Food freaks me out

Hey everybody, have any of you run into the problem of anxiety around food? When I eat, I can start to feel my heart beat hard and my chest tighten and I get nervous. I think I'm calmer when I'm hungry. I do have a history of starving myself as a coping skill and because of low self-esteem. Right now I'm trying to eat regularly and healthily as part of my treatment for anxiety, but food itself makes me anxious. Even before I eat I can get anxiety that I will get anxiety when I eat. I hope that makes sense lol

Wishing everyone good health :)

Well I've never experienced this per se, but it makes sense. Everybody has different triggers when it comes to anxiety. I am a comfort eater, so I tend to eat too much junk food when I am anxious. Unless I am severely anxious, then I just can't eat anything at all without it coming right back up. Of course, overeating doesn't really help me any, except in the very short term, a brief sense of comfort and euphoria from the food. Apparently for you it is the opposite. How far back does this go, is there some event in the past that started this? What exactly is it about food that makes you anxious?

Sarsaparilla, maybe eating food in small amounts will make you less anxious while eating food. Then if you succeed with that, from there, maybe you could eat a little bit more over time. Maybe you could do this without exceeding mild anxiety.

aml0017: Oh yeah comfort food haha. I love icecream mochi, I could eat boxes of those lol. :D I'm not sure how far back this goes. It's only now that I'm addressing my unhealthy coping mechanisms (read: starving myself) and trying to be healthy and eat regularly that I'm running into this problem. My appetite is very poor, I am oftentimes too anxious or depressed to eat. Forcing myself to eat makes me anxious. I've restricted my eating since I was 12 years old. I'm 22 now. As far as events that started it, bullying in middle school made my self esteem plummet and I turned to counting calories. As sad as that sounds :/ What exactly is it about food that makes me anxious? I'm afraid I can't do it. I don't want to do it. It tastes too strong or gross. Even an apple can be too strong. I must be very sensitive. I'm afraid it will make me more anxious, and oftentimes it does.

MainerMikeBrown: Thanks for the tip! :) I usually can't eat very much in a sitting anyway. I can take the pressure off myself by having a small portion to eat.

There's an evolutionary explanation for this and I get it too I've noticed. You see when your body has to digest food it uses quite a bit of energy and when it's on high alert that's no good because it needs all the energy it can to run away from sabre-toothed tigers! This is why you can also get extra anxious when you're trying to sleep. There are other psychological factors I'm sure, like for me it's probably related to my mother getting extra neurotic/bitchy when she made us dinner. But yes, I noticed it one time when my anxiety was really bad and had an "aha" moment because I'd read about it while researching the nervous system.

Thanks gypsylee! That makes total sense. It's a signal meant for self preservation, sick. Haha :D When I was hospitalized we learned similar things about the panic response. Your body truly believes you are in danger and is pumping you full of adrenaline to save you from whatever boogeyman is threatening you. Then things can go haywire and you start to fear the panic itself creating more adrenaline and you end up shaking, paralyzed on the floor (that's me lol).

Now I just have to figure out how to let my mind know that there are no sabre-tooth tigers causing imminent danger... lol. I'm sorry to hear other people going through this cause it sucks, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one.

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Originally Posted by sarsaparilla

Hey everybody, have any of you run into the problem of anxiety around food? When I eat, I can start to feel my heart beat hard and my chest tighten and I get nervous. I think I'm calmer when I'm hungry. I do have a history of starving myself as a coping skill and because of low self-esteem. Right now I'm trying to eat regularly and healthily as part of my treatment for anxiety, but food itself makes me anxious. Even before I eat I can get anxiety that I will get anxiety when I eat. I hope that makes sense lol

Wishing everyone good health :)

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This happened to me recently over Thanksgiving, I got super freaked out the night before when I could not sleep (too hot, pillow too big, non-typical environment at parents house).

The next day at the thanksgiving dinner I took a bite and was immediately triggered with severe anxiety since my brain said "You cant sleep, what if you cant eat?".

So, I started feeling exactly like you do, same heart pounding on first bite and such. Life was terrible. Then I realized I needed to confront this fear in private since it was much easier to deal with (eating) in private. My brain, being typical, manufactured more fears that branched off the eating problem that I wont mention so as to spare you.

I also felt somewhat calmer when hungry simply because anxiety or not my body was hungry and I needed to eat. That feeling of hunger was reassuring, for me.

I started eating small amounts, like a 4.5 oz tuna pack or an easy mac bowl. The next day I was up to a regular plate of food. I realized in hindsight yesterday and today that it was a stupid self manufactured fear that can easily be overcome. Anxiety, stress and fear suppresses hunger greatly which also leads to a snowball effect.

You combat this by eating small amounts throughout the day making sure you eat the same amount as you normally would. Do this and I promise over the next few days you will feel much better about all this and look back on it thinking "wow what dumb fear". If you still struggle and can only eat a little, incorporate high calorie foods so you at least dont loose weight.

I know this was long winded but I hope it helps you or anyone else struggling with the same.

Juggar, thanks for your response! I really appreciate it. I can relate to your reasoning during thanksgiving. If you're too anxious to do one thing how could you possibly eat... Yep. I knew it was a dumb fear (like most things lol) and I was ready to get over it. My meals have been pretty small but I'm eating. My appetite is still not 100% but it's better than when I made this thread. I'm just hoping to keep it up. Fingers crossed haha