Anxiety and eating disorders?

[Always *]

Hey so I have issues with anxiety and eating disordered thinking/behaviours/temptations and I've been thinking about it lately and I think it is maybe directly a result of how I have anxiety problems. I am trying to find things that help relax me - usually i have reverted to exercise but sometimes I'm to busy OR exercising is part of the problem... But then I was wondering if anyone has experience with anxiety and stress being a key influence in their ED issues?

[Always *]

Can someone please help me? I just want to know if it is normal for anxiety and/or perfectionist personality types to be directly linked to eating disorders.... I know that over 40 people have looked at this so can someone please respond?

[mel.rosie]

Being under stress causes everyone's body to react differently. I have personally had a problem with eating alot more than usual when my anxiety is high. You can counter this problem by trying a few tricks I did.

1) Buy more healthy snacks and try to substitute junk foods for them
2) If you have any hobbies you like, do something you enjoy to get your mind of the stress. I love swimming so I usually go to the pool to clear my head
3) If you have a friend you can confide in try talking about it with them. When you are around people that have healthy habits, most likely you will also adapt those habits too. You can also message me if you want to talk about it more.

[Bem]

I have anxiety and also have some eating disorder symptoms, and I think personally they often are related, though obviously I can't speak for anyone else. For example, a huge part of my anxiety is not feeling in control -> controlling my food helps (e.g. calorie counting). I think that if someone suffers from both there's probably a fairly high chance they have some relation to each other just because of how mental illness often works, kind of seeping into your life, so it doesn't have a choice but to mix with any other thoughts. This got kind of rambly, and sorry if I wasn't helpful, but I'm interested to see where this thread goes.

[Catharsis.]

I also struggle with both several forms of anxiety and an eating disorder, and there is certainly no denying that they are interlinked. How I react to my anxiety is a little different in terms of EDs, and it often relates to how I feel while eating. If I am around people, I generally feel absolutely awful when eating and it makes me incredibly anxious and panicky. This, however, happens to me when I'm eating quite often regardless of whether or not I'm around people, as I have a tendency to think too much about calories, calories, calories.

To sum it up, yes, I definitely feel like my anxiety issues are central to a lot of my ED issues.