Energizing Tools for When You Feel Drained and Reach for Food
Energizing Tools
Not every urge to eat is driven by stress. Sometimes it is driven by feeling tired, bored, restless, unmotivated, or mentally drained. Sometimes the most helpful energizing tool is giving yourself permission to rest.
Your mind has learned that your favorite comfort foods help change your mood, even if it is short-lived. There is definitely nothing wrong with enjoying your food. But it is important to learn what your nervous system really needs, like movement, hydration, or mental stimulation. Even though eating gives a brief moment of relief, that moment passes, and you're still overwhelmed.
Taking a Walk
A walk can help shift both your physical and emotional state by changing your environment. It can help clear your head, reduce tension, and create distance from what is triggering you.
You could walk for five to ten minutes around your neighborhood, or even around your yard. It is important to change your focus from your cravings to what's around you. Do you hear birds? Are there people out and about? Allowing your thoughts to shift helps you be able to get past the cravings.
Dancing to Upbeat Music
Dancing combines movement, music, playfulness, and emotional expression. It isn’t important that you have choreography; what is important is moving and enjoying it. When you dance, it changes your energy, and it helps you reconnect with a sense of enjoyment. You deserve to feel alive and energized.
Doing Light Stretches or Yoga
If you find yourself carrying stress for long periods of time, you might mistake that tension as a need to eat. Gentle stretching can help you reconnect with yourself. Simple exercises like stretching your arms above your head and side to side, or stretching your legs, can release tension.
Breathe slowly and deeply as you stretch. Yoga offers more than a way to move; it helps regulate breathing and bring your attention to the present.
Drinking Water or Herbal Tea
We sometimes think we are hungry, but it might be that we are thirsty. That doesn’t mean that every craving you have is dehydration.
What helped me was to crush up fresh fruit and let it sit overnight in my water bottle. By morning, my water tasted like blueberries or strawberries. It was easier to get enough to drink when it tasted good.
Choose a tool that feels comfortable and take notice of how you feel afterward. Music, movement, and laughter, those are the real energizers that will help you move forward.
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