Healthy Eating for Emotional Wellness Month

In October, you can dedicate some time to your emotional wellness. Taking care of your emotions is fundamental for better sleep and better communication skills. Ask yourself what you want to improve in your life to balance your emotions. Do you want to improve your eating habits? Do you eat more when you are stressed out?

Once you have asked yourself several questions, you might want to begin changing your unhealthy habits. For example, if you tend to eat too much junk food when you get out of work because of work stress; You might want to prepare healthy meals at home. There is a strong connection between food and your emotions. Pinpoint your food cravings based on your emotions. Next, find another activity instead of eating to replace your attachment to food. 

Drink water if you think you are hungry. Distinguish the difference between physical and emotional eating. Keep a journal to write your emotions. Additionally, have a food journal which is helpful for emotional eating. Make a schedule for your meals. 

Write down when you eat, what you eat, and how it makes you feel. Wait ten minutes before eating a snack craving. Instead of giving in to your food craving, practice calming down by doing relaxing activities. Some relaxing activities can be yoga, sewing, coloring, reading, and playing Scrabble. After that write down your emotions and how you feel. 

Practice mindful eating by selecting what you want to eat based on physical hunger and not emotions. Similarly, you can do emotional therapy to help you manage your emotions. Speak to someone when you need to let out your feelings. Controlling your emotions will make you feel better. Here is a salad recipe to practice mindful eating. 

Ingredients: 

Baby spring mix 

One hard-boiled egg

One-half of bell peppers

One tomato

One-half of cucumbers

Five radishes 

Roasted peanuts with sea salt or unsalted (optional)

Balsamic vinaigrette or Italian vinaigrette

Preparation and Cooking Time: 

Boil one egg for ten to fifteen minutes. In one bowl, rinse the baby spring mix. Dry the leaves with paper towels. In a clean bowl, add the baby spring mix with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes. Next, add sliced bell peppers.

Add the roasted peanuts. Once the hard-boiled egg has cooled down, remove the eggshell. Slice the hard-boiled egg and mix it inside the salad. Last, add the vinaigrette to the salad. Mix everything and enjoy eating your salad slowly.

Do not give up on eliminating emotional eating from your life. Also, emotional eating might be exasperated by someone's comparisons, someone's comments, or overeating in family gatherings. There are many reasons to do emotional eating, therefore doing therapy will help you find the cause. A good therapist will give you the necessary advice, tips, and what to do to end your emotional eating. Below are websites about emotional eating.

 

Healthy Lifestyle-Weight Loss in Depth:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss/art-20047342

Diets-Emotional Eating:

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/diets/emotional-eating.htm

Emotional Eating-9 Ways to Stop It and Lose Weight (Psycom):

Emotional Eating: 9 Ways to Stop It and Lose Weight (psycom.net)

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