Mouth Cravings - What They Are and How To Get Rid Of Them

It's helpful to know the difference between hunger and a craving.

Hunger comes on gradually. Our stomach starts to growl, we feel a tad lightheaded or we just feel empty without much energy.

Emotional/mindless/habitual hunger comes on suddenly. Out of nowhere, we're in the mood for something. If we really paid attention to our stomach we'd realize we weren't physically hungry.

Then there's mouth cravings. Mouth cravings can happen whether we're physically or emotionally hungry. It's when our mouth or tongue is craving something sweet or fatty or salty.

If we really pay attention to our body and mind we'd realize mouth cravings are really only in our mouth. They aren't driven by our mind saying 'comfort me' or 'help me escape reality for a few minutes.'

Mouth cravings typically occur after we eat certain foods. And the fix is easy.

For example, whenever I eat Italian food with some sort of marinara sauce I crave chocolate. And it's really not emotionally driven. My mouth just feels like it wants something sweet.

So instead of giving in, I (try to!) have some grapes or an orange or better yet as soon as I'm done eating I floss, brush my teeth and use mouth wash.

I'm literally scraping the craving off my tongue. It works every time.

The challenging part is that so many of us enjoy the 5 minute escape of eating whatever it is we want. We don't want to get in the habit of brushing our teeth even though we know it'll work!

I've seen this time after time.

Clients are afraid to let go of their temporary escape so they purposely don't brush their teeth.

It seems harder to just brush our teeth than to give in to our cravings. It's like taking a bottle away from a baby. But as babies eventually grow out of using bottles - so can we.

We just need to try it. Try brushing your teeth immediately after a meal and you'll be amazed at how quickly you forget about the craving.

If you never give yourself an opportunity to figure out what it is you really want, you'll always resort to eating junk. And eating junk, unfortunately, has never made us feel more awesome than eating healthfully has.

Try snacking on some grapes or an orange - it will fix your cravings. Even better: try coming up with a nightly activity that'll be soothing so you don't have to give in to your mouth cravings at all.