According to research, continued stress like the one all of us are experiencing due to the coronavirus pandemic can increase appetite. The hormones in our body that are responsible for creating motivation, as well as the motivation to appetite, see an increase in their production when we’re continuously stressed out. That is the reason why some of us use overeating as a stress-coping mechanism.
Unfortunately, not only does stress eating not overcome stress, it opens a Pandora box of a host of other problems including weight gain. That makes it necessary for us to check our eating habits in days like these when there is no one checking on us or our eating habits. We need to be in control of what, and how much, we eat if we’re to emerge from this lockdown with an under-control waistline.
Here are three tips using which I have kept my eating habits under control during self-isolation:
Connect with your loved ones
According to a trustworthy fact sheet on coping with stress during infectious disease outbreaks, we have to find social connections under these times to keep our stress in control. That means reaching out to our loved ones and sharing with us the stories of how we spend our day.
Of course, since both you and your loved ones will be self-isolation, you won’t have the most exciting stories to share. That is not necessary. You can talk about nerdy items like electrostatic disinfection technology if you think that would keep the conversation going.
What matters is that you hop on a conversation with them. It will lower down your stress levels and, hopefully, bring your stress-eating habit under control.
Recognize your triggers
Become clear in your mind about the things that divert your mind towards eating. This could be anything as serious as when you hear a bad news on television to going through ads of disinfectant cleaning companies telling you how your home could be a hotbed of the virus.
Once you have identified your triggers, try your level best to avoid them. If it isn’t possible, try to remind yourself when you come across them the unwanted behavior (stress eating) they evoke in you. This will keep you and not the thoughts in your mind at control over your behavior.
Apply ‘out of sight, out of mind’ method
Remember that time in your childhood when your mom hid away your playing equipment just to make sure you could concentrate on study? Well, it’s time now that you apply that method to yourself. Hide foods that you crave the most away from your sight so you can’t see them at every opportunity.
Provided you do that, you’d see that you’d automatically become less likely to dive in. The occupation of your mind by other thoughts will make it less likely for it to keep thinking about food.