What if breaking emotional eating is easier than you think?
Emotional eating is something many of us struggle with, a habit where food becomes our comfort in response to emotional triggers.
This habit can result in a range of physical and emotional health challenges.
It’s useful to explore the process of habit formation and understand how you can break free from the cycle of emotional eating.
The Formation of Habits:
Habits form through a process that involves the subconscious mind and its ability to automate behaviours.
This is how habits develop from a subconscious mind perspective:
Cue/Trigger:
The habit formation process often starts with a cue or trigger.
This can be a specific situation, emotional state, time of day, or even a particular location.
The cue acts as a signal for the brain to initiate a habitual behaviour.
You look at your endless to do list and the stress and overwhelm takes hold, you have no idea where to begin or how you can possibly complete everything.
Routine/Behaviour:
In response to the cue, a specific routine or behaviour is carried out.
This behaviour can be physical, mental, or emotional. Initially, the conscious mind is actively involved in executing this routine.
You find yourself with the fridge or pantry door open, gazing longingly for something, anything to distract you.
Reward/Reinforcement:
Following the routine, there is a reward or positive reinforcement. This could be a sense of accomplishment, pleasure, or the relief of a discomfort.
The reward reinforces the connection between the cue and the behaviour, signalling to the brain that this is a satisfying or beneficial action.
Over time, your brain links eating with relief, and with each repetition, this connection gets stronger, making emotional eating an ingrained habit.
As the cue, routine, and reward cycle is repeated, the behaviour becomes more automatic and ingrained in the subconscious mind.
The brain learns to associate the cue with the anticipated reward.
Those high-sugar, high-fat foods that you crave so much are engineered to keep you coming back for more.
They send signals to the brain that fire off dopamine, which is a key chemical messenger involved in the reward-based learning process.
You dip your spoon in the ice-cream carton, telling yourself you’ll just have one spoonful and before you even realise it half the carton is gone.
Automation and Subconscious Programming:
Over time, with consistent repetition, the habit becomes ingrained in the subconscious mind.
The behaviour becomes automatic, and the conscious mind’s involvement decreases.
The habit is now deeply embedded in the neural pathways of your brain, making it a default response to the triggering cue.
You know that binging on your favourite high-sugar, high-fat foods isn’t going to solve your problems, but you continue to do it because it’s now hardwired in your brain as pleasurable and tension-releasing, even if only in the short-term.
Habit Loop:
This entire process is often referred to as the “habit loop,” as described by Charles Duhigg in his book “The Power of Habit.”
The loop consists of the cue, routine, and reward, and it is the basis for the formation and maintenance of habits.
Before you know it those jeans that used to fit so well are now bulging at the seams.
The Power of Hypnosis in Habit Transformation:
Understanding the role of the subconscious mind in habit formation is crucial if you are looking to change or develop habits.
Hypnosis is like a guide that helps us explore the subconscious, where your habits and automatic behaviours reside.
It involves focusing your attention and being open to suggestions.
It’s like having a heart-to-heart with your inner self.
Here’s how to break emotional eating habits using hypnotherapy and hypnosis.
1. Identifying Triggers:
Hypnosis is like your emotional detective.
It helps you uncover the root causes of your emotional eating.
We can discover what emotions or situations act as triggers for this behaviour.
Understanding yourself better is key to making lasting changes.
2. Rewriting Thought Patterns:
Hypnosis is like a positive voice in your head.
It challenges and reframes the negative thought patterns that feed emotional eating.
It helps you create new, positive associations with your emotions, so you can respond to triggers differently.
3. Building Resilience:
Hypnosis is like your personal resilience coach.
It gives you strategies to handle stress, sadness, and other emotions in healthier ways.
This means you’re better prepared to deal with life’s challenges without turning to emotional eating.
4. Creating new behaviours:
New habits feel so strange at first.
When you’re used to the old way of doing things, like emotional eating, it can feel very uncomfortable when you start to change your behaviour in a positive way.
It’s easy and automatic to go back to the old familiar way of doing things, even if it was making you miserable.
Understanding how habits change can be like finding the missing piece of a puzzle.
Your brain can rewire itself through a process called neuroplasticity, adapting to new learning and experiences.
Hypnosis taps into this process to create new neural pathways, replacing old, automatic responses with healthier ones.
With focused repetition and positive suggestions during hypnosis, your brain gradually changes.
Emotional eating habits can transform into more constructive, emotionally intelligent responses to triggers.
The Mind-Body Connection:
The mind-body connection is like the bridge between emotions and physical hunger.
Emotional eating often creates a gap between the two, leading to overeating and feelings of guilt. Hypnosis is like the bridge builder, helping you reconnect with your body’s signals.
Hypnosis empowers you to recognise and understand the emotional cues that drive your eating habits.
It helps you listen to your body, tuning into physical hunger signals, and develop a more intuitive and balanced relationship with food.
Self-Hypnosis Techniques:
For those who love to take control of change on their own, there are various self-hypnosis techniques.
These are like little tools you can use to keep reinforcing the positive changes you’ve started with professional hypnotherapy.
These techniques are designed to help you stay on track and continue your progress in overcoming emotional eating.
Seeking Support:
Breaking the habit of emotional eating is a journey that demands self-awareness, dedication, and the application of effective strategies.
Hypnosis with its ability to rewire thought patterns and automatic responses, is a powerful technique on this journey.
Whether you’re seeking the guidance of a certified hypnotherapist or embracing self-hypnosis techniques, know that you’re on your way to developing a healthier relationship with food and emotions.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with you if you feel “stuck” in the emotional eating habit loop.
There are good reasons why these behaviour loops can form.
But with the right tools you can break the cycle and develop new habits you feel good about – without the use of willpower, restriction or force.
What if breaking emotional eating habits could be easier than you think?
Book a free discovery call to learn more about my End Emotional Eating Program and let’s find out!
