You might be looking into how to stop stress eating and wonder which one is best for you.

Today you are going to:

• Learn an overview of the three most popular treatments for binge eating disorder
• Discover when you should consider treating binge eating disorder with a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy approach
• A Dialectical Behavioral Therapy technique to ACCEPT and reduce the causes of emotional eating

How to stop stress eating – various treatment paths

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): This is where you learn more about the thoughts and emotions that are running in your subconscious mind and start to make changes
• Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT): This therapy is more about relationships and how you relate to other people, and see yourself in relationship to others. This is especially good if you struggle with food in social situations.
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): This therapy is when you emotionally eat all the time. It’s for dealing with intense emotions.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): This style involves facing painful emotions and staying flexibly committed to a course of action based on your inner most values.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Think of an “empath”.

An empath is one of your more sensitive friends. They might be highly attuned to other peope’s feelings but then feel overwhelmed. This person might tend to be a bit more shy, or have a negative body image.

Now there are plenty of other people who are emotionally sensitive, who aren’t typically seen as “empaths”. You might know somebody whose personality is a bit over the top. Or maybe you know someone who gets into huge mood swings.

Whatever the case, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is about dealing with the pain of life. And some people feel the pain of life more sensitively.

Now here’s where food comes in – Emotional Eating.

If you eat because your feel intense emotions, finding binge eating disorder treatment in the form of Dialectical Behavior Therapy may be for you.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy ACCEPT Techniques

Let’s say you get a call from your boss.

Your boss’s voice is tense and says that you need to come to the office in exactly 60 minutes.

So for 60 minutes you are just waiting. Life is out of your control, it might feel like. Your heart starts to race.

Do you go use food to cope with these intense emotions? Or do you ACCEPT?

These are the 6 ways to stop stress eating!

• Activities – distract yourself with activities like reading
• Contributing – some how make someone’s life better like even something simple as saying “happy birthday” to someone on facebook
• Comparisons – put things in perspective – has this situation happened before?
• Emotions – the opposite! If you are feeling anxious, go on a walk. If you are feeling depressed, go watch funny cat videos
• Pushing away – it’s okay to push the thought out of your mind. Say to yourself that you will come back to the thought when you are ready
• Thoughts – Use a mantra to overcome negative thoughts.
• Sensations – Some how use your sense to de-stress – splash your face with water, take a bath, listen to music, etc

Other resources on binge eating disorder treatments how to stop stress eating , and my concluding thoughts

Here is a beautiful resource SunriseTC.com with more info on DBT coping techniques.

Overall though, I believe that dialectical behavior therapy works really well.

Why does it work?

Because it’s essentially about impulse control so that you stop binge eating.

You know that split second you have before you act?

Typically people don’t use that split second, they just react.

Like when someone yells at you. What’s your default response?

Yell back? Run? Be submissive?

Did you know you have a split second in which to take a different course of action?

Normally our instincts serve us well. We evolved our instincts and impulses because they helped us survive.

Think of a spider. It’s useful to instinctively pull your hand back from a dangerous spider.

Another example is to avoid oncoming traffic.

However, if you grew up in environment and used food to protect yourself…

Your impulses could be way off and not be appropriate.

You might instinctively use food to protect yourself.

This is where DBT comes in, in working with these impulses.

And by working with your impulses you can become more empowered over time.

DBT has many different stress relief techniques that are incredibly valuable.