How Eating Environment Impacts Emotional Eating
I want you to imagine eating a meal in a loud, bustling restaurant. Notice how you feel in your body. Now imagine your eating at a quaint quiet cottage. Again, notice how you feel. Imagine you're eating a meal standing up at the sink. Now imagine you're eating a meal in your favorite part of your home. Notice the different sensations that arose through these images.
Your nervous system is your body’s communication system.
This system is gathering and synthesizing information to assess how to react to the external environment. Your environment then plays a huge role in making a meal feel satiating and satisfying. If the external environment puts your body into a stress response, it can be harder to stay connected and embodied to feel the pleasure from what you're eating.
If your external environment feels overwhelming this can affect your decision making process around food and digestion. If you're in a restaurant with loud, fast music this can increase your respiration and heart rate putting your body into the sympathetic nervous system. In this state, digestion shuts down because it thinks it needs to ready itself to run away and so whatever you choose to eat can be harder to digest and can lead to eating more food to try to regulate your body and feel relaxed again. Additionally, things like your plate, your silverware, and colors all play an effect on your food choices, rhythm, pace, and quantity of eating. For example, studies have found that dim lighting at restaurants often leads individuals to want to spend more time there and potentially order more food.
Diet culture is only focused on telling you what to eat or not to eat. It's only focused on the food. There is so much more that affects how your body processes and assimilates your nourishment. And many restaurants are aware that their music, lighting, even the size of the plates and bowls they use can affect how much an individual eats and their sense of enjoyment at their establishment This is why bringing in your conscious somatic experience in different eating environments can be so powerful as then you get to discover what surroundings support you in feeling calm and connected throughout your meal.
A powerful question you can start asking yourself before you eat can be: Where do I want to be eating this meal?
Here are a list of questions you can explore asking yourself before your meal:
If you're going out to a restaurant:
What atmosphere do you want to eat in?
Do you want to eat outside or inside?
What kind of indoor lighting do you want to be in?
If you have been there before, how did you feel the last time you ate there?
Did they play music and if so was it calming to your nervous system?
Do you feel like being around a lot of people or someplace less crowded?
If you're eating at home:
What plate do you want to eat on?
What fork or spoon or knife do you want to use?
What glass do you want to drink out of?
What room do you want to be in?
Do you want to eat outside or inside?
Do you want to eat with someone or alone?
Do you want to listen to music and if so what sounds would satiate you along with your meal?
Would you like to set a table with candles and flowers?
What would be pleasant to look at while you eat?
When assessing your eating environment, you can go through all of your senses and explore what you would like to touch, see, hear, taste, and smell. By surrounding yourself with things that will regulate and calm your nervous system, you can be optimizing your digestion and make it easier to hear your hunger and fullness cues in the relaxation response you're facilitating. And, choosing an eating environment that is safety producing can decrease the likelihood of emotional eating later to self soothe from an environment that potentially felt threatening to your body.