First of all, you need to define the term. What is compulsive overeating? In simple terms, it is the regular binge consumption of huge amounts of food, accompanied by feelings of guilt and self-loathing and the feeling that you cannot stop your appetite. Signs of binge eating disorder You can't stop eating or control what you eat. You eat a lot and very quickly (as if they could take it away). You eat even when you feel full. You eat automatically (for example, you can quickly eat a pack of cookies and not notice how it happened). Pain in the stomach, disturbances in the gastrointestinal tract. No matter how much and what you eat, you get, at best, fleeting pleasure, which immediately evaporates. Food helps you relieve stress. You eat most often when you are busy with something else (in front of the TV, computer, when reading). Feeling of guilt after overeating. The presence of half of these signs indicates that you are susceptible to compulsive overeating. Compulsive overeating is not a disease. This is a symptom of the disease. And the disease itself in this case is emotional dissatisfaction. It can have many different sources. Here are some of the possible ones: loneliness, lack of support and satisfactory close relationships, constant stress, unexperienced grief, suppressed strong feelings (anger, resentment, envy), excessive control and self-control in other areas of life. That is, emotional dissatisfaction can mean any discord in the area feelings. It can be situational, passing, that is, a very specific reason led to such an imbalance (breaking up with a loved one, being fired from a job, the collapse of hopes). Or it can be chronic (“dislike” in childhood, low self-esteem, denial of reality). Food in this case is compensation for what is missing. It must be said that our body is generally specialized in compensation. For example, sweating compensates for the possibility of overheating, yawning compensates for the lack of oxygen, and increased hearing and touch compensates for the inability to visually navigate in the dark. With the emotional sphere, the situation is somewhat more complicated. For two reasons: It is often difficult to understand what exactly I am missing. Even having understood what is missing, it is difficult or even impossible to get it. And then we try to plug this sucking funnel of emotional dissatisfaction in various ways: addictions, constant “jumps” into new relationships, workaholism, etc. Or, as in our case, gluttony. How to help yourself? The most common cause of compulsive overeating is emotional problems. Most often this is depression, repressed feelings and excessive self-control (for example, a girl obsessed with the idea of ​​being slim). Psychotherapy can help overcome these problems. Long-term and regular. And turning to her is of course the best option. We cannot “cure the disease” ourselves. Even a psychologist cannot cope alone. True, there are cases when it can disappear on its own, if, for example, life circumstances have changed and God forbid everyone. Well, for now, let's talk about what useful things we can do for ourselves. Self-help in this case is control over the symptom itself. Control is constant awareness of what I am doing, why I am doing it and what I want as a result. General recommendations: Minimize the presence of prepared food at home. Try to have just enough ready-to-eat food at home for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a few snacks. The principle here is simple: absence of temptations. If you do not live alone, then you can ask to remove food from sight (so that there are no bowls of sweets on the table, bright packages of snacks, etc.). Let all this be put away in the kitchen cabinets. Try to follow a diet. Main meals every day at approximately the same time. Over time, the body will adapt to this regime at other times.you will be less hungry. Take any food only at the dinner table. And this is not just a matter of good manners. If your task is to control the process of overeating, then it must be deprived of all sorts of additional “conveniences” (not eating on the sofa, in an armchair, in front of the TV, in front of the computer, etc.). Remember that after eating, a feeling of fullness comes after about 20 minutes. Take up your free time with some activity that absorbs your attention and it’s good if it requires your hands to be busy. Techniques for coping with compulsive overeating You are full (let's say you recently had lunch) and suddenly feel an urge to eat something. The first control point is to wait 10 minutes. During this time you will not die of hunger. But remove the compulsive nature of the action (compulsions are unconscious automatic actions). During these 10 minutes, stand up, place your feet shoulder-width apart, and take a few deep breaths in and out. 10 minutes passed and the thought of chewing something returned to you. The second point of control is - instead of going and eating, drink 2 glasses of water (one after the other), but not quickly, in one gulp, but slowly, one sip at a time. This way you indirectly satisfy the need to “absorb” without harm to the body. If we consider compulsive overeating as compensation for emotional hunger (and this is a kind of self-deception), then drinking water is compensation for compensation, that is, a deception of deception. In front of the TV or in front of the computer, you are constantly drawn to gnawing, chewing something, etc. . The biggest danger here is that you don't notice how much you're actually eating. Therefore, we are again engaged in deceiving our harmful addiction. You can chew gum, chew a large fruit pit or lollipop in your mouth. Thus, we "eat" without absorbing. A good metaphor to illustrate the effect of this technique is a baby's pacifier. Every time you go to eat, this process must be fully aware. Before you head into the kitchen, ask yourself, “What exactly do I want to eat?” Don't start until you understand what exactly. The answer “I don’t know, something tasty” is not suitable. For example, you realized that you want gingerbread. Then the next question to yourself is: “how many gingerbread cookies do I want to eat now?” Let's say you decide. that two. Then you take not a bag of gingerbread cookies, but a plate. Preferably a beautiful one that you like. Place exactly two gingerbread cookies from the bag on a plate, tie the bag and put it out of sight. It is advisable to divide any food (if possible) into several small pieces. Let’s say you cut these 2 gingerbread cookies into 6 pieces with a knife (this helps convince the “gluttony center” that you ate 6 gingerbread cookies). Eat each piece as slowly as possible, chewing thoroughly, trying to distinguish the slightest shades of taste and aftertaste and your feelings that arise after these sensations. Follow the “sensation scanner” as the chewed and swallowed piece descends down the esophagus and falls into your stomach. All this is done in order to make the process of eating as conscious as possible and allow yourself to enjoy. When nutrition occurs in this way, the body has time to understand that it is being fed and sends appropriate signals to the brain, to the centers responsible for satiety, pleasure and calm. These feelings are the closest to love and it is precisely these (compensatory) that we want to experience by regularly overeating. But the paradox is that when we eat too quickly and unconsciously, we deprive ourselves of why we eat. And then “the wolves are hungry and the hares are eaten.” Another way to cope with compulsive overeating is the following: allow yourself to eat, but specifically eat something that tastes bad. For many it suits well, for others it does not suit at all. Individual characteristics play a big role here. When small children are weaned from the bad habit of thumb sucking, a simple method is often used: they smear the finger with mustard. The child develops a conditioned reflex that “sucking a finger is bitter and disgusting” and over time he gets rid of thishabits are eliminated. Our method has the same principle. Choose a product that you do not like, eating which does not give you any pleasure. For example, fresh white cabbage. Every time you experience that familiar compulsive urge to eat, you eat that cabbage. Moreover, you also put the portion on a plate and finish it to the end, even if you don’t feel like it. This is done so that the body develops the reflex we need: it is tasty only at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the rest of the time it is tasteless. We go for pleasure, but systematically do not receive it. The psyche is designed in such a way that it will have to restructure itself and look for pleasure in something else. This leads to the fifth method. Take a piece of paper and write on it: “Food for me is...” and then list what food means to you (pleasure, a way to forget, take time, relieve stress, take your mind off boredom, gloomy thoughts, put things off, etc.) d). Then think about each item on this list and ask yourself: How can I satisfy these needs in other ways and write a separate list for each need. (it is useful to use the brainstorming technique here). Many of these things require spending money. And here it will be useful to calculate how much you can save on “extra” food. Conscious expansion of the behavioral repertoire is a solid and thorough step towards breaking out of the vicious circle of compulsions. Get a special notebook-diary and write down every day what pleased you (or you yourself) and brought pleasure, except for food. Keep a food diary and note in It includes every meal (even if it’s just one seed), the time of consumption, the amount of food and, preferably, their cost. This helps to control the frequency of food intake and its quantity, as well as call on your “inner toad” for help. Moreover, when this is presented clearly, it becomes clear where you really overate, and where you just imagined it out of habit. A food diary also makes it easier to track your progress. And the feeling of progress has a powerful positive effect on motivation. Compensate for every overeating with training. If you punish yourself with hunger strikes for bouts of gluttony (as many do), then there is a risk of provoking even more severe attacks in the future (these are so-called “breakdowns”). Remember that you are already emotionally starving and if you suddenly deprive yourself of food as punishment, you will make it even worse for yourself. Exercise is a more mature solution. First, they help avoid the physical consequences of regular overeating (overweight). Secondly, they promote relaxation and calm. Thirdly, they help ease the feeling of guilt that comes after a bout of gluttony. That is, a certain understanding comes: “I worked for a bad deed.” Dealing with feelings of guilt is the most important moment for getting out of the compulsive circle, which in our case looks like this: I feel bad - I eat - I feel guilty - I feel bad. Fourthly, with its regularity (overeating - working the next day), the habit of overeating weakens, because something like this is built in the brain: if I eat, I will feel good, but then I will feel bad because I will have to squat 100 times). Make a habit reward yourself for success. Track your progress using a food diary and for each successful day (when you effectively managed to control your impulses) reward yourself with something pleasant, but, of course, not food. This could be buying a new thing, going to an interesting event, etc. Research data in the field of behavioral psychology have shown that in the vast majority of cases, rewards are more effective than punishment in forming the desired habit. If the basis of emotional dissatisfaction is a lack of love, support and acceptance, then with the help of encouragement we “add” to ourselves what is missing and what we try so vainly to compensate for by regular overeating. So, the main lever of self-help for compulsive overeating is this.