I had a really bad day on Friday. Not because anything terrible happened nor anything devastating, but because my Mom said something I found to be extremely rude and hurtful. Plus, I also found wrongly accused. And worst of all, it was over nothing important.
I’m usually pretty thick-skinned but when the people I love say mean, negative things to me, I tend to be more on the sensitive side.
Friday morning start out great, but after my quarrel with my Mom, I let her words sink in. And Friday felt ruined. I was in Negative Nancy mode for the next half of the day.
If this was me last year, I would’ve just binged my sorrows away. When I emotionally feel like crap, I eat like crap.
Yes, I know that in the long run it was no big deal, but on Friday, it felt like the world was against me. For a good twenty minutes, I thought about buying a gigantic bag of chips and making some guacamole. And eating it all. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t in need of food. I just wanted to feel better.
And my old go-to feel better solution was to eat. Eat until I became numb. Eat until I feel nothing but lots of food in my belly. Eat until I was happy.
But I knew that that “happy” feeling would only be temporary. After the initial “I am so full I feel great” feeling wears off, I knew I’d get the “Why the hell did I eat so much, I’m feeling like crap again” thoughts.
I didn’t need to feel worse about myself. The day was bad enough already, the last thing I needed to do was to make myself feel worse by overeating.
So I didn’t.
I went to the gym instead. And bench pressed 80 pounds. The most I’ve done since November. Then deadlifted 95 pounds. The most I’ve also done since November. Then squatted. I took out all my anger, all my negative energy, out in the gym.
I kept telling myself that once I was done at the gym, I will let the negative emotions pass. I’m not going to hang on to those bad vibes and feel sorry for myself. I’m not going to stay mad over a small situation. I’m going to move on, feel better, and know that even though I had some obstacles to face, I did not resort to my old method of binging.
And guess what? I felt amazing after exercising. I was relaxed. I could smile again. Most importantly, I could put things into perspective.
My argument with my Mom was not a big deal. It will pass. I still don’t see eye to eye with her on the issue, but that’s ok. My brain needed to detox and dump the stress somewhere, and instead of turning to food, I turned to exercise. It worked.
Sometimes, the easier method is to turn to food to feel better. We convince ourselves we need it because, well, we actually DO need food. But, after 26 years, I’ve finally realized that food is only a temporary stress release. I usually feel way worse after binging than I did before.
Exercise, on the other hand, makes me feel great. This is not to say go work out for 5 hours when you have a bad day. This is just to say, hey, if you’ve had a bad day at work, if your boss yelled at you, if you got into an argument with your best friend, if your significant other pissed you off, instead of feeling sorry and upset, go and move.
Go for a walk.
Dance around your room.
Go shoot some hoops.
Go stretch and do some yoga.
Learn how to break dance.
Stay active and watch the stress go away. You’ll feel so much better about yourself and you’ll realize that your bad day probably isn’t so bad after all.
How do you relieve stress?
Do you resort to food for comfort?