that you don’t need to get rid of it and especially not by eating food in response. This is really great news for career women, but stress is just going to be a natural part of your week or month.

• LISTEN OR READ: Emotional Eating at Work (Podcast Episode)
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Why You Stress Eat

Why humans and definitely career women can end up stress eating, is because stress feels uncomfortable. Because of that, it is often perceived as something that is harmful, so your brain wants it to go away quickly.

Food can provide pleasure and in a very quick and easy way. (You pretty much always have food available to you.)

So, your normal human will seek out food as a quick “treatment” to the discomfort (and perceived harm) of the stress.

Once your brain sees the short-term response of the stress getting a bit of relief from say, the chocolate chip cookies in the break room, it remembers this for next time.

Then the next time stress comes up, your brain thinks, “Oh, I have just the treatment for this.” And so the stress eating habit can begin.

• LISTEN OR READ: Stress Eating (Podcast Episode)
• LISTEN OR READ: My Emotional Eating Habit (Podcast Episode)

How to Stop Stress Eating

To stop eating in response to stress, you’re just going to teach your brain that although stress can be uncomfortable, if you don’t resist the discomfort or try to take it away with food, it’ll just resolve on its own.

Once your brain starts to see that, the stress doesn’t feel nearly as bad.

And you break that stress eating habit. Every time you experience stress, you won’t be automatically reacting by seeking out and eating food.

So the following are some simple steps for how to stop stress eating for career women who won’t be able to eliminate stress, but want to be able to handle it with ease.

Step #1 – Identify it

When you’re feeling stress and looking for that tasty food all of a sudden, just identify that you’re feeling stress. That’s it. Whether you’re in a meeting, at your desk, or at home. Just say to yourself, “I’m feeling some stress right now.”

By doing this simple first step, you’re getting awareness of the feeling itself. That creates a tiny pause in between the feeling and the reaction of seeking/eating food.

Step #2 – Invite it to Visit Temporarily

Right now, your brain thinks stress is a terrible, horrible thing that needs to go away quickly. That’s why you normally start seeking out that food.

So you just need to allow it to stay for a bit. This shows your brain that you can totally handle the physical sensations of the stress. Showing your brain this, means it’s less likely to feel like it needs food.

To do this, I recommend taking a moment to think something like, “oh hello stress, you’re just a feeling in by body right now, and you can stay just for a little bit, but then be on your way.”

Step #3 – Feel the Stress

Focus in on your body and notice how the stress feels. What are the actual physical sensations? If you can close your eyes to describe it, great. If not, you could just describe with words in your mind, or write it out on paper.

Doing this, makes the stress way more tolerable and feel much less harmful. (Don’t worry, you’ll get better and better at this as you go.)

Also, when you take a moment to do this, it creates space (time) in between the feeling of stress and automatically eating in response.

Step #4 – Don’t Worry

If you do the above steps and still eat in response, don’t worry.

You won’t break a stress eating habit on the first attempt. However, the more you do these simple steps, the better you’ll get and the more you chip away at the stress eating habit. Until it’s broken.

So, no matter if you’re stress eating at work, or at home, try to do this as often as you can. You’ll start noticing that the stress doesn’t seem so bad anymore, which is an added benefit.

• LISTEN OR READ: The 2 Biggest Emotional Eating Mistakes (Podcast Episode)
• LISTEN OR READ: 3 Thoughts to Overcome Emotional Eating (Podcast Episode)

Final Note and More Help

The ultimate goal with learning how to stop stress eating, is to have confidence that whenever stress comes up in the future, you’ll not be fearful of it. You’ll be able to handle it like it’s not a problem, which means you won’t be seeking out food to take the stress away.

The most important takeaway is that breaking a stress eating (or any emotional eating habit) is completely within your control. It’s just a matter of knowing some great tools, believing it’s possible, and sticking with it.

If you’re tired of trying to stop stress eating or any other emotional eating habit by yourself, I can help you.

Let’s talk via a FREE 60-minute consult. Book the free consult by clicking the button below.