How to deal with cravings.

Cravings 

A powerful desire for something, a hunger, a thirst, want, urge, need.

There are lots of different words that sum up how we feel about cravings.

People ask me about cravings all the time. When will they stop? When will they go? People seem to worry and panic about them.

Let’s get a few things straight.

People have cravings all the time for many different things and many different reasons.  I would go so  far as to say there is no rhyme or reason to them. 

Its ok, don’t panic, a craving won’t kill you.  It’s just a feeling, something that pops into your mind, a thought.

Think of it like an emotion.  You feel many different emotions throughout the day.  Happy, sad, thoughtful, angry, frustrated, elated, love.  The list is endless.

Most of us don’t react to every single feeling we have.  If you do then please get some help, you don’t need to be a slave to your emotions.

So, you are going to have cravings. For alcohol, food, chocolate, cream cakes, your drug of choice.

You have more cravings for things that we see, or are around us more.  Such as alcohol, it’s on TV, in our news feeds, supermarkets, local shops, the garage and those big mountains of multi buys.  It’s pretty much everywhere.  So, it’s hard to go a day without a visual trigger.  If you are someone that is quite visual, then this can be tough.

It’s the same with food. It’s pretty much everywhere and most of the food we can see is unhealthy.  Standing in the aisle at the shop, usually surrounded by chocolate.

Or it can be that you have had a bad day. You had a difficult conversation with someone or you are feeling good about something.  There are so many reasons why you might crave something.

So, you are going to have cravings, some days more than others.  Learn what works for you:

·         Sit with the craving, knowing that it won’t kill you, let it pass.

·         Don’t get into it, by this I mean, when you get the craving, you focus on it and start thinking about it more, this will not help.

·         My personal favourite is doing something to take your mind off it, this works for me.

·         Think it through, you are in the craving.  Say its alcohol.  You haven’t had a drink for ages, you feel good, you don’t want to. Take yourself through what happens. So you have a drink, how do you feel? Do you stop at 1? What happens if you drink too much? What are the consequences? 

·         Try different things until you find something that works for you.  Then keep using it until it becomes easy for you.

Let me know how you get on.  If you are struggling, check out our coaching programmes https://www.ichange21.com/.

Also, feel free to ask me questions on my Facebook and twitter pages.  I am always happy to answer questions.