When it comes to our eating habits, many of us turn to food for stress relief or as a reward. But take note if your first impulse is to open the refrigerator whenever you’re stressed, upset, lonely, bored, or exhausted. If you’re an emotional eater, you may feel powerless over your food cravings. When the urge for “comfort food” hits, craving can consume us. After indulging, we feel worse than before. Not only does the original emotional issue remain, but now there’s a serving of guilt for dessert. And those bad feelings can compel us into another escape to emotional eating. The way out? Replace emotional eating with mindful eating. Trigger and Biochemical Response If you’ve ever made room for a sweet treat after overeating big meal because you’re feeling down—or spooned down half a carton of ice cream—you’ve experienced emotional eating. The trigger may be any external event or thought …