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you’re not in a stress response.

Meaning if you’re super relaxed and blissed out, you can’t binge.

Let me elaborate.

There was a time when I couldn’t stop eating, when I literally ate from dusk til dawn. And I ate everything, EVERY THING, I saw. It was like there was a huge hole in my belly and I just couldn’t fill it.

It was a time that I don’t often talk about since it was short and so different than most of my youth.

But it was definitely a formative time.

During this time, I was always, always stressed. Not because I had so much going on in my life, but because I had so much going on in my internal life. I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know anything.

I was lost.

This internal turmoil reflected my behavior big time.

I was stressed and thus, I binged.

You see, when we’re stressed the sympathetic nervous system – our survival instinct – is active. When we’re in sympathetic nervous system dominance, all of our blood, all of our energy goes into our extremities in order for us to run away from the big lion chasing us.

Thus, our brain doesn’t notice we’re eating, it doesn’t digest and the gut doesn’t let our brain know that we’re actually full and satisfied.

If it did, we’d stop or we’d have to eat by mere willpower to go against ourselves.

That being said, the more we can relax, be and breathe, the more we can begin to step into the relaxation response.

That’s how my binging stopped. I began to move towards joy and peace and I got my life back one day at a time. The more I was in a state of flow, the less I needed food to make me happy and to take off the edge.

It’s a process for sure, but with every step, you gain more life and you lose a lot of painful evenings hunched over a bucket of ice-cream or two super sized pizzas.

If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. Here are a few tricks you can implement to move into a state of relaxation and ease.

Laugh

Laughter lowers levels of stress hormones, reduces inflammation in the arteries, and increases “good” HDL cholesterol. And it obviously activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you to feel good and release stress.

Get rid of stuff

If we have too much stuff in our lives, our minds get cluttered with unnecessary stress. I’ve found that the less stuff I own, the less distracted and overwhelmed I get.

So, take a look around: what can you easily get rid of? What do you never touch? What do you obviously don’t need?

Toss it!

Take power naps

I’m not a napper, but I’ve learned that a power nap here and there helps to reduce extreme stress and fatigue, which is one of the main causes for nightly binges.

Schedule in that power nap a few times a week and see how it changes your mood and uplifts your mind.

Clear your schedule

Yup, we live in a busy world and we measure our self-worth by how many items we have on our to-do list, how much achieve and get done every day, but if you want to have a balanced relationship with food, clear your schedule and do nothing for a while.

Seek joy

If your life sucks, your eating behaviors will suck. If you’re not happy, you won’t stop binging and expressing your feelings with destructive habits.

You’ve got to change your life (often in massive ways) in order to break free and cut the cords to your binges.

Unplug

No phone, no TV, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Pinterest, no Internet, period.

If you’re constantly plugged in, it’s impossible to escape stress. Escape the world by consciously choosing to stay offline for a couple of hours a week or more.