How to Overcome Emotional Eating

Eating is a part of life.  Your body gets its nutrients from food.  Sometimes we can go overboard with our eating habits and it can result in gaining weight.  One issue with food is emotional eating. 

The problem of emotional eating may end with the scale but it begins in the mind.  Stress takes its toll on your life.  When your defenses are compromised your health takes a hit and so do your emotions. 

Everyone has good days and bad days.  How we deal with the bad ones brings emotional eating into play.  You look for comfort for your hurts.  People who turn to food for comfort find a coping mechanism that won’t judge them, hurt them or tell them “no.” To complicate the issue, eating pleasurable foods can stimulate the release of endorphins just like exercise.  So, after you eat, you feel better.

Emotional eaters use food to relieve stress.  They hide behind the food instead of seeking solutions to the problems.  This is not uncommon when the stressor is something horrible such as physical abuse or a death.

But, how do you know you are using food in this way?  The first sign is obvious.  You will gain weight if you eat too much.  In light of the weight gain, examine other areas of your life:

* Have you been under stress lately at work or at home?
* Has anything traumatic happened in the last year?
* Are you dealing with a problem but haven’t found a solution?

Answering “yes” to any of these questions could mean that you are an emotional eater.  You eat but you are not necessarily hungry at the time.  The foods that you choose are what we term “comfort foods”:

* High fat foods like French fries, fried foods
* High carb foods like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes
* Sugary foods like ice cream, donuts, cookies, cake

There is help for emotional eaters.  The first step is recognizing that you have a problem.  You’ll experience feelings of helplessness and guilt.  The guilt is over potentially ruining your health and the helplessness lies in the fact that you don’t see a way out.

Secondly, seek counseling.  There are many types of counselors out there that can meet your need.  Emotional eating has nothing to do with dieting or changing your eating habits but gaining control over your emotions. 

A counselor might suggest things like visualization, practicing problem solving skills, relaxation techniques and family support.  Visualization helps you to see your problems in a realistic way and not blown out of proportion.  You will also learn to see food as nutrition for the body and not an emotional crutch.

Thirdly, your family can learn your triggers for stress and be on the lookout for changes in your eating habits.  They can help you be aware of the foods you are eating, assist you in making healthy food choices and exercise along with you.  Proper diet and exercise increases immunity, blood flow and positive thinking.  Yoga enhances the mind/body connection so you don’t eat when you aren’t hungry.

Finding new ways to solve your problems and deal with stress will push food out of the equation.  You’ll feel good about finding solutions which will replace the dependence on food.  

Effective Steps for Managing Anxiety

Have you ever been in a situation that brought on sweats, rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath? You probably weren’t having a heart attack but an anxiety attack.  If you suffer from anxiety disorders, learning to manage it is the first step to overcoming it.

Anxiety is characterized as extreme reactions to fearful situations.  When someone follows you into a dark alley, those anxious feelings of a racing heartbeat and sweaty palms gives way to heightened senses and a rush of adrenalin that can save your life.  This is the fight or flight syndrome. 

In the case of frequent anxiety, the fearful feelings are dread of a particular situation and not the situation itself.  Getting caught in traffic can cause an anxiety attack over what might happen when you get to work late.  Starting a new job can bring on anxiety attacks.  You don’t know anyone and fear of that unknown can send you into a panic.

Everyone experiences panic or anxiety in small ways.  Like the fight or flight example, it can save your life.  In new situations, we get panicky but when the outcome we fear fails to materialize, the anxiety stops.  For someone with chronic anxiety, this is not the case.

Every situation that brings anxiety is not life-threatening.  More than likely it is an extremely stressful situation that has brought on the anxiety as a way of dealing with it.  Unchecked anxiety of this type can lead to depression.

If you suffer from anxiety attacks on occasion or a more frequent anxiety disorder, there are steps you can take to keep your anxiety under control. 

1. See a professional.  This is always a good first step.  Self-diagnosis of any type of physical or mental condition is unwise and can be dangerous.  A professional psychologist can help you understand your anxiety and prescribe medication or other effective techniques.

2. Get a good night’s sleep.  During the sleep cycle, your body repairs itself.  You feel more rested after several hours of restorative sleep, reaching the REM stage.  Most people need eight hours a night which varies within an hour or two each way.

3. Exercise on a consistent basis.  Exercise helps you to use oxygen more efficiently.  It helps to get more oxygen to the brain.  It also increases focus which may help you see solutions to problems rather than simply worrying about them. 

4. Meditate.  Meditation is more than chanting mantras.  Yoga is an exercise that involves quieting the mind and controlling your breathing.  Simple mediation such as taking 5 minutes to clear your mind everyday can work wonders in the fight against anxiety.

5. Manage the worry.  When you feel your pulse start to quicken, count backwards from ten.  As you count, focus on the situation.  What has actually happened? Resist the urge to read anything more into the situation. 

6. Don’t use alcohol.  You might think that the glass of wine is relaxing your tension but alcohol is a depressant.  In anxious situations you could rely too heavily on it and gain another problem in the process.

7. Find some relaxing activities.  Stress can rob you of your energy.  On a regular basis, do something you like such as gardening, painting, reading or listening to music.  

Anxiety can come into your life at any time.  It’s normal.  When the anxiety becomes frequent you could be at risk for more serious conditions.  If you feel your anxiety is starting to take over your life or increasingly causing you problems, seek professional help immediately.  There is no need to suffer this terrible condition in silence.

How to Get Rid of Stuffy Nose

How to Get Rid of Stuffy Nose

Author: peterhutch

Stuffy Nose Come winter time and most of the people fall prey to the problem of cough and cold. Amongst all the symptoms of the ailment, the most irritating one is that of a stuffy nose. You are not able to breathe properly and sleeping becomes like a torture. More often than not, a stuffy nose is also accompanied by a kind of heaviness in the head.
Get Rid of a Stuffy Nose
How is it that I've written articles about sore throats, colds, the flu, headaches and fevers, but never an article about how to get rid of a stuffy nose? Well, now I have, and it focuses not only on getting rid of a stuffy nose, but it also focuses on something that's becoming a more popular diagnosis for chronically stuffy noses.
Stuffy Nose Home Remedies
Steam will unclog a stuffy nose.
One way to relieve a stuffy nose is with steam. Steam from a shower, a kettle, or even a cup of chicken soup can help. But, if you really want to get rid of your stuffy nose, try this method.
What you drink can affect your stuffy nose.
Drinking fluids like water, tea or juice will thin mucus, which will help alleviate your stuffy nose. But avoid beverages that contain caffeine, because they will only make your stuffy nose worse.
you should have it with you whenever your nose drives you mad. This might not be the case every time, since you have to buy it first, and then carry it with you whenever you go.
Avoid irritants. Common irritants that may stimulate mucus production include cigarette smoke and sudden temperature changes — going from extreme heat into air conditioning, for instance.
Get a steaming bowl of hot water, stick a flannel over the back of your head and stick your head in it (not the boiling water but in the bowl so the steam reaches your face) It should hopefully, unblock your nose and you can blow it all out
Yoga Can Help You Of stuffy Nose
Most of us have a common notion that stuffy nose is due to thick mucus in the nasal passage and in the quest of how to get rid of a stuffy nose we try some methods like nasal soothing by hot vapors from water and eucalyptus oil or mint. Some of us try to blow hard our nose to remove the mucus but in vain, instead we hurt our ear drum in doing so. If you are practicing such activities to get rid of stuffy nose.
Use a saline nose spray
Use a saline nose spray It sounds really gross but it works incredibly. I felt soooooooo much better after using it. My nose was clear and I got better much more quickly than normal. Now I always keep one in the house just in case.
get rid of a runny nose
Medication doesn't help, anyway. You can open a stuffed nose up again by inhaling vapor (put boiling water in a bowl, cover the bowl and your head with a towel and breathe through your nose), it helps if you add camphor or menthol in some form (opens up the sinuses). You can also use saline solution, spray it up your nose while you breathe in, then spit it out through your mouth.
takes some nyquil, drink some lemon tea wrap yaself in a warm blanket and relax. i gauranteed you would feel better. Try using Tylenol Cold & Flu, Neo Citran or the NyQuil/DayQuil combo pack. If any of these or any other cold medicine does not work, you may have to get a prescription for antibiotics. Good luck. Another thing you can do also besides medcine is drinking lots of orange juice, loaded with Vitamin C.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/how-to-get-rid-of-stuffy-nose-481691.html
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