A Mind Problem: Stop Emotional Eating With the Use of Hypnotherapy, Guided Imagery and NLP

When everything doesn"t go the way you planned it to be, when you are feeling out of sorts and lost, when you feel bad about something, wouldn"t you do something to cheer you up? Some go to the mall and shop their hearts out. Others go to a friend to pour out all their troubles, knowing they will get a sympathetic ear. And the majority will turn to comfort food to ease their pain. Even movies and advertisements show women turning to ice cream and a double chocolate cake whenever they get into a fight or a break up with their loved ones. However, emotional eating is one of the best ways that one can do to become overweight, since you are eating because of your emotions and not what is physiologically programmed in you.

Emotional eating can be the downfall of many. This kind of eating can make a person gain weight, look and feel unhealthy, and cause a depressive nature about their whole life. If a person is an emotional eater, they are showing signs that they cannot cope with aspect of their life mentally. People who are emotional eaters will eat and stuff their way into misery.

Many people who suffer from emotional eating try to find many ways to stop. Although there are many ways to stop, not all of them rely on starting with the understanding of why. This, the understanding of why a person eats emotionally, is the most important step to actually stopping for good.

People who are depressed often use eating as an outlet. Something such as a bad day can start this eating pattern or even something as small as being bored. Whichever it is, it can be stopped. The only way it can be completely stopped is by the person it is affecting.

Emotional eating is probably one of the biggest ways NLP can be shown effectively. This is due to the fact that emotional eating, like Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is all about listening to your body. In other words, there were good emotions that linked the person to emotional eating.

To start, emotional eating was brought on by having something bad happen and feeling as though the whole world was going to cave in. When this happened, the person ate one of their favorite foods that day and felt better. This was the first sign of the brain interpreting what food meant.

After time, another thing bad happens. The person turns to food again because they remember they felt better after the last time they were down. People gravitate toward food because it is easy to attain and usually readily available. When someone is sad, depressed or just overly down, they do not want to search for answers; they are just looking for a quick fix. This is what food did; it comforted them temporarily.

But what happens now? The emotional eating has caused weight gain, lack of self confidence and made a person relatively unhealthy. At this point, it is time to make a change; NLP can help them do it.

First, the emotional eater will need to come into a point where they are feeling down. During this time, they need to step back, look at the food and feel sick or even worse. This will show the mind that food is not the solution.

What if you cannot resist the temptation? Try it before a situation arises. Figure out the foods you normally turn to and eat a bite of each little by little. While you take each bite, you can make yourself feel sad or sick. The whole point is to make your mind not want it. This can also be achieved by picking key phrases. When you hear these key phrases, imagine, in your mind, imagine yourself at your worst possible state. This will help your mind understand that it is not good to eat when sad.

Another great way to overcome emotional eating by using NLP is to imagine yourself doing other things when you are down and out. Meanwhile, imagine yourself with a smile on your face while you are doing it. This will reinforce your mind to know that there are other positive things you can do when sad than eat.

No matter what situation you are in, NL can help immensely. All it takes is utilizing the powers of imagery, hypnosis and other NLP techniques. Before trying any of these tips, make sure you are in a quiet and peaceful environment where you will not be disturbed.

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Emotional eating is an eating disorder characterized by taking in comfort food such as chocolates, ice cream, cake, etc in order to cope with those despairing emotions brought about by trauma or even just triggered by having a bad day. The more you keep yourself wrapped up in those negative feelings, without trying to resolve them, the more you will eat since this is your coping mechanism. With emotional eating, you do not overeat as compared to binge eating. However, the frequency of eating according to what you feel would basically give the same results as compared to overeating.

The underlying cause of this kind of behavior stems from the inability to deal with stress and emotions. Even low self esteem can contribute to emotional eating. Proper psychological therapy are often what they need to overcome these emotions such as counseling sessions to be able to help them identify and understand why they are feeling such and what productive thing they can do about it. During these sessions, they are oftentimes given a series of exercises and tests to be able to determine a specific trigger point of the emotion.

Hypnosis is one of the methods employed to make the person relax fully and free themselves of emotions. In this state, they are able to identify what went wrong or what happened that caused this emotional eating. It can also help them to change their minds about themselves, giving them a boost of self confidence. This is done at the person"s most vulnerable state, when their subconscious is most active and open.

Along with hypnosis, it is also suggested to include NLP into the session. NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is basically changing how that person thinks of himself, through the replacement of negative thoughts to affirmative ones. Affirmative input is often given to the person through repetitive audio tapes so that it sticks. This is further enhanced if it is given together with hypnosis. With NLP, the mind is programmed to accept as their own those positive inputs so as to gain more self confidence and control of oneself. With this, they will be able to take hold of their emotions and avoid making food their scapegoat or source of comfort.

Another method that can be used is guided imagery wherein instead of using affirmative words; you create in your mind a picture of what you want yourself to be. With this, you replace the image of yourself that has caused you to break down in crisis and turn to food as consolation. But in order for this to be truly effective, you have to dwell on this image until you can truly accept it as being you. Being focused on this can train you to be more aware of your emotions and stressors, what triggers them and what you can do about it, instead of eating with your emotions.

Stopping emotional eating means doing something about what causes it. With the several tools available to help you work on it, it only takes a moment to decide whether or not you will help yourself stop or not. It will be your choice.