Blog,  No Eating After Dinner Challenge

Letting Go of Addictive Behavior as a Coping Mechanism to Stress

No Eating After Dinner Challenge: Day 8

We are now past the point of excitement about a new challenge. This is when it becomes more about intention than the thrill of a good idea.

My instinct to get myself through a stressful bedtime led me straight to the pantry. It has become a habit to self medicate with food when I need a release from intense moments.

As I stood there, I paused and walked away, phone in hand, ready to decompress for the evening with the hubs.

While I sat with him, my mind was elsewhere trying to figure out what adjustments can be made to prevent the response to eat. What caused the extra stress tonight? I looked into my hand and got my answer.

It’s been 2 days since I returned to social media and even though I’m not spending hours checking my accounts throughout the day, my phone is still a major accessory to my outfit.

It’s easy to fall back into old habits even if we slowly reintroduce them into our lives. Hello, added stress. I was still constantly checking other apps on my phone. I even bought a new game yesterday so I had something to do.

I deleted it this morning. 

My four year old wanted to play with me and because I had slipped back into an old mindset, I didn’t feel like it. I had him sit on the couch with me and he played on his Kindle while I played my new game. That’s probably not the kind of activity he wanted to do.

The hour before bed needs to be a time for everyone to unwind and instead I used it as a time to check my social media for the day. When I was done, it was immediately time for the kids to go to bed. They were on their devices and started fighting me about bedtime. It was not pretty and because I was coming from a rushed and anxious place, I was not able to meet them at their level. Everyone HAD TO BE on my schedule and hurry to bed because it was late.

I woke up this morning with knots in my stomach because of how I did not handle the situating letting my phone take precedence over family priorities. I have begun planning out what next month’s challenge is going to be and I liked the idea of cutting down on internet usage, making very specific times of the day available to me but I don’t think my stress or my family can wait another 3 weeks. This begins today!

The last two days I have struggled to find quiet times because I am concerned about the things on my phone. Usually, I sit and read at least an hour a day but my mind hasn’t stopped spinning and my focus is gone.

Luckily I didn’t turn to food as a release but it is only a matter of time before bad habits return if my intention isn’t clear. If I let my phone hold the power to my life, everything will become foggy again.

Even when it’s plugged in, I still walk over to it multiple times a day, so I put it far away in my bedroom where I have to make a conscious effort to find it.

It’s been over 12 hours since I touched it except to turn off my alarm this morning to workout and I already feel the anxiety melting away.

 

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