Why Am I Eating So Much on Quarantine (And Life Hacks to Help You Stop) with Dr. Dawn Elise Snipes

Bless you. Bless you. Hey there everybody. We've got a couple minutes before we get started, but I figured I would just log in a little bit early. Today we're going to be talking about why am I eating so much? And I didn't mean to capitalize both of those, but that's okay. So I've had a lot of people contacting me and asking different questions. There are some really interesting things that are coming up for people while they are in quarantine because they have more time. So one of the things I'm focusing on today is the question that keeps coming up about why am I eating so much. But I've also had other people asking about how do I get out of my own head. I'm spending so much time every day just kind of sitting around and then I start thinking and, you know, the thoughts just start coming and basically I get that monkey mind going on and I can't figure out how to break out of it. That's probably something we'll talk about next week, but just be aware that that is coming. Alrighty. So today we're talking about why am I eating so much. There are a lot of reasons that we are eating more than normal and not necessarily saying that that's a good thing, but recognizing that what we are doing is a compensatory response. There are a lot of different reasons why people may be overeating right now and we're going to talk about a bunch of them and maybe a few things that you can try to do for people who are depressed or anxious right now. Eating is a form of self medication. When we eat high fat, high sugar, high processed foods, it causes our body to release more dopamine and more serotonin than maybe your protein laden foods. A lot of people are gravitating towards those feel good foods right now in order to get a little bit more serotonin and dopamine flowing. I do want to point out, and we'll talk about this a little bit more, down with circadian rhythms, that there are a lot of receptors in the same areas of our brain that there are serotonin receptors. There are a lot of receptors for vitamin D. So many people are not getting outside right now and it is vitally important to get outside. You have no idea how much, how important it is when you get that sunlight when you walk to your car in the morning. Hopefully it's sun sunny when you go to work in the morning and when you walk to your car in the evening to help set those circadian Rhythms, you don't need a ton of sunlight. They estimate between 10 and 15 minutes of sunlight every day really helps set your circadian rhythms. That also helps you get enough vitamin D to combat seasonal affective disorder, which a lot of people are struggling with right now. Other things you can do for depression and anxiety are review some distress tolerance skills. Identify things that are within your control that you can do right now. You can't get the government to get you your check any faster. I see a lot of people talking about that. You can't get the governor to lift the restrictions any faster right now. Those are things you can't do. So dwelling on them and holding them and nurturing them, that ain't gonna do any good. What do you have control over? You know, I'm taking advantage of the time that, you know, I can't be going shopping and, you know, going hiking in the parks and stuff by making sure my garden is ready for the spring, doing spring cleaning. I've told y' all I'm doing a lot of spring cleaning lately. And things that I normally would be trying to squeeze in, I have more time to do. And those are things that I can focus on, I can do and they make me feel good. So that is increasing the serotonin and the dopamine in my system. There are other videos on the YouTube channel that will help you address anxiety associated with quarantine. Anxiety in general, cognitive behavioral techniques, distress tolerance techniques. There's a lot of things that you can do and you need to find what works for you. Stress is another reason that people eat. And sometimes, like I said a minute ago, it could be to get more dopamine and serotonin flowing. It could be a self medication thing. Sometimes it's just a distraction thing. When you are stressed, sometimes you want to be able to turn your attention to something else besides what's bothering you. So you start thinking about, you know, what you're going to make for dinner or that you could get up and bake some bread or you could do some other things and that serves as a distraction from your stress right now, especially since you can't get out and go too many places. However, it's also probably working against you if you are eating a lot of high fat, high sugar foods. Making a list of 10 things that you can do when you're stressed to distract yourself is going to be really helpful. Take a bath, go on a walk. I think everywhere. We're still allowed to go on walks, do 50 push ups, clean the house, dance, listen to music, Read a book, whatever it is that works for you. Make a list of those 10 things so when you feel stressed and put it on your refrigerator. So when you feel stressed and you start reaching for that fridge, you see that list staring back at you. One thing I learned when I was going through graduate school was a technique called DO15, and this applied more to my dissertation at that point in time. But we can do the same, apply the same thing to stress eating. When you go to that refrigerator and you see that list, you may think, you know, I don't want to do any of those things. I really want to eat the last piece of pie that's in the fridge right now. Challenge yourself to find something on that list and do it for 15 minutes. And if after 15 minutes you are still totally craving whatever that is, then you might legitimately be hungry or give in to it 95 of the time or more. You're probably going to find that once you start doing something else that you actually don't go back to eat, or it's a much longer time before you go back to the refrigerator if you are bored. Same thing applies. Keep a list of things that you can do, things that you enjoy doing. Movies you want to watch. I can kill a lot of time going through Amazon music and downloading new songs, or going through Netflix or Hulu or Amazon prime or one of those and finding different movies and shows that I want to add to my queue. You'd be amazed at how much time you can lose doing that, let alone watching the shows or listening to the songs. Find hobbies that you enjoy doing. Not everybody likes to clean. So if doing your spring cleaning isn't for you, what hobbies can you find? Crocheting is a great one. You can actually watch videos on YouTube about how to finger crochet, so you don't even need a crochet hook. And that's a really fun activity to do if you've got younger kids at home that might be interested in doing that. Painting is another one. If you've got leftover paint, or you can just get out some pencils and start sketching. Photography. Most everybody has a camera now. It may just be the camera in your phone, but you have a camera. Maybe challenge everybody in your house to go on a scavenger hunt and find 20 things that are yellow within your house or in your yard you don't have to violate. You can do it without violating quarantine. Or figure out different ways and different filters that you can use on your phone in order to make the pictures pop, make the pictures more artistic. There's a lot of stuff you can do and another one of those things that is a total time suck. So if you are bored and you're looking for something just to fill the hours right now, that that's something you can do. If you are bored and you want something to do that may make money, you can go online. There are still a lot of things that you can do online that can help you make money. The gig economy. You can make money teaching English, you can make money tutoring. There are a lot of things. So you would search online for something like work from home jobs and see what's available out there. Are they going to pay you a whole bunch of money? No, probably not, but they can pay you a little bit. You can review resumes, what, whatever that you might be interested in doing. Habit is another reason that a lot of people are eating. Time of day. It's 8 o' clock in the morning, it's time for breakfast. I am going to eat. I'm not going to check with myself, I'm not going to be mindful to see if I'm hungry or not. I'm just going to go ahead and eat. So same thing at lunchtime and at dinner time and sometimes right now, our meals are really what we look forward to most throughout the day. So we are counting the minutes. As soon as one meal ends, we're counting the minutes to the next meal. Find something to put in between that time that you enjoy doing. So you're looking forward to something besides just your next meal. And sometimes it's a habit from activities. When you watch tv, you are always usually snacking. Well, if that's true, on a normal day when you're working, you come home from work, you eat dinner, then you've got maybe two or three hours before you go to bed that you're snacking, which I'm not promoting that, but that's a whole different thing than if you get up in the morning and you start watching TV and you start snacking at 7am and you keep grazing throughout the day, you're going to eat a whole, whole bunch more calories. Pay attention to when you're eating and try during this time to practice mindful eating. Maybe restricting yourself to eating only at the table. And here's, here's a concept. Only on a plate. You're not eating out of the box, out of the bag, out of the container. You're actually putting a portion on a plate and sitting down at the table. That May sound overwhelming to a lot of people, but it is a huge step because you'll find that there are a lot of times that you forego eating because you don't want to sit at the table and you realize that you really weren't that hungry. It was just a habit that you did. Circadian rhythms is a, another reason that people are overeating a lot. When we sleep and when we are in bright light, when we are setting our circadian rhythms that also set, sets or helps regulate our hunger and satiation hormones. Our bodies. You know, if you think about your body throughout the day, most of us have this internal clock that says, hey, it's lunchtime, hey, it's dinner time. That is our b, our circadian rhythm secreting those hunger hormones, prompting you to eat, especially if you're hungry. When you are not maintaining your circadian rhythms, you're sleeping till 9 or 10 o' clock in the morning, you're staying up until 1 or 2 o' clock in the morning, you know, whatever, and those circadian rhythms get out of whack. Then your ghrelin and leptin, your hunger and satiation hormones are also going to get out of whack. So you may not have those definitive feelings of hunger that you normally do. It is really important during this time to do two things. Well, a lot of things, but two things to help with your overall threat response system, your HPA axis and your circadian rhythms. The first one is to make sure that you are keeping a sleep routine and keeping your, the time you sleep kind of constant, you know, relatively the same as it would be if you were still doing what you did before quarantine. If you used to get up at 5am to go to work, well, maybe you're not going to get up till six now, but something similar to what you used to do and go to bed at a reasonable hour. So your body knows during the morning when you get up, get into somewhere where there's a bright light and stay in bright lights with blue undertones throughout the day in order to help trigger and remind your body that, hey, it's still daytime, I still need to be awake. Once that blue light starts to go away and it starts to get dimmer, your body's going to think it's time to start getting ready for sleep circuit secreting melatonin and getting ready for that rest scenario that, that you're heading for. It is really important to get that bright light and to maintain a sleep schedule even during quarantine. And I know that Sounds awful. You're like, well, this is, you know, my vacation. Well, a vacation typically only lasts a week, maybe two weeks, so you don't do a whole of damage. But a lot of times when we're on vacation, we do eat a lot more than normal because our circadian rhythms are, you know, a little wonky. And we're generally, quote, treating ourselves. This may go on for a while, and it's important to start self regulating now. And finally, triggers are another reason people are eating a lot. Sights. We see something, we see something yummy and it makes us think, ooh, I really want that. If you're watching television and you see a commercial for some kind of sandwich or pizza or something, you might think, oh, that sounds really good right now. And then you start thinking about it and dwelling on it and trying to figure out, you know, oh, I. Whether you really need to get it or want to get it. And that starts to build. It's important to develop distress tolerance and urge tolerance skills during this, remembering that urges come in over about 20 minutes and then they start to recede. Just like the ebb and flow of the tides. It's. Well, tides go a lot slower, but you know what I mean. The. When we see those things, it's kind of like someone who has a problem with alcohol, seeing alcohol. And it can trigger a desire to have that. Now, they may have a much stronger reaction than you do to maybe pizza. But the same basic principle is true. Your brain sees it and your brain goes, oh, I remember that. That was provided a lot of feel good chemicals. So you may start craving it and thinking about it. It's important to turn your attention to something else. Not to get stuck on it, but maybe to table it and go, okay, well tonight at dinner, if I'm still wanting pizza, then maybe we'll order pizza so you can put it, put it off, put it on a shelf somewhere for a little while. Counters are another thing that can trigger us to eat what we see. We tend to hand to mouth. They've done studies and they found that people who keep food on their counter, especially processed food, cereals and things like that, tend to eat between 50, 15 and 30% more calories each day when it's on the counter versus if it is put up in the cabinet. Now that's a lot of calories for a lot of people. That's like 500 calories and smells. If you live in an apartment or in a neighborhood where everybody is close together, you may smell it. When you're especially in an Apartment when your neighbors are cooking or. Or when they get pizza delivered, and you may smell that, that can also trigger your desire to eat, even if you're not hungry. Recognizing that and knowing what you can do. I was out the other day working in my garden, and we live on a farm, so we're not super close to our neighbors, but somebody was barbecuing and it smelled so good. Now I'm a vegetarian, so I'm like, why does that. Why is that even an issue for me? But it really is because when I smell it, it, you know, triggers some of those taste sensors or something in my brain. And I start thinking about. I start thinking about baked potatoes more than anything. But recognizing that smells can also have that impact is important. So what do you do if your neighbor orders pizza and you start to smell it? Maybe you have some air freshener that you can put out. Maybe you have some essential oils that you can sniff. Grapefruit, your citrus essential oils are supposed to help with appetite suppression. Sniffing them, not necessarily applying them, that's a whole different ball game. But finding something that is counter to what you're smelling, that you think is so yummy and tasty can also be another way to help you stop eating. Eating being intuitive is the final tip that I will give you for why we're eating so much right now. And there are a lot of books on intuitive eating, but it basically, basically comes down to mindfulness before you eat and this. It can be helpful to have a nutrition journal that you fill out before you eat. A lot of times, because I'm lazy, I will go into the kitchen and I will think about eating, and I'm like, do I really want to take the time to write everything down and measure everything out? And I'm like, nah, I ain't that hungry. But I'm inherently lazy, so that could be just me. But keeping track with a nutrition journal, what you're eating, when you're eating it, you know, maybe even why you're eating, if you are hungry, bored, tired, whatever it is. So you can see what your patterns are. But getting to the point where you start checking in with yourself before you put anything in your mouth and you ask yourself, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? And if the answer to either one of those is in to both of those is no, then walking away and figuring out what it is that you are trying to accomplish by eating. Do you need a hit of dopamine and serotonin? Okay, what else does it for you besides eating? Do you. Are you bored? Okay. If you're bored, what else can you do besides eating? And that's where intuitive eating comes in. There's really not counting calories, not measuring a bunch of food and stuff, but eating when you're hungry and listening to your body. If your body says, I'm craving a glass of milk right now, and you, you recognize that you're hungry or thirsty, then you may need that if your body is craving. You know, I've told you guys before that when I crave iceberg lettuce, I know that I'm dehydrated because iceberg lettuce is almost all water anyway. When I'm craving tomato paste or spinach, I know that my iron is probably a little bit low, not, you know, super low. But I listen and I think about what is it that I want to eat? What is my body telling me it needs right now instead of just reaching for the first feel good food I can find, which is almost always either peanut butter or cashews in my house. So I hope that gave you a few tips that you can use. Let me look at some comments. Welcome, Laverne. I'm glad to have you and Rebecca working with people that are on medication assisted therapy in, in prison. Anything that is going to help them with distress tolerance, that's going to help them with emotion regulation, that's going to help them with interpersonal skills can be helpful. We know that a lot of people, dare I say upwards of 90% or more of people in the prison system have histories of trauma. And a lot of those people who have concurrent addiction issues are almost guaranteed to have histories of trauma and potentially issues with abandonment and interpersonal skills. It's important to be able to work with each person and assess them and figure out what exactly their needs are. Some people who are in prison have a lot of life skills and have a lot of other skills and they made a really bad mistake that landed them in prison. Recognizing that prison is longer than. For those of you who aren't familiar, prison is longer than a year. So they did, they did something significant. But also recognizing that there are also a lot of people in prison who have been in and out of the system their entire life and may need simple things like simple ish things like life skills to help reduce recidivism. Developing a checklist to figure out what types of skills your participants would benefit from is going to be helpful. Medication assisted therapy usually applies to opioid treatment programs. And you can correct me if I'm wrong and you're dealing with something else. But it's going to be important for people who have a addiction to opioids to be able to develop some alternative pain management techniques in order to deal with the pain that they will feel at some point when they are, you know, titrating or not able to access the intensity of dosage that they, that they wanted to. Other things that we used to see in our medication assisted therapy clients would be just communication skills. And a lot of them had difficulty managing their anxiety. So opioids often were a way that they could sort of turn down their HPA axis. It's important during this time to also consider grief. There are some of your clients who are incarcerated right now who may feel very angry and guilty that they can't be there to help their families right now. There also may be some people who are in the prison system who are struggling. And I know, I've heard this from people who are in residential treatment right now who are struggling being in close quarters with others. Um, and, and they need some distress tolerance skills for that because they're not able to do some of the things that they used to do or they're worried whenever a new prisoner comes in that that person is going to introduce the, introduce the virus to them, or when a new patient is admitted to resident residential, they're always concerned that that patient is going to contaminate, if you will, the system. There are also other people who, you know, went into this feeling that they got the raw end of the deal and they should be furloughed and they're feeling resentful because they see in many states, a lot of people, especially in the jails, are getting furloughed right now and they're feeling resentful that they're still stuck in jail and working with them to deal with that frustration, that anger, that guilt, that grief. There are a lot of videos on the YouTube channel that can deal with each one of those individual topics. But without knowing more specifically what your clients are clients needs are, I'm really kind of shooting in the dark on that one. Are there any other questions? Alrighty everybody. Well, thank you for being here today and I will see you next week, same time, same station. It.