Stress Reduction is Awesome
Am I suggesting that food should be the only way that you manage stress?
Nope.
Am I suggesting that if you eat, you won’t experience stress?
Nope.
But the act of not getting enough food puts stress on your body. Your body prepares for famine, and in doing so, activates a cascade of stress hormones to protect you because inadequate energy means you need stress hormones to function.
Another neat human trick for survival!
You can’t be both undernourished and simultaneously relaxed.
This applies whether you’re on a new year, new diet, are contending with an eating disorder, or just didn’t have the ability to eat because of a chaotic day. Your body doesn’t need to know the WHY. And it does know how to respond.
This applies to EVERY BODY. This is not dependent on body size. AT ALL.
Stress reduction is awesome.
Food is mandatory for engaging in ANY stress management anything.
Read: resilience
I think about this all the time.
I talk with my clients about this all the time.
By virtue of being children, we have fewer resources than we do as adults.
This is not a matter of opinion, but rather a fact.
This is why it is so essential for children to have healthy attachment figures.
This is why it is so important for children to have permission to eat all the food.
This is why it is so important for humans who are raising young humans to address their relationships with food and body and bias as they raise eaters.
AND
If you used food as a coping strategy as a child, that was an act of resilience. Not an act of gluttony. Or some naughty thing. This may well have been a means of survival. Read: resilience.
Because the act of eating leads to the release of neurotransmitters that help us feel good. This is not a matter of opinion. This is one of the reasons that humanity has persisted.
The act of eating leads to dopamine and norepinephrine release. The byproduct of eating certain food leads to serotonin release. These are…
REAL LIFE FEEL GOOD HORMONES.
When nothing feels good, eating does.
Reliably.
Consistently.
On a chemical level.
Thank goodness and gracious.
Many of my clients have experienced being shamed in the context of feeding themselves as young people.
Many of my clients experienced shame in response to their bodies changing related to eating resourcefully. Mostly projected on them by early attachment figures and medical professionals.
And it doesn’t matter if this body shame happened ten years ago, or thirty or fifty.
I know these memories stick around. And I’m sorry.
Your body was never a problem. Not then, and not now. You were resourceful and brave and I am so grateful that you persisted today.
How would your relationship with food change if you viewed it as a means of being resourceful?
How might you feel about your younger self if you reframed your eating patterns in the context of resourcefulness?