As a child, when you win a game, you are rewarded with a cookie. When you don't get good grades, you are taken for an ice-cream to cheer you. And, when you have your first breakup, your friends take you for a night out. Food has always had a connection with your emotions. You eat when you are extremely happy and you eat when you are sad.

This is how it works. When you feel happy, you want to celebrate. When you feel sad, you want to avoid that feeling. And, when you eat, you are also gobbling down emotions like anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment, and shame. Food helps you forget everything. Unfortunately, this anxiety-induced eating can have severe long-term consequences. 

Emotions activate your adrenal glands to release cortisol, increasing your appetite. Stress also slows down hormones like ghrelin, which regulate your appetite. And, when you are in an emotional zone, you tend to sleep less, which further increases your emotional eating spree. Here are few unique tricks to stay away from emotional eating. 

1.Follow grounding techniques

Susan Albers in her new book '50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food’ says, “Grounding techniques are a powerful way to support yourself through heavy emotional times. They help to bring you back to the present moment, preventing you from being swept away by your feelings and resorting to mindlessly eating.”
Albers suggests a trick. “Pick up a book or magazine, flip through it, and choose a passage. Read it backward to yourself—start with the last word in the passage and continue until you reach the very first word. Do this with two more passages.”

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