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Are you not able to control eating in this Lockdown? Often there is confusion among people between overeating, binge eating, and food addiction. So what is the Difference between Overeating, Binge eating, and Food addiction?

Overeating

Overeating can be a normal tendency for many individuals, to have excess food at a function or wedding even when already full or eating beyond satiety at a special holiday meal or to celebrate. It may occur periodically in a person and cannot be called a disorder. During the lockdown, we might tend to overeat since most of us are working from home an have easy access to food and we have the time available to show our creativity in the kitchen.

But, there is this fine line drawn between overeating and Binge Eating?  It is important to make a distinction between overeating and binge eating. Binge Eating Disorder is, in fact and diagnosable eating disorder, not just an occasional happening or symptom.

Binge Eating

Binge Eating is a Disorder that can be defined as recurring episodes of eating more food in a short period. People have feelings of lack of control often leading to both emotional and physical distress.

Men and women who struggle with binge eating typically experience feelings of disgust, guilt, or embarrassment and binge eat in isolation to conceal the behavior.

Food addiction

Food addiction is a disorder – a biochemical dependency on food. This problem is described as a person relating to the specific food(s) Food addicts experience a physical craving, mental obsession, irritation, headaches if they do not have the specific food at that point. There is a direct connection between emotional problems and food addiction.

In the case of food addiction, the body has become dependent on certain foods or eating behaviors. The most common addictive foods are sugar, flour, fat, salt, or a combination of these. The most common addictive eating behaviors are bingeing, purging, grazing, and volume eating.

Food addiction is a chronic disease characterized by seeking the foods or food behaviors we are addicted to, eating/doing them compulsively, and having difficulties controlling these urges despite harmful consequences.

When we initially consumed these foods as children, we probably still had the choice of when and how much to eat them. But repeated use can lead to brain changes that challenge an addicted person’s self-control and interfere with their ability to resist consuming these foods or partaking in their eating behaviors.

The proper cure is required for Binge eating and Food addiction disorders, as if untreated it can lead to serious ramifications on the mind and overall health. Consult a Counsellor in your vicinity soon if you want to get de addicted.

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Happiness is a choice and it’s a journey. Some people remain happy in hard times and there are these people who cannot be happy even when there is nothing to cry for.

So we have tried listing 10 roadblocks of happiness.

Having Unrealistic sense of Self

Do you feel you are not good at anything? Do you feel you “should” have done this or do you feel that others “should” have done that? Keeping unrealistic expectations from self and others will ruin your happiness.

Entitlement

A sense of entitlement — a feeling that you have a right to something — is the root cause of most people’s unhappiness. Parents are unhappy when they don’t get the respect from their kids that they think they’re entitled to. Employees feel unhappy when they don’t get the raise they feel entitled to.

Anger

Being happy, when angry is highly impossible. We get angry when things don’t turn up the way we want or we are hurt. If these things are happening in your daily life then you need to work on them & self to eliminate anger.

Resentment

When we keep our negative thoughts/anger to ourself we get a feeling of resentment. Resentful people look at life through darkened glasses, expecting the worst and being on the ready to defend themselves from harm.

Greed

Greed is all about competition & undeserving, but happiness comes more from cooperation & what you deserve — an effort to act in harmony with the world around you. Happiness is being happy with what you have. It’s also about thriving to achieve it with own efforts.

Aggression

Aggression means “moving against the world.” Two types of aggressive behavior occur between human beings — achievement-driven aggression and combative aggression. Achievement-driven aggression can lead to happiness, but combative aggression does not.

Depression

Feelings of lethargy, low appetite, negative self-image, unable to do regular chores, lack of pleasure, guilt can never make us happy. One needs to work on these persistent symptoms to be happy.

Loneliness

You can be lonely in the midst of a large gathering of people, and not feel lonely when you’re by yourself. Happiness is more about belonging than about having money, power, and success.

Vindictiveness

Hurting a person because they were hurt is vindictiveness. Vindictive people think that by hurting the person who caused them pain — whether physical or emotional — they’ll somehow feel better. But the painful memory stays with you always making you unhappy.

Addiction

Any addiction be it drug, alcohol, food is going to give temporary happiness. Address all your emotional traumas and baggage to overcome addiction and lead a happy life.

If you are suffering through these issues and are unhappy, consult a Psychologist soon.

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Loneliness is a universal human emotion that is both complex and exceptional to each individual. Because it has no single common cause, the prevention and treatment of this potentially damaging state of mind can differ vividly.

Health Risks Associated with Loneliness

Loneliness has a wide range of negative effects on both physical and mental health, including:

Depression and suicide: When you feel so low that things you previously enjoyed no longer hold that same joy.

• Cardiovascular disease and stroke: conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain or stroke.
• Increased stress levels: Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your muscles to respond.
• Decreased memory and learning: forgetfulness, confusion, difficulty concentrating and other problems that disrupt daily activities.
• Antisocial behaviour: actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others.
• Poor decision-making
• Alcoholism and drug abuse: addicted to alcohol, nicotine, opioid painkillers, and others.
• The progression of Alzheimer’s disease: causes a progressive loss of brain cells that leads to memory loss and the decline of other thinking skills.
• Altered brain function

Tips to Prevent Loneliness

Loneliness can be overcome. It does require a mindful effort on your part to make a change. Making a change, in the long run, can make you more contented, improved, and enable you to impact others around you in a positive way.

Here are some ways to prevent loneliness:
• Firstly you need to recognize that loneliness is a symbol that something needs to change.
• Then, you need to understand the effects that loneliness has on your life, both physically and mentally.
•  Consider doing community service or another activity that you enjoy. These situations present great opportunities to meet people and promote new friendships and social interactions.
• Focus on developing quality relationships with people who share similar attitudes, interests, and values with you.
• Expect the best. Lonely people often expect denial, so instead focus on positive thoughts and attitudes in your social relationships.

If you feel burdened by feelings of loneliness or feel them throughout the year and find it difficult to deal with, you can also talk to a professional about how you feel; this can often be more helpful than people expect.

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Attempts to stop reacting and making the choice to respond to anger may also be difficult because we are surrounded by people with excessive anger.

Basically, there are three ways which the individuals use to deal with anger–expressing, suppressing, or calming.

 Expressing

Expressing anger in a correct manner is very important. Assertiveness is of great use while dealing with anger. It is a healthier way of expressing anger, which is different from aggression. To be assertive one has to have a clear idea about one’s needs,.How these needs can be met without harming or hurting others. Assertiveness involves being respectful to others and yourself. 

Suppressing

Suppressing is a process in which you try to temporarily block or suppress, then convert or redirect the angry feelings. When anger is felt, you stop thinking about it. you change your focus to something positive and relaxing. This helps you in suppressing and then converting the feelings of anger in positive ideas and reflecting them in more constructive behaviour. The danger in this type of response is that if it isn’t allowed outward expression, the anger can turn inward—on you itself. Anger turned inward may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression.

Calming

Calming is one of the ways. In which you try to control your overt as well as covert behaviour. Which means you have complete control over self when the emotion of anger is felt. You try to calm down the inner responses as well by using relaxation techniques and letting go of the negative feelings and also behaves in a well-controlled way.

Now a question may arise on your mind that what about those who never express anger nor use any of the above-mentioned ways to deal with it?  The answer is expression is significantly related to the process of sensation and feelings. That is once the presence of any positive or negative stimulus is sensed by the person, the person accordingly feels positive or negative towards the stimulus. There comes the essential role of expression and behaviour. The individual may express his or her loveliness or hatred towards the stimulus. As far as the feeling of anger is concerned, unexpressed anger can lead to several irrational and psychological problems.

People who are constantly putting others down, criticising everything, and making cynical comments. They haven’t learned how to constructively express their anger. Not surprisingly, they aren’t likely to have many successful relationships.

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Psychologically ‘Aggression’ refers to the behaviour by one person or persons intended to cause harm to another person or persons’. In the extreme form, aggression may end up in destructive behaviour towards another person or animal or even objects, such as breaking a TV or something which is valuable.

Your teens are exposed to aggression and violence everywhere, like violence on media, on the road, within families, and also in public places. All of these have a strong impact on your teen’s personality and behaviours. They will tend to imitate the aggressive behaviours of others, as witnessed by them in their life and tend to consider aggression as an acceptable part of their life.

Leonard Berkowitz (1969) explains that aggression is caused when you are trying to attain or reach a goal and there is an obstruction on the way.

Continued Aggression and Unchecked violent tendencies may lead to Conduct disorders

These disorders are marked by persistent antisocial behaviours in adolescents. That result in significant problems and distinctly lowered performance in academic and non-academic areas. This also adversely affects their social functioning. That is in terms of interacting with peers, siblings and family members including parents.

Conduct disorder is usually marked by two major symptoms:

1. Aggression
2. Delinquency

This  Aggression may be directed towards people, e.g. peers, classmates, animals, like cruelty towards animals or objects, or destroying property, etc. The aggression can also turn towards self in terms of self-harm and suicidal tendencies.

On the other hand, delinquency refers to antisocial behaviours which include lying, stealing, physical and sexual assaults (especially in adolescence). That is running away from home and school termed as truant behaviour.

If Your teen is showing a conduct disorder in adolescence, that might often continue into adulthood unless appropriate and timely interventions are taken.  Their aggression and delinquent behaviours become high-risk factors. Teens these behaviours are considered forerunners of antisocial behaviour and alcohol/substance abuse in adulthood.

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Stress is also an unavoidable and normal part of life. We cannot discard or remove stress from our lives. Still, there are certain relaxation techniques and other methods.To manage stress so that we have control over our stress and normal body functions.

Some of the methods with the help of which stress can be dealt with can be described as follows:

Identifying the sources of stressors

One of the major ways to deal with stress is by identifying the sources of stress in your life. Many times, there are certain hidden or underlying, thoughts or anxieties that govern our feelings and behaviours. These underlying thoughts and anxieties can be revealed if you look closely at your habits, attitude, and excuses. It may be that you every time feel yourself loaded with work or you always feel your workplace or home to be crazy always, or you blame other people or outside events responsible for your stress. In such circumstances, it is necessary for you to accept your role and responsibility. Once you can identify the stressors of your life and try to understand your role. Then the level of stress will automatically remain under your control.

Avoid or Alter the Situation

If a situation or person makes you feel stressed, then it is better to avoid such a kind of situation or person. At times you cannot avoid such situations or persons from your life, then in such case try to alter it. You should also be flexible, open to new ideas and compromise. Further, you should also be prepared for the worst situation. You should wisely deal with problems by anticipating them in advance and preventing them. For example, you have your exams the next day, but your friend is excited to tell you the story of the movie that he had watched. Be bold enough to tell him that he has only five minutes to talk.

Have a Positive attitude

Having a positive attitude helps us in changing our outlook and providing a big picture of the stressful situation. If we cannot change the stressor, we can at least change ourselves. One can adapt to a stressful situation and regain self-control by changing the expectations and attitude. Like each coin has two sides, each situation has different perspectives; it depends upon the way you perceive it. For example, if you are caught in a traffic jam. Then instead of fuming, you can always look at it as an opportunity to pause and reorganize. Listen to your favourite radio station or enjoy some alone time.

Accept and Move Forward

At times you cannot remove or alter the sources of stress, for example, death of a loved one, a serious illness, or a national recession. In such cases, the best way to cope with such stressors is to accept them as they are. Acceptance may be difficult, but in the long run, better than worrying about the situation which cannot be changed. The major challenges of your life can be looked upon as opportunities for your personal growth. If the stressful situation has been a result of your own fault, then rethink and learn lessons from the mistake.

Relax and Recharge Yourself

One of the ways to manage the level of stress is to relax and recharge yourself. Nurturing yourself by taking out time for fun and relaxation is a better way to handle the day to day stress. Morning walk, spending time in nature, long bath, listening to music, giving time to your pets, massage is few of the ways. which can help you to relax and face life in a more positive way. Further, a healthy lifestyle like having healthy diets, regular exercise and enough sleep can boost energy within you. So that you can deal with the stressors more effectively.

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Stress is a condition of bodily or mental unrest which occurs as a result of any physical, emotional or chemical imbalance in our body.

There are several factors that may cause this condition.  The physical and chemical factors that may cause stress include trauma, infections, toxins, illnesses, and injuries of any sort. While the emotional factors that lead to stress and tension are numerous and varied, having a mainly psychological basis. Basically, it is a state which leads to instability and disparity in normal body functions.

It differs in its types, intensity, and form. There are individual differences in the extent to which an individual can tolerate this condition. Generally, it can be of two types which can be explained as follows:

1)Acute

The most common type of stress found amongst individuals throughout the world is “Acute Stress”. It is a condition which occurs due to the anxiety of the near future or dealing with the very recent past. At times, it is also a good thing to have such kind of stress in life. The examples of acute stressors are –running, exercising, or any kind of exciting or thrilling experiences such as riding a roller coaster. The acute form is of short duration and is a result of the excitement and fun that an individual experiences for the specific time period. This is less damaging to the body.

2) Chronic

Unlike acute condition, “Chronic Stress” causes a lot of wear and tear to the human body. The extent of damage due to this kind of pressure may lead to very serious health risk like memory loss, loss of spatial recognition, loss of eating if it continues over a long period of time. The effect of this differs from person to person and also varies amongst men and women. Studies have shown that women can bear longer durations of stress than men without showing any maladaptive change, whereas, men can deal with it for a shorter duration, but if the duration increases, they have a chance to developmental issues.

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This doesn’t have to mean that you avoid your feelings. That is generally a very bad strategy. However, when it comes to anger, most people need time to learn anger-management skills. While you are learning, you may profit from staying out of trouble by avoiding trouble in the first place.

In most people, emotions are situational. Something in the here and now irritates you or makes you mad. The emotion itself is tied to the situation in which it originates. So, as long as you remain in that provocative situation, you’re likely to stay angry. If you leave the situation, the opposite is true- the emotion begins to fade as soon as you move away from the situation. Moving away from a situation prevents it from getting a grip on you.

Attempts to stop reacting and making the choice to respond to anger may also be difficult because you’re surrounded by people with excessive anger. What you need instead are anger allies, the kind of people who can help you form new habits of responding effectively to anger. Look for people who-

• Show by personal example how to show anger in a healthy way.
• Will actively listen and support your efforts to bring your anger under control.
• Are nonjudgmental.
• Have conquered their own anger demons.
• Are patient.
• Are compassionate, appreciating what a burden excessive anger is.
• Don’t assume that what worked for them to bring their anger under control will necessarily work for you.
• Are willing to be there for you at a time of emotional crisis.
• Don’t pretend to have all the answers.
• Are willing to help but not to be responsible for your anger.

Distancing yourself from your companions is not an easy task but will benefit your own life very soon.

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Cognitive restructuring means changing the process or way of thinking. When anger goes beyond control people behave in a very aggressive, exaggerated and overly dramatic way. These all happens because the positive thoughts are blocked somewhere in mind at this juncture and an individual is guided by negative thoughts. When such a sequence occurs, one should try to replace these thoughts with more rational ones.

For instance, instead of telling one self, “oh, how could this happen to me? It is awful, it’s terrible, everything’s ruined,” you should tell yourself that, “ I am aware that the situation is frustration but it is not end of the world and if I get angry it is not going to help”.

Once you start thinking about the positive aspects you will realise that adverse reaction is in no way going to solve the present problem. Rather, there may be another way to find out a more acceptable solution.

Apply Logic

Further, applying logical reasoning, positive and rationale thinking helps you to get a more balanced perspective. Remind yourself that the world is “not out to get you”. You are just experiencing some of the rough phase of your life. You should repeat these thoughts whenever you are angry and you can deal with your own anger in the best possible way.

Anger can be handled and responded to in a more healthy way.  The after effect of the anger depends upon how effectively it is communicated or channelised. No doubt, anger can be a tremendous source of energy and inspiration for change. We should  manage anger in such a way that it does not hamper  our relationship, priority and main focus . Rather one should have an attitude of ‘forgive’ and ‘forget’. Also one should think before and then speak, because an effective communication can win any situation.

 Controlling Anger Through External Help 

If you find that, despite putting effort in the anger management, you are unable to handle the situation and you are every time getting yourself into trouble, then you need an external help. Seeking help from outside does not means that you are weak, rather it shows your willingness to face it.

 Getting help through experienced professionals such as psychologist can help you to undergo the sessions of therapy. Therapies help in finding out the reasons behind an individual’s anger and identify triggers that lead to anger.

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Be Loving:

Get rid of that old wives take that hugging them, holding them, telling them you love them is spoiling your children. There are many children who suffered because their parents were too busy, too selfish and too preoccupied to spent time with them.

Mentriq Team talks about 10 Things to do Every Single day as a parent[/caption]

Act as a Role Model:

Have you ever noticed that you have many of the same attitudes, habits and opinions that your parents had when you were growing up- even though you swore you’d do it all differently. Well, that’s because your parents were your first, important role models and you are now the same as your children.

Involve yourself in your child’s Life:

One of the most important things you can do to safeguard your children is to spend time with them. No one ever feels that they have enough time to do the things they have to do. Strong family ties are formed between children and their parents if a little regular daily effort is made to spend time talking, eating and playing together.

Focus on Flexibility:

Your role as a parent changes as your child grows. What worked well when your child was in the nursery doesn’t necessarily work when she reaches junior school-and is likely to outright fail when she enters adolescence.

Set Boundaries and Rules:

The two most important thing children need from their parents are love and structure. Some of the parents don’t want to repeat the strict upbringing that they experienced, so they go the other way and have no rules and boundaries at all. They then wonder why their children don’t listen to or respect them.

Be Consistent:

The biggest single contribution to a kid’s disciplinary problems is inconsistent parenting. The secret of consistency is keeping your expectation clear and always meeting the same behaviour with the same reaction.

Mentriq Team talks about 10 Things to do Every Single day as a parent[/caption]

Encourage Independence:

From the day you play ‘peek-a-boo’ with your baby, you are preparing her for separation from you. From her first day at school, first sleepover and first school trip to France-to the day your daughter leaves home. Good parenting is the step by step process, a gradual moving out into the big world, confident and independent from you.

Firm and Fair in your discipline:

At each stage of your child’s development, you must establish your rules that you expect your child to obey. Your job is to do what best for your child whether she likes or not. Don’t let your toddler blackmail you into buying that ice-cream just before lunch with a screaming tantrum. You are building an adult part of tomorrow ’s future generation –so stand your ground.

Listen to the first talk later:

Listening to the best gift you can give anyone-including your kids. Listening make children feel valued, heard and understood. It makes them feel important.

Respect your child:

Your relationship with your child is the foundation of her relationships with others. If you treat your child with compassion, kindness and respect, she will grow up to be concerned about others, caring, considerate and respectful towards other people.

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