How to Manage Anxiety Around Food
Anxiety is a common and normal human emotion characterized by a state of apprehension or arousal over a real or perceived threat. Anxiety is often co-occurring with eating disorders or disordered eating. Feeling anxious around food can happen for a variety of reasons from fear of adverse consequences like vomiting or choking, to fear of weight gain or body change, to diet culture messaging, and more. Today, we want to share some ways to manage feeling anxious around food.
How to Manage Anxiety Around Food
Pause and Breathe
When we feel anxious, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated - our fight-flight-or-freeze response. Anxiety symptoms include trembling, sweating, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, shallow breathing, and chest tightness, among others [1]. Although sometimes it can be seen as a negative emotion, anxiety is a normal human emotion that happens when we “expect or anticipate that something unpleasant may happen [2].”
Depending on our food rules, food labels, relationships with food and our body, and the influence of diet culture, when we engage with food, we might feel that something unpleasant WILL happen. We will discuss that feeling more below. Deep breathing is one way to calm our sympathetic nervous system.
Deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system calming anxiety, letting the body know that it is safe, and delivering more oxygen to the thinking brain [3]. The sympathetic nervous system is activated when we inhale and the parasympathetic when we exhale. If we are already in an activated state, focusing on increasing our exhales turns on the parasympathetic system and reduces the intensity of the anxiety symptoms.
A few simple breathing techniques include:
diaphragmatic breathing: focusing on breathing into the belly
2-to-1 breathing: making the exhale longer than the inhale [4]
box breathing: inhaling for 4-counts, holding for 4-counts at the top, exhaling for 4-counts, then holding for 4-counts before repeating
Learn about your triggers
Awareness of what triggers your anxiety around food is the first powerful step in the healing process. If we have awareness, we have the opportunity to make helpful changes or shifts. Does anxiety come up when you have ‘off limits’ or ‘bad’ food? Or when you have a tough body image day? Does an increase in the scale trigger an increase in anxiety around food?
Make peace with food
Making peace with food is one of the Intuitive Eating principles that can really change the way we approach food. It can also be a difficult principle to implement consistently. Guilt is another emotion that can be felt strongly when we engage with food, especially when we ‘overeat’ or eat off-limits/bad foods. Intuitive Eating authors touch on something called The Seesaw Syndrome: Guilt versus Deprivation.
If we look at the graphic below, we see that guilt goes down when deprivation goes up. Do you notice guilt decreasing when you are ‘staying on track’ with your diet/eating? What happens when the deprivation decreases? The guilt increases.
Seesaw Syndrome: 2 Seesaws. When deprivation is low, guilt is high. When guilt is low, deprivation is high.
The restrict/binge cycle is another illustration that shows the interaction between guilt and deprivation. When we restrict food, we might feel like we are doing a good job. But then the cravings come in, which can lead to a binge, followed by guilt and shame, which brings us back to restricting.
Restrict/binge cycle: restriction, deprivation, binging, guilt/shame, attempts to cope.
The good news is that it’s possible to break the cycle and balance the seesaw by giving yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods. Challenging the food police, examining food labels, and honoring your hunger are great steps to take to make peace with food.
Examine food labels and rules
Those who struggle with their relationship with food and their body often have food labels: off-limits foods, good foods/bad foods, healthy/unhealthy foods, for example. And food rules like only eating fat-free options, saving carbs for weekends only, or eating within a certain time frame during the day. Diet culture also plays a significant role in how we approach food, demonizing a new food group every few years and glorifying rigidity and rules around food.
When working on managing food anxiety and healing your relationship with food, it’s important to explore how you feel when you eat foods with different labels and/or break your food rules. When you eat a ‘bad food’, do you feel bad or guilty? What feelings come up when you break a food rule? Attaching morality to food attaches morality to ourselves. Food is neutral and allowing all foods to fit in your life can aid in reducing anxiety.
We understand how difficult that can be, which is why starting with awareness is a great and necessary first step. Increased awareness leads to more data that can provide valuable insights into where to continue in your healing journey.
Challenge the Food Police (Food Thoughts)
Another Intuitive Eating principle focuses on challenging the food police. We were born intuitive eaters, but as we grow, the influences of family, friends, and diet culture can significantly impact how we engage with food and our body. Examining our thoughts and thought patterns around food by asking questions like ‘Who said this?’ or ‘Where did I learn this?’’ can help sort out what is actually fact and what is helpful/unhelpful.
Practice self-care regularly…
Practicing self-care regularly and utilizing your coping tools on a consistent basis can act as a preventative measure to help regulate your emotions, including your anxiety. We wrote a guide to help you create your own self-care practice that you can find here.
and Self-compassion
Sometimes when anxiety around food comes up, we think it’s a bad thing and try to make it go away as quickly as possible. While anxiety can feel uncomfortable, it’s a normal emotion to feel, especially if we struggle in our relationship with food and/or our body. Instead of feeling bad because anxiety comes up, validate the feeling and practice self-compassion. Give yourself the same compassion you might give a friend if they share that they feel anxious around food.
Work with a provider that specializes in disordered eating/eating disorders
The therapists and dietitians at Collaborative Counseling and Nutrition work with individuals with a variety of food and mental health struggles. Working with a practitioner that is eating disorder and disordered-eating informed helps provide holistic care to address your eating and body image concerns. Healing your relationship with food and your body is difficult work and you do not have to do it alone. Fill out the contact form on our website and someone from our team will reach out to you!
Sources Used:
[1] The Biological Effects and Consequences of Anxiety - Anxiety Care UK. (2017, March 29). Anxiety Care UK. https://anxietycare.org.uk/the-biological-effects-and-consequences-of-anxiety/#:~:text=In simplistic terms%2C the sympathetic,to return to peacefulness again
[2] Tull, M., PhD. (2020, November 21). The Positive Side to Your Anxiety. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-purpose-of-anxiety-2797497
[3] Deep Breathing and Relaxation. (n.d.). https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/counseling/anxietytoolbox/breathingandrelaxation.html#:~:text=Deep breathing and relaxation activate,oxygen to the thinking brain
[4] Clarke, J., MD. (2016). Soothe Your Nervous System with 2-to-1 Breathing. yogainternational.com. https://yogainternational.com/article/view/soothe-your-nervous-system-with-2-to-1-breathing/
[5] Tribole, E., & Resch, E. (2020). Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition (Updated). St. Martin’s Essentials.
Collaborative Counseling & Nutrition is an outpatient nutrition and body image counseling center, with locations in Indianapolis and Carmel, that provides compassionate, holistic eating disorder treatment. Through practicing mindfulness, intuition, and Health At Every Size, we are on a mission to help you find a true state of well-being! We take an anti-diet, weight-inclusive approach with all our clients and work to help guide you towards a way of healthy living designed by you, just for you! This post is for education purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for treatment for an eating disorder. If you are looking for a registered dietitian or therapist to assist you on your recovery journey, please reach out today!
