Tag Archives: Managing Emotions

Ask Ellen Anmuth, Psychotherapist: How Can I Lose Weight, Even Though I Travel?

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This article series deals with email questions sent from readers. Gary from Boston travels regularly for business, and is gaining weight. He writes:

Gary: I travel at least 4 days per week for business, and stay at different hotels each night. In the last 2 years, I have gained about 25 pounds. I find myself alone in the hotel room after 8 PM, eating junk food while I watch TV. Do you have any advice?

Ellen Anmuth, Licensed Psychotherapist:  Traveling for business can be stressful. You write that you are eating junk food at night when you are alone in the hotel room.  Some people reach for food when they feel lonely. If you are eating out of a feeling of loneliness, perhaps you could find ways to manage those feelings that do not include food. How about calling some friends when you are alone in the room?   I am assuming you have already had dinner, and you are eating out of emotional hunger, rather than biological hunger.

If you are over-eating to calm anxiety, perhaps getting in touch with what is creating the feelings of anxiety could be helpful. Once you identify what is causing the stress, you could develop an action plan to reduce the anxiety.  

Finally, perhaps you could bring in some low calorie snacks into your room that give a crunch, such as celery or carrots, if you enjoy crunching. Keeping an apple or orange in the room is also helpful, and lower in calories than the candy bars or other junk food you are alluding to.

Although you did not mention food selections at restaurants, there are things you can do when you eat out that can lower calorie intake. For example, baked foods are less calories than fried foods. Given an option, ask for side orders of salads and steamed vegetables, which are very filling. Try to limit the amount of salad dressings and high calorie desserts.  Hope this is helpful, Gary.

 

Bodies Change With Age: Healthy Coping

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How do we emotionally cope with the sadness of growing older  when our bodies change?

This is a very common issue, yet I do not hear this topic being discussed very often. It seems to me that the culture emphasizes youthful appearance as a primary value, rather than accepting the normal aging process without intervention. Face lifts, injections, tummy tucks, hair color and many other procedures are ways to hide our normal aging process.

Every once in a while, I  notice a TV show from England, and I see actors and actressess with lines on their faces, known as wrinkles! Their complexions are far from perfect, and I sometimes exhale with a sense of gratitude, that people are being represented appropriately.

Have you watched film and TV recently, and found that actors/actresses who are above 60 years of age have faces of 30 year olds? Have you noticed the number of magazine photos that are altered?

What message does this send to us? I wonder if there is an unconscious, cultural message that the normal signs of age are to be experienced as something awful, a failure and something that needs to be changed via cosmetic or surgical interventions.

The more important issue here, in my opinion, is that many people begin to feel a sense of low self esteem, depression and self criticism when they age.

How do people cope with a cultural standard of looking young forever, which cannot be met?

ACTION TIPS:

1)Observe your “self talk”….your inner dialogue that tends to be critical.

2) Notice your emotions of sadness or anger toward yourself if you look in the mirror, and dislike what you see.

3) It is appropriate to grieve over loss of function, such as a knee problem that prevents walking upstairs, or another medical condition that causes disability or loss of prior functional ability. Acknowledge  appropriate sadness over changes in physical function, and get some professional or friend support for dealing with this sadness.

4) Become aware how much sadness and judgement you experience around issues of cosmetic things, such as wrinkles. Buffer your critical self judgement with the knowledge that the larger culture may be creating a standard that is unrealistic, made up of many people who have facelifts, injections or touched up photos.

5) Focus on the important features of you as a person, such as kindness, honesty, integrity, compassion and generosity. Give yourself lots of validation for these precious aspects of being human.

6) Seek counseling by a Licensed Mental Health Professional if you feel depressed, and cannot overcome this issue yourself.

Over-Eating and Feelings: Weight Loss Strategies

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Do you find that you over-eat when you are upset? This is a very common problem. What does “upset” really mean?

It means having feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, hopelessness, helplessness, and…the list is very big.

Do you ever notice yourself over-eating, and glazed over watching TV while eating a bag of chips or pretzels, not being aware of eating 8 portions?

How do we get control of automatic over-eating?

Action Strategies:

1) If you find yourself opening the pretzel cabinet, or standing in front of the refrigerator, ask yourself, “What am I feeling now?”, and “Am I biologically hungry, or simply yearning to change my mood?”

2) Close the cabinet or refrigerator door, go to your desk in  another room, and write down an issue that is making you sad, scared or angry. Then write down all the feelings about these issues.

3) Then, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and take a few minutes to either listen to soft music, or simply let your mind wander. It also helps to give yourself positive messages of support and compassion.

4) Re-alert gently, and ask yourself, “Am I still biologically hungry?” If the answer is yes, ask yourself what type of food would nourish your body. Then, go to the kitchen, and select the healthy foods best suited to soothing your body’s needs. At this time, after relaxing and identifying your feelings, you are most likely to eat slower and make healthier selections.

 

Frustration, Grief and Stress Management

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Stress Management is a broad term. Moment to moment, we encounter inner thoughts, past memories and current environmental triggers. This article will focus on the experience of Frustration, and the feeling of Grief that often “hides below” the frustration.

What do I mean by “hides below” the feeling of frustration? This is a figure of speech, rather than a true psychological term. Have you ever been very frustrated over an issue that you cannot change or control, and then began to cry, or feel sadness?

Feelings of frustration and grief are often experienced together, but usually not at the same time. For example, if you love someone who has a destructive tendency, you may feel frustrated that you cannot change or influence that person’s behavior. If you dig a little deeper, you may find that you also are very sad, as well. Ironically, the best way to manage a feeling is to first identify it and acknowledge that it exists, rather than repress or deny it. We tend to feel sad and angry when we perceive that we have little or no control over a situation.

Helpful Strategies to Manage Frustration:

1) Become aware of the issue that bothers you, and acknowlege the feeling of frustration, and loss of control over the situation.

2) Ask yourself if you are also sad about that. If yes, take out a piece of paper and finish the sentence, “I feel sad about this situation because….”

3) Ultimately, acknowledging the feelings of both  frustration and sadness regarding a situation that you cannot change is a strategy to reduce the stressful impact of an issue that you cannot directly control. Future articles will address the Grief Process more specifically, and will describe ways to manage grief in a healthy way.