50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food (7 page)

~self-soothing technique~

Practice the Art of Reframing

1. Evaluate your language. Write down any negative words that you use to describe the situation (failure, stupid, worst ever, and so forth).
   
2. Choose new words. For example, change “failure” to “stumble.” A “relapse” can be made into a “reminder” or even a “chance to start again.”
   
3. Consider how you can use this experience as a teaching moment. A
   teaching moment
   means taking a difficult situation and weaving an important lesson into it. We often see teaching moments with kids. If your toddler makes a negative remark about someone’s weight, that’s a good moment to talk to the child about being sensitive to others and accepting them, no matter what they look like.
   
4. Now get a pen or pencil and a stack of 3 by 5 index cards. Write down a valuable lesson that you learned from a particular situation you are currently dealing with or from an earlier experience. Post this card in an easy-to-see location.
   

Let’s say you just had an episode of emotional eating. And let’s say that you tried to use a breathing technique to stop mindlessly snacking in the kitchen, but it didn’t work. You could reframe this incident as “good information.” Why? Perhaps this incident taught you that if you first get yourself out of the kitchen, the breathing exercise might work better. Write this advice on the 3 by 5 card.

You can use reframes in two ways: They can help you change your perception of a stressful situation. Or you can use them to help you cope and recover from incidents of comfort eating. Let’s say you ate a bag of M&M’s when you weren’t really hungry, and now you feel guilty. You can say the following statements to yourself, not to condone emotional eating, but to encourage you to move forward:

• This is a challenge, not a problem.
  
• With crisis comes opportunity.
  
• This is a learning experience. It is a great lesson.
  
• Someday I will laugh about it, and it will be a great story to tell.
  
• This could be much worse. I have it better than some others do.
  
• It’s great just to be alive. Hurt is a part of life.
  
• The glass is half full, not half empty.
  
• There are more things I like about myself than the one thing I focus on disliking.
  
• Stressing-out is a waste of time. Everything will come out alright.
  
• Everything happens for a reason. I have faith in that.
  

I used to find myself daydreaming about food. I’d drift off into a land that’s a little like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Now I have a variety of recurring, comforting daydreams to choose from. One is a about a vacation on the beach. Another is about cuddling with my boyfriend on a stormy night with a glass of wine. The last one is about winning the lottery. (I can dream can’t I?) I take a long time thinking about all the things I would do with the money. Daydreaming about happy things distracts me from food fantasies and comforts me.

—Wendy

Wendy hates feeling out of control. Any situation that seems completely out of her hands feels awful. She used to find herself fantasizing about food when she felt so upset and out of control. Now she turns to her mind to steady herself. In her personal fantasyland, she has complete control over where her mind travels and what she is feeling, even if she doesn’t have that kind of control in real life. Feeling mentally in charge is very soothing to Wendy and it is a nice option when what she really wants to comfort herself is not available. For example, Wendy often dreams about being pampered in a spa, even if there is no spa in her immediate environment. There’s no doubt that daydreaming can fill the time that you might be thinking about food with other things that are pleasurable to think about. It also helps to curb the eating Wendy does when she is bored. Fantasizing about going on a vacation or buying a new outfit can distract and soothe Wendy for quite a long time.

Try to steer clear of imagining yourself eating in your daydreams. Sometimes people daydream about what they’re going to eat for dinner, luscious desserts, or even what would taste great right in the moment. Most likely this will only increase food cravings. If you find yourself daydreaming about food, stop and actively redirect your thoughts to a more neutral or positive fantasy, such as going on a desired vacation or being with someone you love.

~self-soothing technique~

Soothing Aspirations

Create a poster with a visual array of pleasurable activities. Use images that relate to your daydreams and to healthy ways to soothe yourself. Making a poster like this is not a new concept. Goal charts and vision boards have been around for a long time. This task is unique, however, because it is not focused on material things or goals for success. Instead, you will create a visual image to remind yourself that there are many ways to soothe yourself that do not involve eating or food.

This exercise activates your visual memory. Some people are very strong visual learners. They need to see something to remember it, instead of reading or hearing about it. Looking at a picture is another route for encoding memory. When you’re seeking ways to calm down, an image from this poster might pop into your mind.

1. Buy a piece of heavy poster board (8½ by 11 inches or 11 by 14 inches).
   
2. Get a stack of magazines. It would be helpful to have several different genres represented, like health, nature, news, and women’s magazines.
   
3. Close your eyes and think for a moment. Or look through the magazines for inspiration. Ask yourself, “What do I find soothing besides food?” Cut out pictures of someone meditating or doing yoga. Find a picture of a sunset or someone sailing on a placid lake. When you are feeling the urge to stress eat, these images will represent the type of calmness you’d like to have. Paste them down on the board.
   
4. You can also add words of encouragement or even poems to the images on the board. Include motivational words, phrases, and affirmations.
   
5. Include images of fun activities and places you daydream about visiting.
   
6. There is one rule: stay away from unhealthy images, even if they’re enticing. That means no skinny supermodels. Don’t use pictures of overweight people either. (Some people try to scare themselves away from overeating.) When you look at this picture, remember that you want to create a soothing effect, not a frightening one.
   
7. Display your poster where you’ll see it frequently; for example, above your desk, on your bathroom door, or somewhere in your kitchen.
   

I seem to worry about twenty times a day. Mostly I worry about my fiancé. He hates his boss. They don’t treat him fairly at work. Every night I make dinner for the two of us. Then I pick at the meal as I anxiously wait for him to come home. I find myself worrying about how things went at work for him that day, and what kind of mood he will be in when he walks in the door.

—Lori

We all worry way too much. Many of us spend too many of our waking hours obsessing about things we can’t control, and we become distraught about situations that may or may not occur. Although we know it isn’t good for us, it’s very hard to stop. “Worry eaters” is the term used for people who nibble or graze on food as a way to cope with their fretting. They are often drawn to eating because it feels as though they are doing something besides worrying. However, whatever you are worrying about is often out of your control. Most of the time, there is nothing you can do to change the outcome of the situation. As a result, you may feel a strong urge to get busy. Unfortunately, cooking and snacking give you something to do.

If you are in the habit of eating when you worry, it might help to do something that feels productive. Ask yourself what you have the power to do in the moment. Then focus on creating a plan to make it happen. For example, if you are worried about your finances, make a budget. Take charge of what you can control. It will feel very good.

A major downside to worrying is that it uses a lot of time and emotional energy. It also jeopardizes your health and may cause you to lose sleep or feel physically ill. For emotional eaters, worry definitely can increase your vulnerability to overeating. When distracted by concerns, you’re less invested in what you put into your mouth. You can eat when your mind is elsewhere, particularly when you’re caught in a whirlwind of worry.

Also, worry is often the result of overeating rather than the cause. You can find yourself fretting about how much you just ate. But in that situation, you can’t control or change what happened. Focus on what you can do, now that the act of eating is over. Worrying about weight gain won’t make you feel better. Taking a walk will.

~self-soothing technique~

Worry Mindfully

One way to avoid nervous snacking is to worry mindfully. When you usually worry, it’s likely that your attention is divided between what you’re doing (or munching on) and the issue you’re worrying about. Instead of dividing your attention that way, carve out some time from your day to give your worry your full attention.

Here’s an example: When your mind begins to fret about something, say to yourself, “Not yet, I’ll get back to this later.” Postpone worrying until later that evening. Then, when you’ve got the time, give yourself a good twenty minutes to worry. Set a timer so you won’t have to be concerned about the time. During the period you devote to this task, remember not to do anything else. Ask yourself, “What is the worst-case scenario for what I’m worrying about?” For a moment, visualize what would happen in this worst-case scenario. When you do this, you often find that your image isn’t a realistic fear or that it’s something that you wouldn’t like but could survive.

~self-soothing technique~

Worry Beads

Get a set of
komboloi
, which is the Greek word for worry beads. Traditionally, komboloi are used to help people relieve their worries when they’re fidgety or need to pass the time. The beads are popular because they’re believed to provide an antidote to a variety of unhealthy habits, such as biting your nails, overeating, smoking, and worrying. They work because massaging the beads with your hands has a calming and soothing effect. If you can’t find these worry beads, make your own. You can put as many beads on a string as you like. Cut a piece of yarn or string as long as the palm of your hand. Then tie a knot on one end and slide some beads onto the string. Tie a knot on the other end, leaving some slack between the beads so your thumb can release one bead to the next finger. The cord should provide enough space for the beads to move easily. Listen to the sounds the beads make as they fall from one end of the cord to the other. You can click the beads in any rhythm that you find calming.

When I get home from work, I am psychologically exhausted. I can’t handle one more question or chore. I make a beeline for an after-work snack. I need a bite to eat but I end up eating enough for a meal. Eating keeps my hands busy while I slip into an alternate dimension where I can’t think. I don’t really know what I am doing. I completely zone out like a zombie while I mechanically munch on snacks. When I’m done, it’s like I’m suddenly jolted out of a food coma. I think, “Oh, what have I done?”

—Jennifer

Jennifer comes home from work, stares blankly at the TV, and munches mindlessly on food for an hour. Like many people, Jennifer eats simply to zone out from the world for a while. This trancelike state shuts down her thoughts and dulls the sensations in her body. For Jennifer, this is a welcome change for her overloaded mind. Unfortunately, zoned-out snacking is a mental break that can be dangerously enticing.

There are many ways to experience zoning out, or resting your brain. Maybe you’ve tuned out during a conversation, or even spaced out while driving a car. When you wake up from mental cruise control, you realize that you’ve passed your destination and become aware of how mentally detached you were from driving. It’s pretty scary that you can drive, talk, and eat normally for a short while with very little thought involved. Eating to zone out can be drastically reduced when you have alternative ways to relax your brain. It all begins with giving yourself permission to shut down your mind, which may be a foreign concept if you multitask and juggle many different tasks at once.

~self-soothing technique~

Blank Mind

If you use food as a way to zone out, try out alternative ways to get a short mental break. Focus on repetitive, monotonous tasks. But first, get into the right frame of mind. Sit down. Give yourself permission to zone out. This part can be hard for busy moms, for type A personalities, or if you just have trouble sitting still. To help you work on emptying your mind, first imagine dumping out the contents of a wastepaper basket. Then imagine all the thoughts in your brain are pouring out of your head in the same way that you emptied the wastepaper basket. Now pick a mindless activity to do:

• Try flipping through a magazine. This is an activity that is barely active, mildly amusing, and doesn’t require any mental effort at all. Reading a book takes too much mental energy. But just looking at pictures and scanning through photos is enough to decompress mindlessly and can also absorb nervous energy.
  
• Watch TV. Turning on the TV can often help you zone out. Sometimes, however, it just isn’t active enough to keep you distracted. If watching TV doesn’t do it for you, try flipping the channels. Make sure you aren’t with others, as this will drive them a little crazy. This is similar to flipping through a magazine. The many images flashing before your eyes stimulate your mind and senses but don’t require any active mental work.
  
• Do you want to zone out totally? Try closing your eyes. Focus on staring at the void and the blackness on the inside of your eyelids.
  
• Get back to basics. Think about some of the things you liked to do as a child. There is nothing more calming than nostalgic memories from childhood, like shaping Play-Doh or coloring mindlessly. Playing doesn’t use much mental energy, and it’s fun, stimulates your imagination, and boosts your energy.
  
• Try origami, the ancient Japanese art of folding paper. Go to origami.com for hundreds of examples. This is a very easy and mindless activity that will keep your hands busy and out of the cookie jar.