Here is the scene: You come home from work and you walk into your house or apartment. You put your things down, take off your jacket. You are thinking: “I will get something started to eat and then I can relax”. But before or while you start to prepare your healthy-minded dinner, something comes over you and you pull out the container of homemade cookies, or the bag of pretzels or chips. The next thing you know, it is minutes later, you come back into focus and into the room and realize that you have consumed all or nearly all of what you you grabbed. Where did you go? What happened to you when you were just shoving the crunchy or sweet stuff in your mouth? You didn’t even notice what you were doing, It was a miracle you didn’t choke to death! Almost like something took over your mind and actions so you weren’t even aware of what you were doing. Like you were in a trance! So, what is a trance exactly?
The term “trance” has been around for quite some time, from about the 13th Century. According to the World Dictionary (paraphrased): A trance is any mental state in which a person is unaware or apparently unaware of the environment, a dazed or stunned state, a state of ecstasy or mystic absorption so intense as to cause a temporary loss of consciousness at the earthly level.
If we go back into the scene at your home, we can look into what might have happened to you during those several minutes of unaware, unconscious chomping. The first thing we want to consider is the “set-up” to the trance (which we call triggers). We need to figure out triggers that may precede certain behaviors. Generally, these triggers are unconscious responses and can be stress, biological or emotion related.
If we could review the “tape” of your day, we might see that, at some certain point, you may have felt stressed out, low on energy but unable to take a break and get some air, or perhaps something at work caused you to feel like you are not doing as well as you think you should, maybe you had feedback from a boss or co-worker and you felt criticized, maybe you had some words in the afternoon with someone important in your life that was upsetting. These situations could become emotional triggers.
If something upsets us, we usually try to forget about the incident. Later on, the “trance” that happens when you get home may be your unconscious trying to make you feel better. Notice part of the definition from the World Dictionary above that says “ecstasy or mystic absorption”! Of course, that ecstasy is short lived when we find out that the way we searched for it was through chocolate chip cookies! Trance eating happens when we are not present and aware of the things that have had an emotional effect on us, and food is one way to bring comfort or ecstasy to us.
Being in a trance doesn’t have to be a bad thing – under certain circumstances it is a healthy and wonderful thing: meditation, prayer, exercise, and creativity are all activities that may result in a trance, a feeling of being totally absorbed in what you are doing so that nothing distracts you – the time passes without you noticing. A trance is also part of hypnosis, where the conscious part of the brain is distracted or absent, and the unconscious becomes more available.
If you find yourself at the mercy of trance eating, start a practice of being aware of things that may be upsetting you during the day, honor and respect yourself by accepting that these things are upsetting you. Make a promise to spend a few moments when you have time to put these things somewhere safe, possibly to be dealt with later. It may help to have a small item at your front door (or in your kitchen!) that will get your attention and remind you to be present!