Thrive Through the Holidays and Decrease Binge Eating with Somatic Practices
Another year, another holiday season. If you’ve noticed an increase in the impulse to binge or restrict over the last several weeks, there is a wise somatic reason for this. Your body has a somatic memory that recalls dates, time of year, events, environments, and how it feels to be around friends and family based on your past experiences with them. If your emotionally regulating and nervous system stabilizing strategy in the past was to binge or restrict, your body remembers this and urges you to engage in these familiar food behaviors that provide a momentary experience of safety.
As I’m sure many of you have experienced, these food coping mechanisms only work in the short term and not in the long term.
If you’re someone who leans toward the coping strategy of restriction, at some point, your body is going to take over and guide you to binge to receive a momentary reprieve from the fight or flight response and gain more energy to continue running away from the perceived threat. If you’re someone who binges without restriction, the issue with this can be that you’d have to keep eating all day every day to feel the sense of safety that food provides you.
So, neither of these behaviors provides you with the long-term stabilization, safety, and security that you desire. And I get that I can verbalize this, and you can intellectually understand this, but this logic won’t decrease these food patterns. When you're living predominantly in the sympathetic nervous system, your prefrontal cortex where you engage in rational logical thinking is diminished in its activity. This makes it difficult to logic your way out of your food coping mechanisms. While it can sometimes be supportive to tell yourself that you are safe when you want to lean on food, a lot of times your body is going to fight back and say, "no we’re not."
This is where somatic practices come in to SHOW your body that you are safe when in a holiday environment rather than telling your body that it is safe. As we’ve explored in previous episodes, the body talks to you through emotions, sensations, symptoms, impulses, and urges. You will need to talk with your body in the language that it understands. The practice is to learn the language of your body so it feels like it can speak to you and you will listen and communicate back.
So let’s set the scene.
You’re at a holiday event, maybe you’re around a lot of friends and family, and there are loud noises, and an abundance of food around. As I start to describe this scenario notice how your body feels right now. I notice in my body that my chest just got a little tight, and my heartbeat sped up just a little bit. My legs became numb and I started to leave my body slightly. Already my body is telling me that this kind of scenario would move it more into a fight or flight or sympathetic nervous system response. You now have the awareness that your body will need support being shown that it is safe.
Ways that you can do that include looking around the room and identifying cues of safety.
This could be the smiles on people's faces, the sound of laughter or music around you, or this could be as simple as looking out for colors or shapes around you that you enjoy looking at. If you are at a holiday event with someone like a partner, a friend, or a loved one you can also have a conversation with them ahead of time about what you need to support you in feeling safe. This might be a specific touch like their hand on your shoulder or a look across the room or you can create a code word together that means I see you, I understand you, I’m here for you, you’re not alone.
Now as you practice picking up cues of safety, sometimes the conversations that are happening or the people that you’re around are just too much for your body to navigate. This is not a moment to try to practice growing your window of tolerance by staying with the thing that is the most uncomfortable experience in your body. This is where you might need to create space between you and the thing that feels threatening to your body. What this might look like is going to the bathroom and taking some deep breaths with your exhale being longer than your inhale, which can be grounding and stabilizing and activate your parasympathetic nervous system.
While in the bathroom, you can also wash your hands with either really cold or warm water depending upon what feels best to you. Sometimes, people who are hosting will have those decorative napkins in the bathroom to dry your hands. I know this is something that my mother still does to this day. If you are at a holiday gathering that has something like this, what you might do is run the napkin under really cold water and put it on the back of your neck. This can activate your vagus nerve, which are the main nerves of your parasympathetic nervous system, to help your body feel safe to be here.
You can also let your host know that you forgot something in your car, which you could leave something like chapstick in there, and you can go out to your car and take a moment to yourself. You might play some music or this is where you can utilize social media and specifically search for something that makes you laugh and puts a smile on your face. Don’t mindlessly scroll because you might scroll past things that could further trigger your nervous system. So go to the search bar and search for things like corgis or cats doing funny things. This way you’re being incredibly mindful about how you are using social media to send you a cue of safetyy. Laughter can also be a way to activate your vagus nerve as well.
Lastly, it’s important to do a debrief with yourself after a holiday gathering.
This may not be possible immediately post leaving the holiday event, but at some point either later in the evening or the next morning, you might journal, dance, create art, write poetry that expresses all that you were feeling and reacting to so that your body doesn’t have to continue to hold onto all of this for you. This is also why binging or restricting isn’t effective in the long term. It may turn the volume down on your emotions and sensations, but your body is still waiting to digest and assimilate your emotional experiences.
By giving your body, the opportunity to emote and express and cry and be angry and disappointed and frustrated, it gets seen and heard and validated that it deserves to feel how it feels and it doesn’t need to hold onto this any longer. It may also allow you to reflect on whether something needs to be communicated with someone else. Sometimes situations occur where you did feel disrespected, and it is with someone who is important to you and that you want to stay in relationship with. Giving yourself space to feel can provide clarity on what might be most important to relay to them.
Please remember that regardless of what happens this holiday season, you're going to do the best you can.
Sometimes your best is leaning on food for safety. There is nothing wrong with utilizing food as a resource when you need it. I'll be putting out more of these episodes over the next several weeks to be there with you as we move through the holidays together. If there is anything you'd specifically like me to address, email me at support@stephaniemara.com anytime and I'll do my best to touch upon what you'd all like support with this holiday season. Looking forward to connecting with you all again soon!