Eating Out Of Boredom, Why Is This Happening To You?

The act of eating can be explained from various points of view. The one we know best is usually the biological one, but there are also other explanations that we must attend to. Through this article, we will show other perspectives to explain why we get to eat out of boredom.

It is a behavior that manifests itself in many people, but it is possible to change. It may or may not be necessary, what we must take into account is whether it is unhealthy, since overeating when it becomes a habit can become dangerous.

We will also delve into the tendency to eat out of boredom. In addition, we will emphasize what strategies we can use to avoid it and when it becomes unhealthy.

Eating out of boredom, what is it about?

We usually eat so that the organism keeps up with its functioning. Although, as we are integral beings, there is an influence of other important areas for our well-being, for example, emotional and social. Therefore, we come to eat for pleasure, because of social influence, etc.

Now, let’s see the meaning of the two associated words. According to the Royal Academy of the Spanish language, eating means ‘to eat a meal’, and boredom, ‘tiredness of the spirit caused by lack of stimulus or distraction or by repeated annoyance’.

So, eating out of boredom means that we eat food when our spirits are tired. This has to do with the emotional realm; in fact, we speak of emotional hunger when we look in food for what we cannot solve in other ways.

When is it unhealthy, why does it happen, and when is it healthy?

We eat out of boredom because eating is also associated with learning patterns. So what drives us to eat can be determined by various circumstances.

When we feel bored we enter a vicious circle in which our feelings, our thoughts and our behaviors intervene. So, not knowing what to do overwhelms us and to break that circle we look for something to entertain ourselves. In this case, the food.

Emotional eating and boredom

In addition, it may happen that, not knowing what to do with our mind, we turn to the body as a defense mechanism to avoid our anguish. Thus, eating out of boredom is characterized by being urgent, having no limits, generating guilt and shame or being a sudden behavior. Physiological hunger is gradual, it can wait, and it does not usually generate negative emotions.

In fact, current research emphasizes the relationship of overeating with emotions. For example, Córdoba and his colleagues, in their article published in the Journal of Psychology and Health,  show us how, in their study, people overeat in the face of negative emotions.

We also eat out of boredom because eating is a learned behavior and we are conditioned to eat at certain times. Another reason may be because we unconsciously try to fill empty spaces with food. So, we begin to associate emotions with situations that we have already experienced and in which we turned to food at the time.

Thus, each time it happens, we will think about food and eat if we have associated food with being bored. It becomes unhealthy when we do it excessively, that is, when we make it a habit.

Also, we can be over and over again, eating out of boredom, because the behavior of eating causes neurotransmitters such  as dopamine, responsible for motivated behavior, to be released.

On the other hand, there are times when we don’t know how to react and we can eat out of boredom, especially in stressful situations. This can be part of an adaptive and natural process as  long as it is circumstantial.

Strategies to avoid it

Eating out of boredom is an act that does not always occur consciously, identifying it is already a step that adds steps to our well-being. But how to avoid it? Let’s look at some strategies:

• Change activity. Instead of eating when we feel bored, we can propose to do an activity that favors our well-being and takes us out of boredom. For example, doing physical exercise raises our endorphin level and helps us feel happy. For each person it will be different, let’s find the activity that is suitable for our lives.
• Record what we eat. It consists of keeping track of our daily meals, so we will know what we eat, when we do it and the places where we usually do it. From this self-exploration we could make decisions to end boredom eating.
• Avoid buying. If we know that what we usually eat out of boredom are certain foods, let’s avoid buying them so that we don’t have them within reach.
• Weather. Let’s not let so much time pass between one meal and another.

• Satisfaction. If we eat foods that satisfy us to eat out of boredom, it will be more difficult because we will not have the space.
• Emotional management. It consists of recognizing our emotions, exploring them and not letting any of them be the protagonist. Thus we avoid emotional eating. To do this, you also need self-knowledge and will.

Now, to carry out this management we can seek help from expert professionals. For example, nutritionists, doctors and psychologists. The important thing is to find strategies that make our life healthy and non-toxic.

In short, eating out of boredom is a matter that occurs for different reasons. Sometimes to fill a void, others as a defense mechanism or learned behavior, others to break a vicious circle, others for the satisfaction generated due to the release of neurotransmitters, etc. It is important to identify whether it is excessive or not to take action and choose a path that promotes our well-being.