Why does the habit of seizing stress arise? Ways to get rid of emotional instability for adults. How can you help children cope with stressful situations? Stress is a non-specific reaction of the body to irritating factors, which can be negative emotions, overvoltage of various types, prolonged psychological instability, and temperature factors. If all other changes in conditions cause a reflex need to adapt, then the release of adrenaline during stress can provoke decisions that negatively affect the general condition and can put the body on the brink of survival.
Description of the habit of seizing stress
At first, the person himself and his environment, if metabolic processes are normal, do not notice psychological gluttony. The teenager becomes not much constitutionally denser than his peers, the weight of young people is at a borderline level - how not to seize stress with food, you can not think about it.
But gradually, with age, metabolic processes slow down, due to an unbalanced diet, fat begins to accumulate, and the threat of obesity appears.
Direct consequences of obesity:
- Acceleration of the development of degenerative processes of the musculoskeletal system - due to the increased load, the joints of the foot, knees, pelvis are destroyed, the vertebrae are deformed;
- Pathologies of the cardiovascular system - the heart, surrounded by a fatty layer, works slower, excess cholesterol is deposited in the vessels;
- The liver functions are impaired - it does not have time to process fat, which increases the likelihood of developing fatty hepatosis.
If you do not solve the problem of how not to seize stress, in the future you will have to treat varicose veins, obesity of the liver and heart, think about how to eliminate constipation. All these diseases are a direct consequence of excess weight gain.
To understand if there is a habit of seizing stress, there is a special test, the questions of which must be answered as honestly as possible:
- Do I eat something tasty when I'm annoyed or worried?
- When I'm bored, do I open the fridge or unwrap the candy?
- Do I reward myself after a personal victory by going to the cafeteria or buying my favorite treat?
- Do I need to eat something after getting out of a difficult situation?
- Do not the following thoughts arise: “I am sitting alone, but I can relax and eat whatever I want”?
If the presence of excess weight up to 4 kg coincides with a positive answer to at least one of the above questions, then you should think about how to get rid of it.
Why the habit of seizing stress occurs
When stressed, organic systems release different hormones, each of which is responsible for specific behavioral responses. Adrenaline and norepinephrine are fast-stress hormones produced by the pituitary gland, they force you to make quick decisions, but cortisol, synthesized by the adrenal glands, stimulates mental functions, thanks to which the problem can be solved. An increase in blood cortisol levels is directly related to hunger.
Why does a child get stuck in stress
It seems to adults that young children who grow up in a loving family do not experience stress. There is no reason for them, there is a loving family nearby that provides all the needs.
However, babies have a lot of reasons for stress - mom's leaving, visiting kindergarten, vaccinations … Even walks with parents associated with a change in the environment, causing overexcitement, can provoke a stressful situation for the child's body.
The first stress associated with food, the baby experiences during birth. His adrenal glands, already a few days before giving birth, produce cortisol in excess, which accumulates and enters the bloodstream already during the passage through the birth canal. From the moment of birth, the newborn has a need for food and warmth. The first need to seize stress has already appeared. The newborn screamed, they put him to his chest, he ate and calmed down.
Relatives strengthen the reflex need to seize stress. The easiest way to switch the attention of a capricious child is by giving him something tasty. The baby is once again applied to the breast, already from 1, 5-2 years old, the baby can be offered to switch his attention from the irritant, candy or ice cream.
Gradually, in difficult situations, a habit is formed in which the child's body begins to experience carbohydrate hunger.
While children are small, parents are happy with every bite they eat, so the little ones believe that the more they eat, the more satisfied the parents will be. If the child is not confident in himself and in the support of relatives, then he tries to bring them joy in such a simple way.
Systematic overeating often leads to obesity, and already in adolescence, they begin to think about how to stop seizing stress and get rid of bad habits and excess weight.
Why adults seize stress
When an adult begins to think about what to do if I seize stress all the time and this has already become a problem, he rarely tries to understand why he has formed this habit.
The constant desire to eat something tasty in moments of emotional distress cannot be explained only by the influence of adults during early childhood; there are other reasons for the development of this reflex.
Consider the reasons for the habit of seizing stress:
- In the family, food was treated with increased frugality, it was possible to gorge itself only on holidays, when guests came or went to visit themselves. In this case, pleasant emotions will be associated with delicious food.
- The family had strong traditions, one of the old rules was strictly observed at the table, thanks to which the saying appeared: "When I eat, I am deaf and dumb." A reflex chain is developed: food is a refuge, or a more modern formulation: "When I chew, I am in the" house ", nothing touches me, and I do not touch anyone."
- An unhealthy inheritance that causes some special reactions in the nervous system, when the excess reproduction of cortisol is drowned out by food, without being aware of this.
- Many people in conditions of prolonged emotional instability become lethargic, they do not want to do anything, even take care of themselves and cook. But the body requires the intake of nutrients, and in case of emotional disorders, they begin to actively "nibble", that is, they drag into their mouth everything that can drown out the feeling of hunger. And most quickly it can be drowned out with something sweet or fat that does not require cooking - a piece of sausage, sweets, cakes …
How to stop eating stress and loneliness for an adult
To understand whether there is an emotional dependence on food, you need to analyze your behavioral habits and the presence of excess weight. If its amount reaches 2-4 kg, it's time to think about how to stop seizing stress.
How not to seize stress with dietary adjustments
The adjustment to change the diet should begin with an analysis of your own dietary regime. It is best to keep a diary for this, in which you will need to note how much you ate during the day, after what time you took food, what emotions caused a snack. When you keep a food diary, loneliness is even beneficial - it becomes possible to analyze your feelings.
Recommendations for correcting the diet:
- It is not necessary to choose a strict diet for yourself; it is enough to exclude an excess of sweets and fatty foods from the diet.
- You should focus on your diet. It is better to stay on a fractional regime - to eat every 3-4 hours so that the amount of glucose in the blood is at the same level and there is no feeling of hunger.
- It is necessary to maintain the norm of vitamin D in the blood - the level is determined using an analysis. It is this vitamin that helps to assimilate potassium, calcium, magnesium, stabilizes the immune status. To replenish the reserve of vitamin D, cod, mackerel, tuna, cottage cheese, butter, cheese, kefir, fermented baked milk should be introduced into the diet. To fully provide yourself with vitamin D for the day, you can eat a plate of oatmeal in the morning, and a serving of baked potatoes in the afternoon.
- Instead of high-calorie foods or sweets, you can eat a low-calorie cracker.
- Replacing food intake in a stressful situation can be the absorption of fluids. After or at the time of difficult experiences, you can first drink a few sips of juice (grape or apple), and then replace it with water. Water filling the stomach makes you feel full.
- Don't carry sweets or cookies with you. They can be replaced with fresh fruits such as apples. At the same time, you will be able to seize stress and replenish vitamin reserves.
- The refrigerator should contain a minimum of food, and everything from the healthy food list. Unsweetened yogurt, low-fat cottage cheese and sour cream, meat to be cooked, side dishes - cereals, vegetables. It is necessary to create such conditions that all food needs to be cooked.
You should not starve or go on a starvation diet to combat the stress of overeating. Constant malnutrition is also a stress factor for the body, which can again provoke weight gain or the development of organic diseases.
During meals, you should chew food thoroughly, not be distracted by irritants. So you can notice a feeling of fullness and in the future, stop seizing stress.
How to avoid stress eating with a hobby
There is an opinion that doing something interesting is possible only in a team. But there are many activities in which it is desirable to be alone, in silence - those who wish can turn on pleasant music, the sound of the surf, the sounds of the forest or something soothing.
Alone you can knit, embroider, sew, weave macrame, play computer games, make soap, make bouquets … It's hard to tear yourself away from all these activities, and your hands are always busy - you can't unconsciously "throw" an extra piece into your mouth.
How to stop eating stress by keeping a diary
If it is difficult for a person to communicate "in real life" or to tell unfamiliar interlocutors about their feelings, it is advisable to keep a personal diary. It needs to describe in detail what makes you nervous and annoying. That is, after an annoying situation, you need to run not to the refrigerator, but to the diary - to accurately describe what caused the emotional instability and how it manifests itself.
A detailed and clear description of the stressful situation takes a significant amount of time, and when the work is finished, the feeling of hunger disappears.
In the future, with your works of authorship, you can go to the Internet forum - it is easy to find like-minded people there. There are many communities: by interests, regular communication, gaming communities, and others. Internet communication can be translated into real, so at the same time it will be possible to solve the problems of seizing stress and loneliness.
What to do if you seize stress: advice from a psychologist
If immediate stress and long-term emotional instability have caused problems with excess weight and affected the state of the nervous system, you can consult a psychologist.
The most common recommendations in this case:
- Normalize the daily routine, fully rest, eliminate insomnia, try to calm down. For the treatment of insomnia and as sedatives, you can use folk recipes - collections and decoctions of mint, lemon balm, chamomile, valerian. Vitamin and mineral complexes with a high content of B vitamins - "Neurovitan" or "Neurobeks-Forte", have a calming effect.
- During the day, you should choose the time to go out of the house: walking in the fresh air, visiting museums, or exercising. All activities should be enjoyable and distract from problems. You should not give preference to shopping: for women, of course, it is a pleasure, but in the future you will have to solve another problem - how to get rid of the acquisition of unnecessary things.
- It is advisable to master the “STOP” technique, which consists of 4 steps. As soon as you feel irritation, emptiness appears inside, dry mouth, heart rate increases, other stress symptoms appear, which may include nausea, headache and intestinal cramps, you need to say to yourself "STOP", take a deep breath and try to disconnect from what is happening inside yourself … Observing the environment, you need to try to describe it and pronounce it to yourself. So it is possible to switch the body from the main stimulus without food support.
- You can listen to good music, relax, work in the garden. Active relaxation increases the adaptive capacity of the human body.
A psychologist can help you master auto-training, advise you to do yoga, recommend individual lessons that will help you relax.
If stressful situations cause impaired behavioral reactions and seizure of stress is caused by pathological metabolic disorders, treatment with medications - sedatives, tranquilizers, sometimes even psychotropic drugs - may be required. All appointments must be entrusted to a specialist.
What to do for parents if the child is seized by stress
As already mentioned, parents are to blame for overeating under stress or in a state of emotional instability in children under 2 years old - they are trying to give a crying baby a breast or an older baby something tasty. As soon as the baby grows up, he himself, when he feels bad, can take something to chew on. Moreover, calming the "child", relatives often offer him to drink tea. And what tea is without a bun with butter or without sweets?
Stress treatment for babies 2-5 years old
Young children are very sensitive to stress. Common symptoms of stress are nausea, vomiting, and headaches caused by vasoconstriction. These symptoms are eliminated by giving the child something sweet: the blood sugar rises and the temporary discomfort disappears. But such "therapy" also contributes to the development of a bad habit - stress seizing.
Proper preparation for stress will help to avoid the use of sweets if the child is in a difficult situation for himself.
Tips for combating overeating in young children:
- Children who are prone to stress need to be prepared in advance for any situation that can provoke emotional instability. For example, before the first "visits" to the kindergarten, you can play hide and seek with your baby so that he understands that the absence of his parents is only temporary and he will definitely be taken away.
- If the baby is overexcited from noisy events, it is better to walk home after them. You should not buy something from food on the way home - you should eat in your kitchen and "baby" products.
- "Baby" foods are the right healthy foods to cook, as with stress in adult treatment. If there is soup, the second and the third, in the refrigerator, then the baby, even after strong excitement, will not "bite", but will wait for his parents to feed him. You should eat only at a predetermined time.
- The only supplement to the diet after intense excitement can be a glass of milk with a drop of honey before bedtime or tea made from fennel, linden, lemon balm or chamomile.
- You need to get used to putting your baby to bed at the same time.
- In no case should a child be allowed to eat at the computer, and the time for playing with gadgets should be limited to 30-40 minutes a day.
If sweets are given to children after a meal, then the body will not feel the need for glucose and gradually the habit of "seizing stress" will disappear.
How to wean children 6-12 years old from seizing stress
The main methods of dealing with overeating after stress in future first graders and primary schoolchildren are the same as in toddlers 2-5 years old, but a few more points must be added:
- Children at this age can already buy "harmful sweets" for themselves and seize stress with them. While it is difficult to prevent such behavior, it is possible. Children should always be well fed. In the morning they need a hearty breakfast, if there is any test - a competition, an exam, first of all, they need to feed them homemade food so that a snack after intense stress is not required.
- If the parents pick up the child after the event, ask him about what happened in detail, he, retelling, gets distracted and forgets about the desire to have a snack.
- In early school age, online games and online communication are common causes of stress in children. Having lost a computer game or not getting along with Internet friends, the child "seizes" frustration - usually a plate of cookies or sweets is always at the computer. If you do not allow to eat while exercising with a computer and dose the time that children spend at it, then there will be neither unnecessary stressful situations, nor the possibility of overeating.
How to stop seizing stress - watch the video:
If children feel supported even when they fail, they will have no need to seize stress. When they grow up, this bad habit will not poison their lives.
