Relaxation In A Nutshell

Some days the little things get to you and stress you out. Things like: you can’t find your keys and you’re already late for school, or you go barefoot to take the doggie out to go potty and pay the price by stepping in a little pile of nastiness, or you spill coffee right down the left boob of your shirt which you will now have to wear for the next six hours because you can’t go home and change. Then, some days are centered around a big stressful crisis. Like you do your part of a project at work but someone else slacks off and then you have to scramble to get everything put together before a big deadline because it’s your ass if things don’t work out, or you have a large, long presentation to give at school and you are deathly afraid of public speaking or family members tell you about things that are stressing them out and in turn you get stressed out because even though you’re an adult, you’ve never quite learned how to not worry about the things that are stressful to your loved ones. And then there are the days when there are both little things and big things coming at you all at the same time and you just realize you’re screwed. Yesterday was one of those days. Yesterday was just really long and hectic for me. Everything listed above (and a whole bunch of other silly little things that I don't have the strength to write about) happened and by the end of the day I was just mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. I did really well with my eating all day, I made time for meals and little snacks to boost my energy and I was doing good until about 10:30pm. I had just dragged myself into the house after working six hours and spending eight hours at the university. I then decided to have some sugar free j-ello and an ounce of almonds. But instead of measuring out the one serving of almonds and then backing away from the can, I found myself standing in the pantry just eating them straight from the container. Even as I was shoveling them one by one into my mouth I was thinking, “You’re not hungry, you’re just tired and kind of stressed. Stop eating!” but I stood there and continued anyways. I guess there really wasn’t too much damage done (even though that was like 500 calories I didn’t need.) I’m telling myself that it wasn’t too bad so I don’t get discouraged because I figure that a good day today can offset last night’s unnecessary late night snack (I hope). I guess it’s not really about what I ate, it’s about the reasons why I was eating, the fact that I recognized the reasons why I was eating and the fact that it still didn’t deter me from continuing to sit there and do it. It’s like they always say, “insight does not equal change”, it takes more than just knowledge of a problem to fix it. I understand why I eat to relieve stress; the taste and texture of food, the calming effect of chewing and swallowing, momentarily soothe and distract me from things that are on my mind. Now I need to figure out how to stop it when I recognize it because right now I’m just recognizing it but letting it continue anyways. I know emotional eating doesn’t solve anything; I really just need to figure out a better way to deal with things that doesn’t involve stuffing my face.