Stress is a very personal experience. Though many people might experience stress in reaction to particular situations, the way in which we respond to stress is unique. For some, stress means they workout more. For others, stress, means they eat more. And for other still, stress means it’s time to indulge in addictions. Managing your stress without succumbing to addictions can be difficult, though it is not impossible.

Defining Stress Addiction

Many people believe that in order to be addicted to something, it needs to be an illegal drug or some other related activity. But many more people have addictions to seemingly innocuous things – food, over-exercising, shopping, etc. You can define an addiction as something which you do in order to handle feeling, but you do this activity without thinking about the consequences and you can not stop once you’ve started. Many addictions will interfere with your life as well, causing you even more stress than they seek to help.

The Common Food Addiction Caused by Stress

Eating to cope with stress is a common practice. For those who can not handle their lives, they turn to food as a way to comfort them and to make them feel special. Since food is typically used as a reward when you’re growing up, it’s very easy to take the feeling of reward and transfer it to a stressful day. When you’re feeling down, food can lift you up. However, if used too often, food can also cause weight gain, which can lead to more stress, and the cycle continues.

Other Addictions Linked to Stress

Shopping, exercising too much, smoking, and drinking can also be ways in which you might handle your stress in an unhealthy manner. Though you might feel better for a bit after the activity, this feeling is not long lived. And you may find you need more and more of the activity in order to feel better. You might find that you turn to these activities even if you aren’t feeling upset with your life. Or you might find that these activities just aren’t helping anymore, so you turn to something stronger – like illegal drugs and other risky behaviors.

The best way to handle stress is to acknowledge your stressful feelings. At times, you may not feel right about your life, which is going to cause you to be angry, be sad, or be frustrated. Instead of numbing those feelings, you may want to spend some time talking about them to someone else. You may also want to look at your life to find ways to remove the stress from your experience. In this way, you won’t have to turn to these behaviors in order to make yourself feel better.