What is Emotional Eating?

Have you ever found yourself randomly snacking, not because you’re hungry, but because you’re stressed or bored? Have you noticed yourself reaching for a comfort food when you are feeling sad or lonely? If your answer is yes, please know you’re not alone.

Many people use food as a comfort or coping mechanism for stress. This way of interacting with food is something known as emotional eating. It can be a signal or message from the unconscious that something in our inner landscape needs tending. It can be an attempt to regulate or soothe ourselves when we feel overwhelmed by our emotions. Eating in ways that feel misaligned with our intentions may be effective and bring immediate soothing, yet exploring the roots of this is so important for creating real change and healing.

What is Emotional Eating?

Emotional eating is using food to cope with any negative emotions, whether stress, boredom, fear, sadness, loneliness, or anger. It’s an escape, a distraction that takes away from addressing the issue or emotion directly. You eat, not because you’re hungry, but because you want to find some sense of peace, control or relief from whatever it is you are feeling.

While it may sound harmless and can provide some temporary relief in the short term, it can lead to long-term challenges. It’s can feel like a vicious cycle where you feel bad, then you eat to feel better, but then guilt or shame creeps in and you return to feeling bad. And the cycle continues.

Signs of Emotional Eating

There are multiple key characteristics of emotional eating, which are typically recurring actions.

Your eating is triggered and driven by emotions. You may not even feel hungry at all. You may feel full, but still find yourself eating. You might be grazing, snacking, or having a full meal.

When you do have food cravings, you tend to reach for things considered to be comfort foods. These comfort foods trigger your brain’s reward system and provide feelings of pleasure.

Your eating may appear to be or feel mindless. You’re not hungry, so you’re not paying much attention to how much you’re eating. In some instances, you may consume too much before realizing how full you are, which leads to feelings of physical discomfort and emotional guilt and shame.

Why People Turn to Food for Comfort

Food is naturally connected to our emotions. Think about how we eat certain foods to celebrate. Birthday cake, holiday pies, end of school pizza parties, lucky foods for celebrating the new year. There are so many ways in which we engage with and enjoy foods in an emotional way. We may not even feel physically hungry when we eat these foods at a celebration or gathering. Food can be a way of expression love and joy. Food can also be used as a way of bringing comfort to ourselves when we are experiencing emotional distress.

Emotional triggers include stress, anxiety, boredom, sadness, loneliness, fatigue, or simply a bad day.

Strategies to Manage Emotional Eating

Emotional eating can have potentially harmful effects on your quality of life, but luckily, it’s something that can be managed.

Start keeping a journal of your eating habits, including what you eat, when you eat, and why you eat it. What emotions are you feeling in the moment? Are there any stressors present? What are you truly hungry for at that time? Perhaps you are craving something sweet. Think about it as a metaphor. Are you missing a feeling of “sweetness” in your life?

Next time you find yourself reaching for comfort food when you are feeling a difficult emotion, get curious about it. Consider journaling about your experience. Go outside, get some fresh air, and take a walk. Confide in a friend.

It is important to give yourself permission to eat when you are hungry. In moments of eating, you might try a practice of mindfulness. Slow your pace, pay attention to how the food smells, tastes, and feels as you chew. Notice if you are enjoying it or not.

When you feel prepared, start working on improving your emotional awareness. By facing your emotions rather than immediately reacting, you can help shift your emotional eating habits.

When to Seek Professional Help

In some instances, the emotions you’re feeling or the eating habits you’ve developed may be too strong to manage on your own. Speaking with an eating disorder therapist can help you identify your triggers, process your emotions, and develop healthy coping strategies.

If you’d like to learn more about stress management and emotional eating recovery, schedule a consultation to get started.