Life can feel like a lot sometimes and I’m sure that’s no surprise to you. We spend so much of our lives working, thinking, scrolling, planning, fixing and moving from one thing to the next it can all feel so chaotic! There are responsibilities to juggle, people who need things from us, plans that change, problems we can’t immediately solve and days where it feels like we’re constantly responding to whatever comes at us next. When so much around us feels unpredictable or outside of our control, it can feel very hard to stay centred and it makes sense that we start looking for something that gives us a moment of relief. For many of us food is a small pocket of comfort when everything else feels like too much.

But just as we can’t control what’s happening around us, food can’t help us do that either. It can’t help us stop unexpected things from happening, make other people behave the way we want them to or guarantee that things will go according to plan. What’s far more effective is to begin creating anchors of calm within our own lives. Simple routines, quiet moments and slowing down instead of automatically matching the pace of everything around us. Coming back to what is actually happening right here, right now, rather than being swept away by everything that feels like it needs our attention. Not only because what feels important and what actually is important can be two totally different things, but because but because the more we learn to create a sense of calm within ourselves, the less we need food to create it for us.

This can make a real difference to emotional eating because it isn’t just food we’re reaching for, but the feeling we hope food will give us. Relief. Comfort. A way to switch off and regulate ourselves. When we intentionally create more of those feelings within our lives, food loses its relevance and power over us. Maybe it’s taking time away from everyone, sitting outside with a cup of yummy tea, taking a shower without rushing, going for a quiet walk, putting your phone away for ten minutes or simply reminding yourself, I don’t have to solve everything right now. These moments might seem small, but they help us make that sense of calm a habit. And then this sense of calm is something we can more confidently tap into without needing to eat our way there.

For me, it was taking some time to myself when I got home from work. I used to jump straight into conversation with my husband or kids, then get caught up in whatever household chores that needed to be done. Before I knew it, I was feeling completely frazzled and overwhelmed without having even gotten changed out of my work uniform or unpacking my bag. Making it a habit to take ten minutes to myself to decompress worked an absolute treat! I would get changed, mentally reset and join the rest of the household as a functional person, rather than try and hold it together whilst in survival mode. Lo and behold, I didn’t feel the need to dive headfirst into the food later on either.

Anchoring in the calm doesn’t mean creating a perfectly peaceful life. It means learning how to find steadiness even when life isn’t particularly steady. The chaos may still be there, the to-do list might still be long and things may still happen that you didn’t plan for. But instead of needing everything around you to settle before you can settle, you begin creating a sense of calm that you can return to again and again. And the more places in your life where you anchor in that feeling, the less you need food to create it for you.