Emotional Eating
We touched on this subject just a few minutes ago in our dietingchapter but it’s important for you to address now, too. Emotional
eating is eating when things go bad, when you are stressed or when
you are in the mood for a certain feeling that you can’t get from the
world around you.
For many millions of people, this is one of the prime reasons that they
are overweight or unhealthy in their diets. While food never used to
be so readily available, today its easy to have a pantry full of food and
a refrigerator that’s stocked to the brim. It’s easy to go to the food to
get the satisfaction that you need.
Yet this is a dangerous situation. Those that use food to fight their
emotional instability are most likely to fall deeper into a path of self
destruction. For example, consider this scenario that happens over
the span of time.
You begin by getting stressed at work. You find yourself reaching for a
candy bar to get the extra rush that you need to get through the tasks
at hand. You then find yourself dealing with pressure from the boss;
you didn’t do the job right. You decide you need a big, fatty lunch.
Soon, the pounds are creeping onto your hips. There’s no time to
exercise and to meet deadlines you increase the amount of bad foods
you are eating. Soon, you are not fitting well into your clothing. You
become upset at yourself, your self esteem drops.
As your self esteem drops, you find yourself in even more problems.
Now, you hate your job so much that the only thing that makes it feel
better is eating something bad for you. In fact, you almost purposely
make the situation worse by eating bad. You aren’t any good. You are a failure. You can’t make the right decisions. Just look at
you….these are all things that people end up saying to themselves
when they are emotionally depleted.
Emotional eating is one of the hardest cycles to break, yet if left intact,
it’s also one of the worst things you can do for both your physical and
your mental health state.
In just a bit we’ll talk about some of the ways that you can have good
mind fitness, which includes emotional eating. The first step in
fighting the way that food makes you feel, though, is to recognize that
there is a connection between the way that you feel and the way that
you eat. Realizing this makes a large difference in improving both
your physical fitness and your mind’s fitness.
How Can You Improve?
to make this happen. Remember when we said this fitness plan was
going to be fun? Here there are many great ways to improve your
emotional and mental fitness through fun methods.
Each aspect is unique in itself and in the way that it will help to
improve both your physical fitness and your quality of life. Incorporate
as many of these things into your life as you can, and you’ll see
differences in the way that you feel and the way that you see the
world.
Your Self Esteem
We’ll tackle one of the hardest things to improve right from the
beginning: your self esteem. A health self esteem is one that’s
confident but not overly macho. You should be able to feel confident
in the decisions that you make and in the way that your life is moving.
Confidence is built on many things including the fact that you have to
realize that you do have weaknesses and you do have limits to your
abilities. Accept those, work on improving them if you can and then
do the best job that you can overall.
In addition, learn how to accept compliments and to take criticism.
Getting down on yourself because someone doesn’t like the job you
did isn’t okay.
Although challenging, you need to be able to say, “Hey, I did a good
job!” You also need to recognize when it wasn’t your best work and
realize that it’s okay not to be perfect 100 percent of the time. Learn
to take criticism positively. If your boss says that the job wasn’t good
enough, ask what you could have improved on for next time. Then,
you set yourself up for success rather than a pint of ice cream!
One way to improve the way that you look and feel about yourself is to
take care of your outward appearance. Those that dress well, take
care of the way that they look and those that do things for themselves
are the most confident people out there. Just putting on a beautiful
outfit can make you feel good about yourself.
Build A Social Network
A social network is a very important to your well being, both physically
and mentally. Those that have people around them to support them
do well in many more aspects of their lives. Let’s face, its fun to have
people around too! But, how can you build a social network of people
that you can rely on?
Make time for those that you already have. Don’t assume that they
will always be there when you need them, even when you don’t pay
attention to them otherwise. You should always strive for a lifestyle
that’s positive with those in your family and your friends. That means
taking on the challenges that come up between people, working
through them and then letting them go.
Relationships take time and work. If you are married, that relationship
alone will be one that you have to work on. Realizing that you aren’t
always right and making sacrifices for those that need you to can be
an important and difficult risk you have to take.
Commit to going out and having fun, whatever way is fun to you, at
least one time per week. Getting away or even just finding time to
play a board game is essential. This allows your mind to repair
damage and it allows you to improve your network of friends.
Don’t take friends for granted because they won’t be there when you
need them the most. In part of that comes the fact that if you want to
have family and friends you need to be a friend, too. Giving others
support helps them to accomplish their life’s needs and it gives you a
sense of gratification. You’ll feel good about life and your social
network.
Managing Stress
Its not easy job, but you have to do it! Stress is one of the largest
problems in health today. Stress affects your ability to function
properly. It hinders you throughout your life by causing unhealthy
living situations, physical risks and puts your entire well being at risk
for emotional breakdown.
To help remedy stress, there are many things that you can do. For
starters, find an outlet. You need to find something that you love to
do. A hobby, a physical activity, or some other thing that really brings
you happiness is necessary to have. By doing that activity even after
a long and stressful day it can offer you improvement in your health
and well being, by relieving stress.
If the situations that you are in provide you with high levels of stress,
it is important for you to find solutions to those problems. You need
an effective manor for relieving stress and if you can’t do so by solving
the problem or by letting go of the stress you need to remove yourself
from such situations. Stress that is ongoing without any real stopping
is a large health risk!
Brain Power!
To improve mental fitness, use your brain power! You don’t have to
do any type of exercise with your brain physically of course, but
mentally you do!
For starters, always keep yourself learning. Learning new things
keeps the mind active and that means health. Someone that is learning new things that interests them is likely to continue to having
a mental state that’s positive and motivated.
You should also use challenges to help power you through your day
and your life. Giving yourself the ability to overcome challenges from
puzzles to problems in life (yours or others) can help to keep your
brain working. Asking questions, getting the answers and working at
it helps to improve the brain’s function, allowing you to fend off
Alzheimer’s and other conditions like it.
Your Overall Mental Fitness Plan
So, now you have it! You know what to do to make your lifestyle
improved through these changes. Here’s a quick look at the changes
that you can make today that will increase your mind’s power later
and throughout your life.
1.Improve your stress levels and see physical, mental and
emotional benefits right away.
2.Improve your social network to reduce stress and to improve
your quality of life. It also helps to make it through difficult times
when you have someone by your side.
3.Improve your brain’s fitness by challenging it through new
adventures, continuous learning and through challenges of all types.
4.Do things that are enjoyable to you. If you can’t think of
anything, learn something new. New adventures coupled with doing them with those that you love make life better and help to improve
your mental fitness.
5.Keep your self esteem positive. Working on this is hard, but
feeling good about yourself is a must for overall health.
By doing these things it will significantly improve the fitness that your
mind has physically and emotionally. The good news is that you can
change the outcome of your day by just making the right decisions on
the way to look at challenges during the day. Make changes like these
today and see results today.
No comments:
Post a Comment