Anxiety and food
Mental health can affect many aspects of your life. Eating can be one of those things.
Before I go on I want to point out the difference between anxiety affecting your appetite and the anorexia nervosa and bulimia disorders. Anorexia is a medical condition where people keep their body weight as low as possible. Bulimia is a medical condition where people try to control their weight but binge eat and then purge through vomiting or laxatives.
I found this amazing blog recently in which the blogger opens up about her relationship with food and anxiety. It is on Hello Giggles.
I was so inspired by it that I wanted to share my own relationship with food and anxiety. I have had this problem on and off for about as long as I can remember.
I think I first noticed by problem when I was at primary school. We all get nervous and that can put us off eating until the thing that is making us nervous passes. This is called fight or flight and is a natural response that we developed over time in order to survive. I would get even beyond the feeling of nervousness though and it would affect me for days rather than on the day of the event. I would struggle to eat my dinner or my lunches and would skip breakfast if I thought I could. I simply wasn't hungry.
The worst I remember was probably before my driving test. There was a lot riding on it. If I didn't pass I might not be able to go to the university I wanted and I lived in a village with no transport links at all so it felt suffocating. I got so stressed I couldn't even eat the Valentines dinner that my then boyfriend took me out for. It wasn't just nerves, it was the whole caboodle. I was suffering from anxiety over the test.
Then I had my unpleasantness that I have written about before and that is when the anxiety hit more than ever before. Again I couldn't eat and that lasted for about two weeks.
With the house buying and being ill recently everything has become too much for me. I have begun having regular panic attacks and I have been breathless from time-to-time. This is a horrid feeling like you can't get enough air into your lungs. Basically it is part of the fight or flight response as it is the body trying to take in more oxygen for a response like that.
The body doesn't want food when you are anxious because of a mixture of chemicals that go through the body and tell it that you are not hungry. This might have been a survival response in the past, if you have an empty stomach you can run faster. The trouble is that you also lose energy and that in turn makes you feel more anxious. It is a vicious circle.
The best thing to do at times when you don't want to eat because of anxiety is to make yourself eat small meals regularly. The trouble with this is eating in public. Some of us have a real fear that someone will notice our eating habits or make a comment about how little we have consumed. That makes us anxious in itself.
So before you comment think about how the person who hasn't eaten much feels. There might be a psychological reason why this is the case. We can't help it. This is just the way we are.
There are other times when I could eat for England. I can pack away phenomenal amounts of food and it is almost obscene. This is when I am feeling content and happy. When I am stressed and anxious I am the exact opposite.
I have been ill with a stomach bug lately too and that has stopped me from feeling so hungry. I have a fear of being ill. I worry that things won't get done if I am not well enough to do it. I sometimes need to accept that I am just ill and that if things don't get done today then it is not a huge problem.
So anxiety has a lot to do with whether or not you eat and believe me, it is horrible. Talking about it can help though. That is what I am trying to do through these blogs. Help others and help myself.
Before I go on I want to point out the difference between anxiety affecting your appetite and the anorexia nervosa and bulimia disorders. Anorexia is a medical condition where people keep their body weight as low as possible. Bulimia is a medical condition where people try to control their weight but binge eat and then purge through vomiting or laxatives.
I found this amazing blog recently in which the blogger opens up about her relationship with food and anxiety. It is on Hello Giggles.
I was so inspired by it that I wanted to share my own relationship with food and anxiety. I have had this problem on and off for about as long as I can remember.
I think I first noticed by problem when I was at primary school. We all get nervous and that can put us off eating until the thing that is making us nervous passes. This is called fight or flight and is a natural response that we developed over time in order to survive. I would get even beyond the feeling of nervousness though and it would affect me for days rather than on the day of the event. I would struggle to eat my dinner or my lunches and would skip breakfast if I thought I could. I simply wasn't hungry.
The worst I remember was probably before my driving test. There was a lot riding on it. If I didn't pass I might not be able to go to the university I wanted and I lived in a village with no transport links at all so it felt suffocating. I got so stressed I couldn't even eat the Valentines dinner that my then boyfriend took me out for. It wasn't just nerves, it was the whole caboodle. I was suffering from anxiety over the test.
Then I had my unpleasantness that I have written about before and that is when the anxiety hit more than ever before. Again I couldn't eat and that lasted for about two weeks.
With the house buying and being ill recently everything has become too much for me. I have begun having regular panic attacks and I have been breathless from time-to-time. This is a horrid feeling like you can't get enough air into your lungs. Basically it is part of the fight or flight response as it is the body trying to take in more oxygen for a response like that.
The body doesn't want food when you are anxious because of a mixture of chemicals that go through the body and tell it that you are not hungry. This might have been a survival response in the past, if you have an empty stomach you can run faster. The trouble is that you also lose energy and that in turn makes you feel more anxious. It is a vicious circle.
The best thing to do at times when you don't want to eat because of anxiety is to make yourself eat small meals regularly. The trouble with this is eating in public. Some of us have a real fear that someone will notice our eating habits or make a comment about how little we have consumed. That makes us anxious in itself.
So before you comment think about how the person who hasn't eaten much feels. There might be a psychological reason why this is the case. We can't help it. This is just the way we are.
There are other times when I could eat for England. I can pack away phenomenal amounts of food and it is almost obscene. This is when I am feeling content and happy. When I am stressed and anxious I am the exact opposite.
I have been ill with a stomach bug lately too and that has stopped me from feeling so hungry. I have a fear of being ill. I worry that things won't get done if I am not well enough to do it. I sometimes need to accept that I am just ill and that if things don't get done today then it is not a huge problem.
So anxiety has a lot to do with whether or not you eat and believe me, it is horrible. Talking about it can help though. That is what I am trying to do through these blogs. Help others and help myself.
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