Eating when bored is a habit that leads to consuming food in the absence of hunger, but as a way to pass time with a distraction, or to manage the feeling of boredom. This eating behaviour is driven by an emotional need, rather than a physical hunger.
If eating when bored happens often, it can lead to a few negative side effects. This includes creating an emotional dependance and reliance on food to help cope with boredom, making food the primary source of comfort. Often, foods consumed when bored are snacks involving higher sugar, salt or fat foods. In the long term, boredom eating can disrupt our bodies mechanisms that help us listen to physical hunger and fullness signals, and can make it more challenging for us to recognise the hunger.
There are many reasons why we may eat when we are bored. The feeling of boredom can be emotionally driven, perhaps from feeling lonely or dissatisfied, and food can help to temporarily fill this emotional void. Reaching for food can break the boredom, as it is a temporary distraction and gives us a hit of dopamine, which brings positive feelings.
If there isn’t a stimulating activity happening or there is a lack of interest in what we are doing, thoughts can easily turn to food as a quick and simple distraction. This can develop into a habitual behaviour overtime, where the mind automatically thinks of eating as a response to boredom.
It is important to work on overcoming boredom eating, to allow you to understand better your bodies natural hunger cues, to prevent making poor dietary choices that can end up leading to unwanted weight gain. It is also helpful to find other ways to cope with the emotion of boredom, to reduce reliance on food, and improve your relationship with food overall.
Here are some of the top ways to work on overcoming boredom eating:
As well as the above, we will discuss in more detail of reasons why we want to eat when we are bored, how to identify boredom eating compared to actually being hungry, and strategies to help reduce boredom eating.
10 reasons why you want to eat when you’re bored
To satisfy an emotional need
Boredom can lead us to turning to food, to help fill an emotional need. Eating is a distraction, although temporary, from other feelings, such as stress or loneliness. Eating is a very common response to negative emotions, which can include boredom. It is quick and easy, requires little skill or effort, and food is generally easily available to us the majority of times, and does give us that pleasure response to help preoccupy our minds, even for the shortest of times.
Lack of engagement or stimulus
When we are bored, there is nothing happening to actively engage our minds. It is therefore easy to crave something to keep us occupied, which leads us to choosing food. Though it is easy to become a mindless eater, as we often eat whilst we are distracted, which can lead to eating more, because we are not fully aware of our consumption.
Out of habit
The more we use food as a means to satisfy the boredom, the easier it is to develop a habit. The brain connects the feeling of boredom to wanting to eat, which leads to automatic behaviours easily developing between feeling unstimulated, and reaching for food. These habits are easy to form in a short space of time, as they provide us with pleasure and enjoyment, even though it is often short lasting.
Seeking out pleasure
Foods that we turn to when we are bored tend to be high in sugars, fats or salts. When we eat these foods, it triggers a release of the neurotransmitter known as dopamine, which is associated with reward and pleasure. The release of dopamine increases our enjoyment of eating the food at that time, so we associate the food with managing a boring situation. It is easy for our brain to make the connection between food and proving pleasure, which is why it is common for a habit to develop, to seek out food in times of boredom or wanting comfort.
Needing stimulation
When we are bored, we are often unstimulated. Eating is a way to provide sensory stimulation, through texture, taste and smell, which helps to alleviate boredom, even though it is temporary and short lived. It is an easy way to provide the stimulation, without much effort.
Ease of food availability
It is now easier than ever to have access to a range of foods, especially snacks, which can make it tempting to reach for food when we are bored. Our environment has a clear role to play in food choices and can have a big impact on our food behaviour, leading us to eat out of boredom rather than true hunger.
Source of gratification
If we are bored, we may want to do something that is easy and feels rewarding. Even though we may have other tasks to complete, it is a form of procrastination to delay us from doing something less rewarding, or that requires more effort. This is related to procrastinating, as the food will give us the immediate gratification, avoiding a task that is not as pleasant or exciting.
Hunger misinterpretation
If we are feeling tired and low in energy, or perhaps thirsty, this can be mistaken for hunger and lead to us reaching for food, especially when we are also bored. Boredom can influence us to choose food as a way to improve energy levels, even though we may not be physically hungry.
Food availability
Having easy access to food, especially snack foods, can make it tempting to eat when you’re bored. Environmental factors, such as the presence of food around us, have been shown to significantly influence eating behaviour.
Social influences
In certain social situations, such as watching tv with others or being in a big group, we may feel the urge to eat, even though we are not physically hungry. It can be considered a normal social behaviour if others are eating, or you may be bored even with others and looking for something to stimulate yourself.
How to know if you are eating because you’re hungry or bored?
To be able to better understand if we are eating out of true hunger or boredom, it is good to explore what hunger actually is, and different types of hunger we may experience. True physical hunger is the need to eat for survival and to gain energy from food. You may notice signs such as your stomach rumbling and a feeling of emptiness, as well as having hunger pangs and recurring desires to eat something. If you do not end up eating, this can lead to fatigue and a struggle to focus.
Other types of hunger, such as comfort or boredom hunger, are types of psychological hunger. Where there is a desire and urge to eat, but there is no physical need to eat. This could be to have a desire to eat a specific food, such as craving for a dessert after having a full satisfying meal, or it could be reaching for any food available, to manage your boredom.
There are specific signs to look out for, which can indicate if you are physically hungry, or perhaps wanting food out of boredom or another psychological reason. For example:
Listen the cues that your body is giving you
- If physical hunger signs are there, it can start off small with slight feelings of an emptiness in the stomach, a little rumbling, or even a feeling of a hunger pang. Everyone will experience true hunger signs differently, but these are quite common.
- If you are feeling like you want a specific food or drink and you are finding it hard to concentrate without having it, this is likely a craving and boredom hunger, rather than physical true hunger.
- Also look out for signs that you may just be thirsty and not actually hungry – having a dry throat or mouth can be a good sign that you may just need some fluid, ideally water, to help with hydrating you first, before you consider eating.
Check in with how you are feeling
- Notice any emotions you may currently be experiencing. Have you had a negative or sad experience, or are you feeling anxious? Or perhaps you find yourself with nothing to do and are feeling boredom.
- Ask yourself how long it has been since you ate, either a main meal or a snack. If it’s been less than 3-4 hours, it is unlikely to be true hunger, and more likely to be an emotional reason.
- This will allow you to notice if you are struggling with managing an emotion, and what may be making you feel this way.
- Lastly, spend a few moments trying to listen to the cues your body is telling you, before deciding if it’s physical, or emotional and perhaps boredom instead.
Drink water
- Although it sounds simple, sometimes we may just need some water rather than something to eat. When you want to reach for food, instead, reach for a large glass of water and take around 5 minutes to drink this.
- Give yourself a few minutes, and if after drinking the water you still feel that you physically need something, then it can be a sign of physical hunger.
How to stop eating when you’re bored?
There are various techniques to try, when you are exploring how to stop eating out of boredom. We recommend trying various options, to evaluate what works best for you going forwards:
Give yourself 15 minutes
When you have the urge to eat something, set a timer for 15 minutes and work on finding something that will keep both your hands and mind busy. For example, playing an instrument, reading a book, doing a puzzle, washing your hair. Watching tv is not enough of an option here. If you find that you struggle to keep focused on this task and are thinking about food and having something to eat, this is likely physical hunger rather than just from boredom – so makes sure to eat!
Have a toolbox to manage boredom eating
- Work on having an imaginary toolbox of ideas that can help you manage the feeling of boredom, without food being the first choice you go to. Not only can this work well to manage boredom, but a toolbox can help to satisfy cravings that are brought on by other feelings, such as frustration and loneliness.
- Take some time to put together a list of ideas that can provide you with self care and activities to practice, to help you feel less bored. Physically write down a list and have plenty of different ideas – as some will work in the moment, and some will not. Again, just watching tv might not be enough to help, as people who eat whilst watching tv can consume more than they realised or had planned to.
- When you get the urge to eat but know it’s not physical hunger, bring out the toolbox list and practice something from here. For example, going to play a board game or a game on your phone, or a video game. Or get out of your house, go for a walk or spend some time doing gardening. Perhaps call a friend or family member as a way to reduce boredom, or push yourself to do the household chores that you may have been likely putting off for a while, but need to be done!
Understand your triggers
- If you notice that you often feel boredom hunger after finishing work, make sure to plan ahead to know exactly what you will do in this time, to prevent you from feeling bored.
- Or for example, if a trigger is feeling bored and your partner offers you some cake or biscuits as a way to make you feel better, speak to your partner about ways they can support you to make a healthier outcome of feeling bored more often, rather than resorting to food when not physically hungry.
- If you find that you are triggered to snack whilst watching tv on the sofa, can you ensure that you have eaten a balanced meal soon before watching tv, so that you know you are no longer physically hungry?
Create a less tempting environment
- Following on from the above, another trigger can be the environment that we surround ourselves with. It is easy to regularly stock up the cupboards with food that can tempt us to snack, especially foods that are convenient and are high in sugars, fats and salt.
- Where possible, minimise or stop buying these foods so that they are not in your home. Instead, stock up healthier options so that if you are genuinely hungry and need a snack, you have some more balanced choices.
- As examples, Greek yoghurt & berries, or a chopped apple and chunk of cheese, or some vegetable sticks and hummus.
Do not deprive yourself
- Remember, boredom eating is a natural human emotion. If you find yourself occasionally reaching out for food but know you are not hungry, this does not always have to be something to stop and never do again.
- Instead, we want to identify if we are avoiding feeling a certain emotion, and work on dealing with the emotion itself, to better our overall wellbeing. Eating food is not a long term fix for any negative emotion we are struggling with, but if there is something you have been craving for a while, do not deny yourself, and enjoy a bit of what you fancy in moderation.
Work on mindful eating
- Many people find that they reach for something to eat and don’t realise how much they eat until they properly take notice. It’s easy to keep eating when we are distracted and not really paying attention to what we are doing.
- Instead, the concept of mindful eating allows a person to understand that they are eating out of boredom, and be able to control their food behaviours and choices by paying attention to the food itself.
- This helps us to feel satisfied with what we have, and it reduces the chances of us struggling with overeating and not listening to the emotion. Mindful eating can also help to improve eating behaviours in obese individuals.
If you struggle with boredom or comfort eating, working with a health professional such as a registered dietitian can help you explore ways to manage these to find a balance and a more sustainable lifestyle. Reach out to our team here.
