Why You Need Self-Regulation in order to Eat Healthy

Food is a common way to numb when life gets overwhelming. When do most people numb with food? When you feel dysregulated. Dysregulation is a state of being unable to regulate your emotions, leaving you feeling out of sorts. Dysregulation can happen for many reasons and each can lead to numbing with food, or other methods, like alcohol, drugs, shopping, gaming, etc. Fatigue, boredom, stress, anxiety, joy, depression, grief, and so many other feelings might cause you to eat when you aren’t hungry. So what do you do?

Pause and notice. There is power in pausing, as it creates space for you to regain control over your actions. It also allows you to notice how you are feeling. Numbing is a way to avoid feeling, but the only way to truly manage feelings is to feel them. Numbing them stuffs them down, causing them to get bigger and louder in order to be seen and heard. Feeling them allows you to release their hold on you.

Ways we numb

Investigate for yourself what it feels like when you are dysregulated. How does it feel in your body when you would normally turn to food to manage uncomfortable feelings? What emotions are you trying to avoid?

Tune into the sensations in your body. Is there a tightness in your chest or throat? A vague discomfort all over where you feel unsettled? Be a detective and observe sensations in your body with curiosity. Notice where you feel these sensations, as well as their quality (tight, hot, spiky, heavy, etc). Let go of judgment or analysis and observe objectively what is happening in your body.

I frequently numb when I am tired. I will play hours of games on my phone rather than go to sleep. I put a notification in my phone that says “Turn it off, shut it down,” that goes off at the same time every night. I have found that when I am dysregulated, I need some support to get out of my own way. Even if the support comes from me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it plants the seed in my mind that I need to wrap things up and go to bed.

Ever feel “hangry?” When hunger makes you angry it means your blood sugar is low and you will feel dysregulated. Eating and drinking water at regular intervals will help keep your energy and mood steady. Hunger and thirst can definitely cause you to feel dysregulated, but if you are disconnected from these feelings, you might not notice that you are irritable. Dysregulation can also come from longing, or lacking connection with other people. Having a community that you can rely on also helps.

When your needs are met, you feel regulated. Getting sufficient sleep (7-9 hours per night), eating foods that fuel your body at regular intervals, moving your body every day, and practicing stress management techniques like yoga, meditation, and journaling can support having control over your actions, rather than falling into numbing.

How do you recognize dysregulation?

It takes a certain amount of discipline, or Tapas, to keep up with self-regulation practices, but building healthy habits that are doable and sustainable will lessen your stress and anxiety, and keep you feeling grounded when life gets tough. Cultivating regulating habits keeps you feeling good and prevents you from turning to food when life goes off the rails.

What unskillful habits do you have that let you know you're sliding into dysregulation? Are you seeking out sweets after dinner every night? Do you need something to crunch when you are stressed? Are you overly tired and eat to keep yourself going? These are normal human responses to feeling dysregulated, but they don’t serve us in the long run. Being mindful and noticing your habits is the first step toward changing them.

How do you know that you are dysregulated? What are the behaviors or physical sensations that you feel when you are out of sorts?

Here are a few possibilities:

• You are on your third hour of doom scrolling or playing games on your phone.

• You notice the bag of cookies is empty and you don’t remember eating them, even though you have crumbs on your face.

• Your glasses of wine are getting more frequent, and maybe larger.

• You see that you have 10 things in your online shopping cart, that you probably don’t actually need, and you keep adding to it..

• You feel a pit in your stomach or a tightness in your throat.

• You find your thoughts racing or trending toward the negative. You might have unclear thinking, or notice that you are reacting instead of responding. You are acting out rather than behaving appropriately for the situation.

Be a detective and notice what dysregulation looks like for you.

Thoughts about regulation

Once you recognize that you are dysregulated, you get to choose something that will get you back into control over yourself. I find the best way to do that is to get in touch with your body.

Think about these words: Grounded and Centered. Close your eyes and say those words to yourself. Where do you feel them in your body? To me, he word Grounded feels like downward movement, or connecting to the Earth, and I desire to feel my feet on the floor, or be barefoot in the grass. Centered feels like inward movement, connecting to my center or core.

You become regulated by reconnecting to the ground or to your center through your body. You can’t logic your way to regulation, you need to feel it with your body. Nobody feels better when told to “calm down,” even if you’re saying it to yourself. You need to get back into your body and out of the mind’s spin.

There are many techniques with which to regulate yourself, both through movement and stillness. Many people feel better with vigorous exercise, while others need to be still and breathe. This is why there are so many ways to reconnect to yourself. There is no one-size-fits-all human, so there is no one “right” way to regulate yourself.

Self-Regulation Tools

The list below are tools and techniques you can use to bring yourself back to feeling calm and connected. Getting treatments like acupuncture, massage, and reiki can calm the nervous system and create a baseline for regulation, but because they usually require another person, they are less useful in the moment of overwhelm or dysregulation.

The following regulation techniques are things that you can do for yourself, whenever you feel out of sorts. Feel free to mix and match as many as you like:

• Prioritize sleep—If you do nothing else, prioritize sleep. When you are sleep deprived for extended periods of time, this causes stress on your body. Regardless of whether you feel emotional stress, your body releases cortisol as if you were fighting for your life. Humans are supposed to sleep somewhere between 7-9 hours per night. When you don’t it’s harder for your body to operate properly. Life is hard enough, you don’t need to add the stress of insufficient sleep. Plus, when you don’t sleep enough, your body signals of hunger and satiety get flipped, meaning you feel hungry when you don’t actually need more food. You need sleep.

• Walking, biking, swimming, or some other form of cardiovascular exercise—When you find yourself chronically stressed, regular cardio exercise can help bring you back into your body again. You don’t need to do high intensity exercise, even moderate exercise for a short period of time can help. If you’ve ever been so angry that you needed to go for a walk to “cool off,” you may have noticed that after a short walk, you felt better. Sometimes it’s enough to go around the block or to the corner and back. Sometimes you need to punch a heavy bag (or a pillow) for a while. It doesn’t matter what type of exercise you do, what matters is that you get your heart rate up for a period of time.

• Yoga Asana (poses on the mat)—When you feel anxious or depressed, it’s because your mind is focused on time periods over which you have no control. Focusing on the present moment puts you at ease and settles your nervous system. Dropping down into your body calms your mind, and that is one benefit of practicing yoga poses. When you are in Downward Facing Dog or Warrior 2 pose, it’s difficult to think about your to-do list, or the argument you had with a friend. When you balance on one leg, such as in Tree pose, it takes all of your attention to focus on the sensations in your body so that you don’t fall over. When you practice yoga, your focus is on your connection to the floor, your body, and your breath.

• Breathing techniques/Pranayama—When you control how you breathe, you can control how you feel. Have you ever noticed that when you are stressed or anxious you might hold your breath, or it becomes fast and shallow? Slow deep breaths help you feel calmer. Focusing on your breath, like practicing yoga poses, brings you into the present moment and reconnects you with your body. Tuning into the sensation of breathing gets you out of the mental spin and back into what you can control. You only have control over your actions. While you can’t control your thoughts, you can control what you do in response to your thoughts. You can’t control what other people do or say, but you can control what you do or say. You can always control your breath.

• Meditation—One thing to know about meditation is that the goal is not to quiet or still the mind. This is a common misconception. While that can happen, that’s not the goal. The goal is to sit and see what’s happening in the present moment. You will notice your breath, your thoughts, sensations in your body, and sounds around you. The purpose is to observe without attaching yourself to any of it. Herein lies the challenge. It’s much easier to let the mind wander than it is to notice your thoughts. Your mind will wander, it’s what it does. Meditation teaches you the power of concentration and focus, as well as Non-Attachment/Aparigraha.

• Metta/LovingKindness—Metta is often practiced as a prayer or meditation and the words that follow can vary. The basic idea is to send LovingKindness out into the world, and to yourself. You might repeat phrases such as: “May you be happy. May you be safe. May you have shelter and enough food to eat. May you feel protected and free from fear. May you know joy, love, and peace.” This practice opens your heart and cultivates positive, loving energy within you, leaving you feeling calm and relaxed. In my experience, when you practice, you send LovingKindness to yourself, to someone you love, to someone with whom you struggle, then to “All Beings Everywhere.” This is a form of meditation and therefore regulates your nervous system. It can take you out of “Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn,” so that you are not seeking other ways to regulate (like food). You feel calm, relaxed, and have an open heart.

• Journaling—This type of writing is Stream-of-Consciousness. There is no planning, no beginning, middle, and end like most essay writing. Like meditation, or learning any type of skill, it takes time, practice, and self-acceptance. One idea that helps many Type A’s get out of their own way is this phrase: Don’t think, just write. Journaling is writing from the heart, instead of writing from the head. Allow your feelings to flow out through your pen. If you are writing things that make logical sense, then you are writing from your head and bypassing your heart.

What are techniques that you use for self-regulation? Please share in the comments below!

This essay is an excerpt from my upcoming book “Intentional Eating: Finding Peace and Balance in Your Relationship with Food,” expected to be out this year. This book accompanies the online small group coaching program with the same name, starting on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. If you struggle with emotional eating, check out this course! Only 3 spots left.

Self-Regulation on the mat!

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