How to Cope with Food Cravings Throughout the Holiday Season

We are now fully into the holiday season. It’s the time of year when we are inundated with treats, displays, parties, and leftover candy pretty much everywhere. You might currently find yourself trapped in a whirlwind of Thanksgiving plans and gatherings that will lead into a month of holiday parties, baking, and special treats everywhere - and this just continues into the new year.

When you struggle with emotional eating and food cravings, the holidays can feel overwhelming. If you struggle with stress and dread related to the holidays, this time of year can be particularly challenging. 

I wanted to offer some support for anyone struggling with food triggers, holiday triggers, or a combination of both. Hopefully you can reference this post all throughout the season!

I recommend having a journal or your notes app handy and consider the following:

When you arrive at the end of the holiday season, when you are welcoming 2025, how do you want to feel? 

What is one small, doable, and desirable goal that you can set for yourself this season? 

What action steps can you take to support how you want to feel to achieve this small goal? 

As you are moving through the season, it’s helpful to check in regularly and ask:

Have I been taking consistent action and using the action steps to ensure that I can feel how I want to feel once the new year arrives?

Am I getting enough balanced nutrition?

Am I hydrating?

It’s so easy to go into autopilot mode and become mindless and distracted and to just numb out when feeling triggered or stressed. This holiday season can be different! If you bring in some daily intention setting, connect with your feelings and experiences consistently, and practice some of the coping strategies below, you may have a different experience this year.

Here are some helpful ways to cope (even just slightly) more effectively this year:

Practice the 3-step cravings protocol - Pause, Reflect, Release: Use this anytime you are experiencing a food craving:

Pause: Take a deep breath, drink some water, relax your body, and create some space between you and the food craving.

Reflect: Use the BLAST technique, ask yourself, “Am I Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stressed or Sad, or Tired?” If you answer Yes to any of these emotions ask: What does this emotion need? To explore what the feeling you are experiencing is needing you can ask: What is the opposite feeling state? Here are some examples: Boredom needs Stimulation, Loneliness needs Connection, Anger needs Peace, Calm, and/or Kindness, Stress needs Relaxation, Peace and Calm, Sadness needs Uplifting, Tiredness needs Rest.

Release: If it’s truly an emotional craving, name the emotion and the opposite feeling state. Ask yourself, what would it take to get to that opposite feeling state? Practice being present with the feeling and see if you can receive the message of the emotion. You can use a coping skill such as journaling or talking it out to let it go. It can also be helpful to use self-affirming statements to help support the release, such as, “I am capable of handling my emotions,” “I am learning to listen to the messages from my body,” and “I can make a different choice.”

If you are experiencing a more general food craving and you find that you are truly hungry, eat it mindfully and listen to the cues from your body.
If you need additional support if it’s an emotional craving, you can try journaling through this decoding emotions practice:

Ask, what is the message from this emotion? What does it want you to know?

What does it need from you? Is there any action you can take?

Can you mindfully witness the emotion and let it be without needing to change it? Can you radically accept it as it is?

If the holidays are triggering because of others imposing their own thoughts and feelings about food, here are some ways you can practice setting boundaries with others:

Common irritating statements: “Should you be eating that?” “Are you sure you want seconds?” “Wow, that looks like a lot of food/sweets…”

Helpful Boundary Setting Statements for each of the above: “I understand you might not notice that it upsets me, but I don’t like it when you question my food choices.” “I prefer you not comment on my food choices.” “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t comment on my food choices.”

Sometimes during the holiday season you might find yourself with food guilt and shame, or criticizing your own choices. Here are some ways you can practice setting boundaries with yourself:

Common irritating internal statements: “I shouldn’t eat this.” “They are watching everything I’m eating.” “What’s wrong with me.”

Helpful Boundary Setting Statements for each of the above: “I deserve to eat what I am eating.” “I can only control myself and my choices.” “It’s normal to enjoy and indulge in food sometimes.”

One of the most useful ways to make it through the season is to have a plan for remaining present and mindful, to practice consistent self-care, to reflect and check in with yourself daily, and to have a plan of action. Having a plan is where you start; you can practice daily intention setting, daily decisions about your action steps that you will take to achieve your goals, reviewing the pause, reflect, release protocol, and journaling. Self-compassion is a huge part of remaining grounded and surviving the challenges of the holidays.

Practicing mindful eating, intuitive eating, and attuned eating can also support feeling connected to your body and discerning what is emotional and what is truly desired when it comes to food.

• Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgmental awareness.

• Mindful eating is applying mindfulness to the process of eating.

• Intuitive/Attuned eating is listening to your body and making choices based on your relationship with your body. Asking these questions can keep you more mindful and attuned to your body: What do I want? What am I hungry for? How hungry am I? How satisfied did this choice make me feel?

The last tip I will leave you with is to keep a Win-Log. This is a log of positive eating experiences daily, including allowing yourself to eat when you were hungry, finding the right food match for your craving, stopping eating when you felt satiated and satisfied, and being able to savor feeling good overall about your actions and choices.

Putting all of this together will allow more communication, acceptance, balance, and the ability to be more grounded and centered within your choices throughout this season.

When you can manage emotional food cravings more effectively, it creates a feeling of empowerment, deeper self-awareness, and more connection to your body so that you can begin to create a more peaceful relationship with your mind, your body, and food. Using tools to make a choice on how to manage your cravings builds self-compassion, self-trust, and self-empowerment. I hope you have a happy and healthy holiday season!

Using Compassionate Listening to Increase Open-Mindedness

This past spring I was asked to give a talk at a local university about the health benefits of being open-minded throughout your life. They were having a health fair and wanted to bring mental wellbeing into the conversation just as much as physical wellbeing. The person who reached out read a blog I wrote a while ago about this very topic (The Health Benefits of Remaining Curious and Open-Minded Throughout Your Life) and thought it would be helpful to help young adults learn how to communicate in a way that fosters connection, tolerance, and acceptance. It seems that learning how to communicate with compassion, understanding, and acceptance is now, more than ever, absolutely vital — and not just for young adults.

When I asked the group how many people considered themselves to be open-minded, everyone raised their hand. When I asked how many people liked to be right, again, everyone raised their hand. When I asked how many of them felt the need to prove that they were right, many kept their hands raised. Most people hold onto their viewpoints for dear life and are willing to fight to feel as though they are right, to fight to prove that they are right. 

The truth is, our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions can be different, but we can still learn to understand one another. The trouble is we are hard-wired to go into fight or flight mode when our nervous system perceives that we are under threat. When we feel threatened by someone else’s viewpoint, beliefs, opinions, or thoughts, we can go into sympathetic nervous system arousal, or fight or flight mode. Living in a state of stress, fear, and defensiveness leads to poor health outcomes over time. Learning to create more room for open-mindedness actually increases a sense of feeling safe and decreases the experience of feeling under threat due to someone having a different viewpoint than you. 

This is where we can make some space for becoming open-minded through the most valuable of skills, which is learning how to listen. When it comes to communication, listening is the most important aspect. When we are truly listening, we have to hear, take in, and digest what a person is saying. This has nothing to do with agreeing; it has everything to do with becoming open and interested and how to consider that your perspective and someone else’s can differ greatly, and that is not necessarily a threat.

How often when you are in conversation are you thinking about what you will say in response versus hearing what the other person is saying? How often are you formulating judgments about someone based on what they are saying? Of course these things happen; we are all humans after all, loaded with our open opinions and judgments, whether we recognize them or not. This process is about recognizing and making a new choice on how to connect with another human being. Learning to listen, to hear, with curiosity and compassion is essential to learning how to communicate and become more open-minded. Curiosity and compassion are the cornerstones of open-mindedness. When used in communication you create a space to allow someone to feel heard, seen, and valued. This is mindful communication in action.

When children are small and trying to make sense of the world, they ask one question over and over: they ask “Why?” They are curious; they want to learn and understand. Maintaining this sense of curiosity allows you to be a human being, to reduce the need for perfectionism, to reduce the feeling of being threatened by someone else’s perspective, and to reduce the need be right at all costs. Being curious in conversations, especially when you aren’t necessarily understanding someone, can contribute to your growth, expand your awareness, and create mental flexibility and openness. So often when we are having discussions with others, we can be concerned about making a good impression, to come across a certain way, to be viewed in a light we desire - and to be right. However, if you can enter into conversations and discussions in a way where you are concerned about making a positive connection with the person, that will contribute to feeling more positively about yourself and the other person. When you focus on making a positive connective (which feeds the soul) versus a good impression (which feeds the ego) you can create more compassion and understanding. This process creates a feeling of safety, and this can come from listening mindfully, truly hearing, contributing, and being curious. This is how to become more open-minded.

Here are a few ways you can integrate open-mindedness in a conversation about anything where you may not agree with or understand a person’s perspective, so you can focus on connecting versus impressing or fighting:

• I’m curious, when did you first start to see it that way?

• Are you interested in hearing a different take on that?

• From my perspective, I see it differently; can I share with you how I see it and why I see it that way?

• I enjoyed learning about your perspective; thank you for sharing.

When asking the first three questions you will usually find that many people actually are curious; they do want to hear more, and they love to share their own reasons behind how they think and feel about what they do. The last one is great because you don’t always have to share just because you have a different viewpoint, perspective, or opinion. At the root of compassionate listening is just that: being present, mindful, accepting, tolerant, and open. As soon as you notice any hint of feeling threatened, see if you can take a deep breath and just get curious. Notice what happens when you practice communicating with others in a way where curiosity leads. You just might make an unexpected connection. 

Decoding Food Cravings

Managing food cravings can be one of the most challenging aspects of healing from emotional eating. Food cravings can occur for any number of reasons, some are more generalized and have little if not nothing to do with your internal emotional world. However, some food cravings are solely driven by emotions. Learning how to understand the difference between a general food craving and an emotional craving can make all the difference in healing your relationship with food.

What is a general food craving? 

There are several reasons a more general food craving may occur. One reason being that the craving is sending you a message from your body about what it may need. A general food craving can signal that your body’s nutrients are out of balance. This could look and feel like having a strong craving for a particular food, and yet you have absolutely no idea why. It could be that your iron levels are out of balance or electrolytes are out of balance, and therefore your body is craving a food that will replenish that particular nutrient.

Another reason a general food craving can occur is as a signal that you are dehydrated. You might be craving a particular food, or possibly a very hydrating type of food, and yet you may not be hungry. This can be addressed by drinking water when you first notice a food craving and then seeing if it helps it subside.

Another common cause of general food cravings is that your blood sugar is too high or too low. Blood sugar imbalances can wreck havoc on your system as a whole. For many people, this can be remedied by eating regularly, and especially by pairing protein with fiber to help balance blood sugar levels. Having a leafy green vegetable at the start of your meal can help to mitigate a blood sugar spike, as can taking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar diluted in 3-6 ounces of water prior to a meal. If you are concerned about your blood sugar, you can talk with your doctor about testing and continuous glucose monitoring.

One big trigger for general food cravings is that they can be a sign that your diet is too repetitive or boring. If you are having the same foods day in and day out for your meals or snacks, and you find that you are craving other foods, then you might want to switch up your meals more frequently. Having variety in your dietary intake can be a more satisfying way of eating. If you are bored with your food, your cravings may be signaling that you need more flavors, more joy, and more variation in your food choices. This will help create greater satisfaction and satiation which helps to reduce food cravings.

Another big trigger for general food cravings can be restricting yourself to certain foods. Even if you are feeling satiated and you are receiving adequate caloric intake, if you have off-limits foods (for a reason other than an allergy/intolerance/physical discomfort caused by the food), then your mind may be rebelling by craving those very foods because it is feeling controlled. Opening up your food options, practicing nonjudgment and mindful eating with your food choices can help reduce this type of food craving.

The last general food craving I’ll mention here is that cravings can be triggered by your senses. If you just saw an ad for a particular food, or heard someone talking about a particular food or even smelling a particular food you might not be able to shake the craving. Your senses are very powerful, and when you have a craving due to seeing, smelling, or hearing about a particular food, that is a general craving. Sometimes you also may just have a “taste” for something for no specific reason, but yet it is not an emotionally driven craving or desire for the food. 

What is an emotional food craving?

Emotional food cravings are very different than general food cravings in that the driving force behind the craving is emotional. Most likely the emotion you are experiencing is uncomfortable and triggers a desire to numb out, avoid, or distract from the discomfort. This becomes cyclical and can act like an override to your system. When you experience that emotion, your system automatically compensates by creating the food craving. Giving in to emotional food cravings can cause a myriad of even further side effects. These side effects may include a lack of emotional awareness, possible unwanted weight gain, hopelessness, anxiety, and frustration. It often feels out of control and can create cycles of further emotional distress such as guilt and shame.

Another type of emotional food craving can be more subtle. These cravings represents something that may be lacking or subtly showing up emotionally in your life. For example, if you are craving sugar, you may be lacking sweetness in your life and you may benefit from more connection with yourself and others. If you are craving something salty, that may indicate that you are more stressed or anxious and need more grounding and peacefulness through relaxation, mindfulness, or other soothing activities. Cravings for something crunchy can indicate feeling emotions such as anger, frustration, stress, or boredom. This may be better served finding an outlet that increases mental and physical stimulation and movement in your life.

How can I cope with these food cravings?

Coping with food cravings is something that I support people with in my practice all the time. Food cravings are common, and yet many people feel alone in their struggles. I have a three-step cravings protocol that I recommend that many people find to help manage their food cravings far more effectively. It can be implemented in real time if you are fully aware of the craving; however, it can also be practiced in retrospect, which allows more opportunity to feel empowered as you grow and strengthen your self-awareness and emotional-awareness muscles!

The first step is to pause. During this pause, you might take some slow, deep breaths. You might set a timer for five minutes and make a plan to not eat during that time. You might have a glass of water. This pause is essential because it will help you to create more space between the trigger and your ability to respond to the trigger with more intention. 

Step two is to reflect. I recommend the BLAST method. Ask yourself, “Am I Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stressed or Sad, or Tired?” These are some of the most common emotions that trigger emotional eating for many people. While the internal emotional landscape is far more nuanced and there are so many emotions you may be experiencing, this can be a great place to start—you can always dig deeper when needed. During this reflection phase, you are learning to create space and explore with the desire to have greater self-awareness and emotional acceptance. 

The third step is to release. After pausing and reflecting, if you determine that it is NOT an emotional craving and you are actually hungry, eat what you are craving in a mindful, intentional, and peaceful way. Be truly present with your food, enjoy the taste, and the process of eating. Eat slowly and savor in the flavor and the experience of actually enjoying eating this food. Check in with your body when you are done; consider, How does this food make me feel? Learn from these messages that your body provides you based on full sensations, energy levels, digestion, satiety, and any residual cravings. This creates greater self-awareness, self-empowerment, and connection to your body. This process improves your relationship with food, your body, and yourself. 

If you find it IS an emotional craving, the release process could look like taking time to journal about the emotion you are experiencing, and spending some time trying to understand the message that the uncomfortable emotion or feeling state is trying to communicate with you. Other ways you can practice the release may be talking to someone to share your emotions or practicing deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, or movement to release the emotion mentally and physically. You can also try using one of the following self-affirming statements: “I am capable of handling my emotions.” “I can make a different choice.” “I am learning to listen to messages from my body.” 

However you choose to release the craving, be it a general or emotional food craving, you create more present moment awareness to become more conscious and empowered. You are developing and growing your self-awareness, which is what all growth requires and where it always begins. You will also become more connected to your inner emotional world and understand your unique needs. The more you practice the three steps - pause, reflect, and release - the more you will create opportunities to connect to your mind and body in a more peaceful, balanced, and connected way.