Emotional hunger comes on suddenly. With emotional hunger, we'll have snack after snack, and nothing hits the spot. We often feel guilty after emotional eating.

Our FREE email course is here to save the day! We'll send you 7 days of tips and strategies that are better than anything you've ever read. Would I eat broccoli right now? If the answer is yes then you are physically hungry.

Go ahead and eat. You are not actually hungry for food. You are hungry for something else stress relief, a distraction, a quick escape, etc.

The first step to overcoming emotional eating is being aware of it. Better awareness leads to better decisions. Better decisions leads to better results. The reason? Without a foundation, our efforts are a waste of time.

Most people go on what I call a 'food diet'. The right questions change our perspective, which lead to breakthroughs. After all, a breakthrough is when we see something in a new way. In that food trance, our mind finally turns off.

All of our stress, worries and overwhelm vanishes. Whatever was bothering us is no longer on our mind. A few seconds after we're done eating, the good feelings go away, and we're left feeling guilty and regretful.

This is one of the reasons why food can be addicting. We want more and more of that pleasure. Shortly thereafter, the very reason we emotionally ate comes back into play.

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Borodulin K, Vartiainen E, Peltonen M, Jousilahti P, Juolevi A, Laatikainen T, et al. Forty-year trends in cardiovascular risk factors in Finland. Eur J Pub Health. Tolonen H, Koponen P, Aromaa A, et al. Recommendations for the Health Examination Surveys in Europe. Helsinki: National Public Health Institute; Google Scholar.

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Appl Psychol Meas. Beekman AT, Deeg DJ, Van Limbeek J, Braam AW, De Vries MZ, Van Tilburg W. Criterion validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale CES-D : results from a community-based sample of older subjects in the Netherlands. Psychol Med. Shafer AB. Meta-analysis of the factor structures of four depression questionnaires: Beck, CES-D, Hamilton, and Zung.

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Three factor eating questionnaire-R18 as a measure of cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating and emotional eating in a sample of young Finnish females.

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The effects of sex and hormonal status on the physiological response to acute psychosocial stress. van Strien T, Roelofs K, de Weerth C. Cortisol reactivity and distress-induced emotional eating. Rosenberg N, Bloch M, Ben Avi I, Rouach V, Schreiber S, Stern N, et al. Cortisol response and desire to binge following psychological stress: comparison between obese subjects with and without binge eating disorder.

Tryon MS, DeCant R, Laugero KD. Having your cake and eating it too: a habit of comfort food may link chronic social stress exposure and acute stress-induced cortisol hyporesponsiveness.

Physiol Behav. St-Onge MP, Wolfe S, Sy M, Shechter A, Hirsch J. Sleep restriction increases the neuronal response to unhealthy food in normal-weight individuals. Grandner MA, Patel NP, Gehrman PR, Perlis ML, Pack AI. Problems associated with short sleep: bridging the gap between laboratory and epidemiological studies.

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Body composition changes with aging: the cause or the result of alterations in metabolic rate and macronutrient oxidation? Macht M, Mueller J. Immediate effects of chocolate on experimentally induced mood states. Haedt-Matt AA, Keel PK, Racine SE, Burt SA, Hu JY, Boker S, et al.

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CAS PubMed Google Scholar. Katterman SN, Kleinman BM, Hood MM, Nackers LM, Corsica JA. Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, and weight loss: a systematic review. Eat Behav. Paans NPG, Bot M, Gibson-Smith D, Spinhoven P, Brouwer IA, Visser M, et al.

Which biopsychosocial variables contribute to more weight gain in depressed persons? Download references. This work was supported by the Academy of Finland grants , to HK, grants , to SM, grant to PJ, and grants , to AH , Emil Aaltonen Foundation grant to HK , Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation grant to HK , and Juho Vainio Foundation grant to PJ.

The funding sources had no involvement in study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation, writing the article, or in the decision to submit the article for publication. The data used in the present study can be made available on request to the DILGOM Management Group according to the given ethical guidelines and Finnish legislation.

Department of Food and Nutrition, P. Box 66, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Faculty of Social Sciences, P. Box 54, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.

Box , HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Department of Public Health Solutions, National Institute for Health and Welfare, P. Box 30, , Helsinki, Finland.

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. HK, SM, PJ and AH were involved in the data collection. HK, TvS, SM, PJ and AH contributed substantively to the study conceptualization and design. HK analyzed the data and wrote the first version of the manuscript. TvS, SM, PJ and AH commented and critically revised the manuscript.

Ideally, try to eat at a table away from your workspace and minimise other distractions. Before eating, take a moment to look at and smell your food. Also, spend some time reflecting on where your food came from and how it was grown and prepared.

While eating the meal, focus on what each element tastes like in your mouth and savour each bite. Are there certain textures or flavours which pair well together?

You could also try dimming one of your senses to heighten the others while you eat a particular food. For example, you could blindfold yourself or close your eyes while you enjoy a piece of chocolate or a scoop of ice cream. This activity can make your other senses, like taste and smell, much more engaged, which means you enjoy the chocolate more and feel more satisfied afterwards.

The next step is to take time to eat your meal. Often we eat food on the go or in a hurry while focusing on something else. At each meal:. Concentrate entirely on your food; even if you feel your mind wandering, carry on.

Now try and tell the story of why this happened. What caused you to go off track? What did you struggle with or find challenging? Why was it hard to restart? Now that you have this information, you can start to develop a plan to stop these scenarios from happening in the first place.

Try to write down a complete list of all the possible scenarios you foresee as a potential challenge. Research has also shown that the best tasks to take your mind off food are cognitively challenging ones. This means going for a walk, meditation, or bath may not be effective ways to distract yourself.

However, something that engages your brain can be a better distractor, such as:. This can foster a negative relationship with food and create an ongoing cycle of comfort eating. Instead, there should be foods we enjoy every day and foods we enjoy less often. Generally, strict rules tend to have the opposite effect of making us crave these foods even more, causing feelings of guilt or shame if we break one of these rules.

Every one of us will have different triggers for emotional eating. Likewise, we need an individualised approach to feeling in control of our emotions. The Second Nature programme teaches you to enjoy food mindfully without counting numbers, calories, or fixating on weight.

Gayle Munnings. I get distracted at meal times an am my own worst enemy. io with any questions. I really enjoy my food, but have never taken 20 minutes to eat even when I have purposefully tried to eat slowly!

I think if I took 20 minutes to eat my meal it would be cold by the time I finished! I can see a benefit in avoiding distractions while eating though. Ann Brown. I am someone who skips meals and finds that my evening meals are rushed due to hunger.

I think focusing on an activity after tea would definitely help me, stop me reaching for the biscuits. Tina Holliland. To learn more, you can take our health quiz here , or email support secondnature. io with any questions 🙂.

Ann Fitzpatrick. Sounds great, please do let us know how you get on and if you have any questions about this strategy 🙂. Our programme also provides many other tools to help you overcome emotional eating. Our programme includes many other tips and tricks for overcoming emotional eating.

I shall also try the 20 20 20 rule. I find it helpful to have a protein snack near if I still fancy something sweet after a meal. Our programme includes many other tips and tricks for improving mindfulness and overcoming emotional eating.

Our programme provides many other tools for overcoming emotional eating. Tracey Adams. Very interesting I will try the 20 20 20 rule , also not switch the tv on when I sit down too eat which is normally the case 😱. Let us know how you get on with these new tools 😊. Our programme provides many other tips and tricks to help you overcome emotional eating habits.

io with any questions 😊. Nick Webster. Kind regards. Chris Gibbs. Sheena Kirkham. io with any questions! Thanks for this article Tamara. How interesting that cognitive activities are more effective at distraction from cravings then going for a walk or taking a bath!

That explains a lot. Our programme includes an interactive video catalog with different strategies to overcome emotional eating. Our programme will offer further support to overcome emotional eating. Clare Scott. Informative interesting article. Maybe thats why so called, slimming clubs go one for years.

Syns, treats, good ,bad! At the end of the day, its how we perceive it. Our programme offers many other tools and tricks to overcome emotional eating.

Lesley Beaton. Our programme will provide plenty of other tools for mindfulness and overcoming emotional eating. io 🙂. Loraine White. Janet Porter. I was interested in the rule, I would have always been a fast eater so I am going to slow down and enjoy my food! Our programme will offer many other tools to improve mindfulness.

Interesting article with solid advice. Our programme will help you continue to develop a toolbox to identify triggers and overcome emotional eating. I have read through this article and found it helpful especially the mindfulness part of it as I find it hard to focus sometimes due to my mental health conditions so thank you for the information I will come back to it whenever I feel any doubtful thoughts 😊.

Louise Ruming. This is a very good detailed article. In particular I liked the 20 20 20 framework which I have not seen before. Thank you. Interesting to learn what emotional and mindful eating is!

Slow down and smell the coffee I guess Carmel. Pauline mills. Hi Pauline, please email support secondnature. io to request our free 5-day plan 🙂. Kirsty Wilson. Very informative. Gives a good perspective on this and I resonated well with it all. I hope this makes me make better choices and not feel guilty.

It makes sense. Alison Cooper. Thank you for this as it has been interesting reading. To slow down when coming to a meal in general and trying to enjoy my food.

I do suffer with emotional eating and especially when having a tough day or things have gone wrong its easy to pick up the takeaway menu or go to the biscuit tin. I am trying to learn to grab a piece of fruit instead. One is the rule and the other one is the cognitive challenges.

Rachel Hillhouse. This is a very helpful article. After reading this, I now realize that I have the ability to resist with the help of these strategies. Hi Rachel, so pleased to hear this article was helpful! Heather Fangrow.

This article really rang true for me and it was very helpful, I have struggled with emotional eating over my life, but I am already inspired to try some of the techniques suggested. Our programme will provide you with a toolbox for identifying triggers and helping you to overcome emotional eating habits.

Fore more information on our programme, please click here. Ana Amores. Interesting article. Preparing in advance for situations when I will feel cravings and have a plan of action to replace unnecessary eating with some other activity.

I can try it. Our programme will offer even more helpful tools for overcoming emotional eating. For more information, please click here 🙂. Karen Gregory. heather norris. This article I know will help me. Angela Mckay. Barbara Howell.

Very interesting article I have periods of binge eating and then feel really disappointed in my self and lack of control. Brenda Gascoigne.

Especially being prepared. Going to take some time to think about this. And the 29,20, Sally Broad. penny starr. Thanks, I particularly liked point 2 Be prepared.

Thinking about how I might feel in the future if I fail. For me this is the most thought provoking part of this article. Jackie davis. Thanks for this article. Some helpful tips. Definitely makes a difference. I do find that by eating slowly I am in tune with when I am full.

Carrot sticks are working for me as well for snacking. I have yet to find the best distraction strategy because this does work for mewhen i do become distracted from the craving, which usualy hits me late in the evening.

Tracey Austin. Louise Wood. I keep repeating the same bad habits then feel guilty. Very interesting to read and it certainly covered the reasons why I seem to be emotionally eating. Very insightful and I hope the impact stays with me.

Good article highlighting all the SN insights around emotional eating. Also maybe I will suggest taking a picnic and going for a walk now we have good weather. I eat! Mary Moran. I liked the article a lot and what is very meaningful for me is developing the habit of mindful eating. I have been practicing this and then unfortunately I notice how many people swallow or gobble or stuff their food and it kind of puts me off.

Having a glass of wine ends up in eating anything sweet I can get my hands on. I need to practice mindful eating. I have been crisis eating since I was 8. I only pressed stressed, but I eat when I am tired. Disappointed in procrastinating. Scared, over committed, so many reasons.

Covid has made no difference to this. Fiona Wilson. My weight has ballooned over the past year with covid lockdown too! Deirdre Moffat. I am starting the programme on Monday 7th June.

I found that article extremely helpful. I have been emotionally eating for the past 18 months, since I began working from home hence huge weight gain. I think being prepared and having a daily menu that includes snacks might help me. Patricia Hallahan. Hi Michelle, so pleased to hear this!

Our programme will take a deeper look into emotional eating, our triggers, and how to build healthier habits. To learn more, please click here. Hi Michelle, so pleased to hear! Our programme offers further support and insight into managing emotional eating.

To learn more, you can take our health quiz here.

It also helps to realize that emotional eating doesn't solve the problem that made you upset. Another way to control emotional eating is to figure out what your triggers are.

Keep a food diary that records not only what and how much you ate, but also how you felt at the time. Once you recognize a pattern, develop a strategy to break it.

For instance, if you often eat because you think you deserve it after a tough day, remember that you also deserve to lose weight, feel healthy, and be proud of yourself. If you eat because of stress, learn to dial back that stress.

Yoga, meditation, and regular exercise can help reduce stress levels. The best distractions from emotional eating are things that take only about five minutes—just long enough to help you switch gears.

The more ways you can think of to distract yourself, the easier it will become over time to stop stress eating. Instead, resisting will become your new habit. If you're unsuccessful trying to stop stress eating on your own, consider turning to a therapist for cognitive behavioral therapy CBT.

CBT encourages you to discover and expose negative and unproductive ways of thinking—such as grabbing that chocolate bar—and teaches you to replace these thinking patterns with more helpful ones. Then, next time you have stressful situation, you might say to yourself, "I'm really upset, but if I eat to soothe myself, I'll feel upset about my weight, too.

Instead, I'll go for a walk so I can calm down and feel better. It may take a combination of approaches to stop stress eating. But becoming aware of the problem is a good first step to breaking the cycle. As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content.

Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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What is a tongue-tie? What parents need to know. Which migraine medications are most helpful? How well do you score on brain health? Ten is extreme fullness, like after a giant holiday meal. Make a point to check in with yourself every few hours and ask yourself what your hunger level is.

This can help you to notice your natural patterns of hunger and fullness. As you get more practice, you may start to notice some of the early signs of hunger. It can also help you identify when you feel like eating but are not physically hungry.

Resist isolation in moments of sadness or anxiety. Those are tough feelings to navigate on your own. Even a quick phone call to a friend or family member can do wonders for your mood. There are also formal support groups that can help.

One self-reported pilot study found that social support and accountability helped the participants better adhere to eating-related behavior change. Overeaters Anonymous is an organization that addresses overeating from emotional eating, compulsive overeating, and eating disorders.

You can explore their website to see if this feels like it would be a good fit for you. Look for a dietitian with experience supporting people with emotional or disordered eating. They can help you identify eating triggers and find ways to manage them.

A mental health professional can help you find other ways to cope with difficult emotions as you move away from using food. They often use cognitive behavioral therapy CBT.

CBT for emotional eating often includes behavioral strategies, such as eating regular meals at a planned time. Scheduling your meals can help curb physical hunger. The sense of feeling full may also help curb emotional hunger.

Some research calls this the cold-hot empathy gap. Whereas in the hot state, you overestimate how hungry you actually are emotional eating. In one study , meal planning was linked with food variety, diet quality, and less obesity.

Instead, consider building a weekly meal plan that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack. Then, decide what time you will eat each meal.

For instance:. If you experience an intense desire to eat, think about your next scheduled meal. It may only be a half hour away. Ask yourself if you can wait to eat. Try not to schedule meals too close to bedtime, and keep all of your meals within a hour window , like a. to p. This means you should eat a meal about every 3 hours.

If possible, give food your full attention when you eat. This can increase the enjoyment you get from the food. When you are distracted, you are also more likely to eat faster. One behavioral strategy mental health professionals use to cope with this conditioning is stimulus control. Stimulus control works by changing your food cues.

Positive self-talk and self-compassion are more tools to use on your journey to managing emotional eating. It has been shown to improve healthful eating. Try to become more aware of the stories you are telling yourself. It may be helpful to write down some of the repeated negative thoughts you are having.

Get curious about where these thoughts might be coming from. Once you are more aware of all the negative thoughts that show up, you can start to work on changing them. Make notes on how you could change the way you talk to yourself. Consider how you would talk to a dear friend and use that language with yourself.

Food may feel like a way to cope but addressing the feelings that trigger hunger is important in the long term. Work to find alternative ways to deal with stress, like exercise and peer support.

Consider mindfulness practices. Change is hard work, but you deserve to feel better. Making changes to your emotional eating can be an opportunity to get more in touch with yourself and your feelings. Emotional eating can be part of disordered eating.

Disordered eating behaviors can lead to developing an eating disorder. If you are feeling uncomfortable with your eating, reach out for support.

You can talk with your healthcare professional about your concerns. You can also connect with a mental health professional or a dietitian to help you address both the physical and mental sides of emotional eating. Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

VIEW ALL HISTORY. Mindful eating is a powerful tool to support managing your eating habits. It can help with weight loss, reducing binge eating, and making you feel…. Disordered eating is an increasingly common phrase. Two experts explain what disordered eating is, how it's different from eating disorders, who it….

Teenage girls and women are not the only ones who deal with eating disorders. Men do, too — in fact, they're on the rise. Anorexia athletica is a type of disordered eating that can affect athletes. Therapy is a large part of treatment for eating disorders, but there are several different kinds that may work better based on the individual.

Learn how to recognize, treat, and cope with bigorexia, and how to remove the stigma around physical appearance that can lead to bigorexia. Lose the shame, not the weight gain. A Quiz for Teens Are You a Workaholic? How Well Do You Sleep? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect.

Emotional Eating: What You Should Know. Medically reviewed by Marney A. White, PhD, MS , Psychology — By Carly Werner, RD and Aline Ren Dias — Updated on September 15, Causes Emotional vs. physical hunger How to stop When to seek help Do you race to the pantry when you feel down or otherwise upset?

Managing emotional eating can be complicated. Was this helpful? What causes someone to eat because of their emotions? Summary Emotional eating can affect anyone.

Emotional hunger vs. physical hunger. Physical hunger Emotional hunger Develops slowly over time Comes on suddenly Feel the sensation of fullness and take it as a cue to stop eating Do not notice fullness, or it does not prevent you from wanting to eat more Tied to the last time you ate Triggered by the need for comfort or soothing.

Summary Physical and emotional hunger can be easily confused, but there are some key differences. How to stop emotional eating. Meal Day of the week Time Breakfast Monday — Friday a. Snack Monday — Friday a. Lunch Monday — Friday p. Dinner Monday — Friday p.

Everyone has challenges with their work. What can I do to feel more confident at my job? I overate again. I wonder why that happened again. We all make mistakes. I can view this as a learning opportunity.

Summary Food may feel like a way to cope but addressing the feelings that trigger hunger is important in the long term. When to seek help. How we reviewed this article: Sources. Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations.

We avoid using tertiary references.

Emotional eating is when you eat food to cope with difficult emotions. Because emotional eating has nothing to do with hunger, it is typical to eat a lot more calories than your body needs or will use. Foods high in fat, sugar, and salt can become more appealing when you are under stress, are in a bad mood, or feel bad about yourself.

Emotional eating often becomes a habit. If you have used food to soothe yourself in the past, you may crave candy or potato chips anytime you feel bad.

The next time you are upset, it becomes even harder to say no to unhealthy food. Everyone has bad days, but not everyone uses food to get through them. Some behaviors and thought patterns can increase your chance of becoming an emotional eater. Observe yourself. Pay attention to your eating patterns and the people or events that make you want to overeat.

Develop new coping skills. The next time you want to use food for therapy, think about how else you might deal with the feelings that triggered that urge. You might:. Value yourself. Getting in touch with your values and strengths can help you manage bad times without overeating.

Eat slowly. Emotional eating often means you eat mindlessly and lose track of how much you've taken in. Make yourself slow down and pay attention to the food you are eating. Plan ahead. If you know a difficult or stressful time is coming up, set yourself up for healthy eating in advance.

Make comfort food healthier. Look for ways to prepare your favorite dishes with fewer calories. Talk to your health care provider if you have any of these symptoms of binge eating disorder :. Carter JC, Davis C, Kenny TE. Implications of food addiction for understanding and treating binge eating disorder.

In: Johnson BLA, ed. Addiction Medicine: Science and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; chap Cowley DS, Burke A, Lentz GM. Typical signs include eating in secret, hiding food packaging, buying more food than you need and being isolated.

Whichever way, if they are eating so much that they are damaging their health, if they are bingeing or purging, or their weight is increasing, or if it is making them miserable, then they should seek professional help.

The causes of emotional eating are as varied as the biscuit aisle of Tesco Extra. For some women, they might be external — a high-stress job, hectic family life, exams or study; it could be boredom; a need to escape; or it could be succumbing to old habits.

So, like when your parents used to keep you quiet with a bottle of milk as a baby, or feed you sweets if you behaved well at school. Or if a parent was always on a diet or keeping certain foods off limits or always making you finish your plate.

Those memories can continue into adulthood and trigger comfort eating. It could also be that your brain and your body have fallen out of alignment.

So, in an attempt to bring reality and self-image back into alignment it triggers comfort eating — an unwitting action of self-sabotage. The good news is that there are many techniques that you can try to put end to your emotional eating for good.

But, as with any behavioural condition, the trick is finding the ones that work best for you. Which means clearing out those sweets from your office snack drawer and not buying 1KG of granola if you know this is a trigger food.

Beat has a variety of support services from telephone helplines to online groups, message boards and links to NHS centres, counsellors, therapists and support groups near you. Feel yourself about to succumb to comfort eating? Go for a walk, call a friend or… play old school Tetris.

The University of Plymouth found just three minutes of gaming weakened cravings for food by as much as one-fifth. Indeed, New York University researchers noted that even mild stress can thwart measures to control emotional eating.

Find a Provider Help for Yourself Help for Someone Else Coping Strategies. Community Education Volunteer and Student Placement Events EDAW Research Listings. community education donate Search helpline. National Eating Disorder Information Centre NEDIC NEDIC provides information, resources, referrals and support to anyone in Canada affected by an eating disorder.

Learn more about how we can help Eating Disorders Awareness Week is February , Download educational materials to share about this year's campaign, Breaking Barriers, Facilitating Futures. EDAW WEBSITE Check out our NEW resources — guides to eating disorders in the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour communities by and for community members and carers!

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