How to Stop Stress Eating: Why It Happens and What You Can Do
Key takeaways:
Stress eating is when you eat in response to negative emotions, rather than because your body needs energy or nutrition. But both can feel like physical hunger.
It’s normal for stress to increase feelings of hunger. And eating — especially foods with sugar — releases chemicals in the brain that help you feel good.
Stress eating can become a problem if it adds to your stress. But there are ways to stop stress eating such as mindful-eating techniques or stress-relieving activities.
Table of contents
When you’re feeling bored or stressed, it’s natural that you’d want to open the fridge or pantry. And if you’re reaching for food while feeling emotional, it’s common to pick comfort food over a nutritious snack. This is a natural human behavior, and it doesn’t always signal a problem.
But if you find yourself doing it more frequently than you want to — or you end up feeling worse — there are ways to decrease stress-eating episodes. Below, we explain the science behind stress eating, and offer some tips on how to stop if it’s causing you distress.
What is stress eating?
Stress eating is when someone craves food in response to negative emotions rather than physical hunger. It’s sometimes called emotional eating, but we intentionally use the term “stress eating” rather than “emotional eating” in this article. This is because “emotional eating” can refer to eating in response to negative as well as positive emotions. But when it comes to your health, they have a different impact.
Usually, stress eating has nothing to do with the body needing energy or nutrition. But it can still feel like hunger. Many people will eat a favorite snack or meal to help them feel better from time to time. But if you feel like you’re using food as a tool to cope with (or avoid) difficult feelings, it may help to consider if you’re “stress eating.” This way, you can develop tools that help you identify the stressors in your life — and find different coping mechanisms that feel better to you.
How can you stop stress eating?
If you find that stress eating is leading to more stress in your life, there are ways to limit or stop it. This may help you start feeling better.
1. Make nutritious foods more accessible
For some people, it may help to simply switch to eating more nutritious foods in moments when they want to stress eat. It can be really challenging to grab an apple when you’re craving a candy bar. But there are a few ways to make nutrient-dense foods more appealing when you open the fridge or pantry.
For example, if you’re craving something sweet, try fruit instead of candy or sweets. And rather than biting into a plain apple, think about cutting it into slices and adding 1 tbsp or 2 tbsp of peanut butter. Or cook the apple slices and add a dash of cinnamon.
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Instead of chips, try reaching for a handful of nuts. This can satisfy that craving for crunchy or salty foods. Or use carrots like chips, and dip a few into a 1 tbsp or 2 tbsp of hummus or tzatziki to add flavor.
And research shows that if you pair a healthful snack with something calming — like muscle relaxation or music — your brain learns to associate that snack with comfort. This can make it more likely that you’ll choose the healthy option later when you’re feeling stressed.
2. Practice mindful eating
Another way to curb stress eating is to practice mindful eating. Before you reach for your favorite soothing food, take a moment to reflect on how you’re feeling. And try some of the following mindful-eating approaches:
Listen to your body. Try to describe the physical sensations in your body — out loud or in writing. Maybe your stomach is growling or you’re feeling low energy, common signs of hunger. But maybe you’re just feeling a little panicky in your chest, or like your brain is in a fog. Taking the time to figure out how you’re feeling can help you figure out the best way to calm that discomfort.
Follow a routine. If you schedule times for meals and snacks, it may make it less likely that you wander into the kitchen during times of stress. And when you do have a snack, put it into a bowl or container. This can help you decide the right portion you want in the moment, rather than mindlessly eating out of a bag.
Tune in to your food. Take the time to enjoy and savor your food, and note the way it makes you feel — good or bad. This may also mean limiting distractions when you sit down for a meal or a snack. Paying attention to the way a food makes you feel can help you make better choices for yourself next time around.
3. Eat more frequently
Skipping meals has been shown to increase stress and feelings of sadness. So, eating more frequent meals can help decrease levels of stress. And eating breakfast daily (a meal that’s often skipped, especially by younger people) can increase physical activity, which can further reduce stress.
Grab a nutritious snack before you leave the house if you know it may be a few hours before you have a chance to sit down for a meal. Or schedule a snack time in your workday when you know you’ll need to refuel.
4. Eat all foods (in moderation)
It can be tempting to completely cut out something that tempts you, like a certain type of candy or your favorite chips. But restricting foods can actually increase overeating when you’re feeling stressed.
Mindful eating for beginners: When you change your relationship with food, it can have benefits for both your mental and physical health. Here’s how to get started.
The pros and cons of comfort food: Comfort food sometimes gets a bad reputation. But there are some health benefits when you eat food that brings you joy.
The effects of chronic stress: Stress eating often leads to more stress. But learning about the health risks of chronic stress is the first step in reversing the process.
Instead, allow yourself to enjoy the foods that bring you joy, regardless of their nutrition value. This can help you avoid overeating them after a period of deprivation. It can also help you remove feelings of guilt or shame around that food, which can be a source of stress eating in the first place.
And when you start to use some of the mindful-eating techniques above, you may notice you don’t want them as often as you thought.
5. Soothe yourself with alternative coping skills
When you feel ready, try swapping out stress eating with other stress-reducing activities. This can be hard to do at first, so be patient with yourself. The more you build habits around other activities in times of stress, the less you are likely to stress eat.
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Some examples include:
Exercise. Exercise of any kind has been shown to decrease stress. This can be as easy as going outside for a quick walk, or dancing to your favorite song in the living room.
Get outside. You don’t even have to exercise if you don’t feel like it. Just being in touch with nature, even for just a few minutes, can lower stress levels.
Tap into social support. Your friends and family can offer both distraction and support when you’re feeling stressed. Instead of grabbing something to eat, pick up the phone and call a friend.
Try deep breathing. Just a few minutes of belly breathing can calm down your nervous system. And this can be enough to get you through a stressful moment.
Do an activity with your hands. When you feel like your brain is in overdrive, sometimes it’s easier to focus on using your hands instead. This can be as simple as a small chore, like cleaning the dishes or folding laundry. Or you can try something like puzzling or knitting. It may help you “turn your brain off” in a relaxing way.
If stress or negative emotions are becoming a bigger issue in your life, reach out to a healthcare professional for more help. They can guide you to resources to find more long-term solutions to any mental health symptoms that are bothering you.
Why do we eat when we’re stressed?
There’s a reason why almost everyone has turned to stress eating at one point or another. That’s because there are common changes in the body that happen when someone is under stress:
Stress increases cortisol. When your body senses stress, it produces cortisol, a hormone that heightens your awareness. Your blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar go up. And over time, continuously high levels of cortisol can actually cause you to eat more than your body needs. It also tells your body to hold onto more fat, especially around the midline.
Eating releases dopamine. Sugar activates the dopamine pathway in your brain, which makes you feel good. This can lead to a habit of eating food — particularly those high in sugar — when you’re feeling down or stressed out.
And some scientists think that stress eating itself may lead to more stress eating. When someone eats in response to stress, it’s easy to eat more than they intend. And then they may feel shame or guilt about eating. Or they may feel tired or bad about their body, which can increase the likelihood they’ll stress eat more.
In addition to some of the tips in the prior section, it may also help to remind yourself that stress eating is built into our nature. Even though it’s easier said than done, try to avoid negative self-talk after a stress-eating episode. Remind yourself that it’s a natural human response.
Is stress eating a sign of an eating disorder?
Feeling anxious and stressed about eating can be similar to what a person may feel when they have an eating disorder. But stress eating isn’t always a sign of disordered eating. In fact, many people at some point or another experience stress eating. And while stress eating may put some people at risk of developing an eating disorder, not everyone who stress eats will develop one.
Many people confuse stress eating with binge eating, but these are not the same thing. Binge eating is when someone eats a large amount of food in one sitting, often because they feel distressed about a lack of control. This can lead to intense discomfort and guilt.
There are specific behaviors and feelings that may help a person know if they’re experiencing binge eating, such as:
Eating a much larger amount of food than most others would eat in a distinct period of time (like over the course of 2 hours)
Feeling like you are unable to stop eating or control how much you’re eating in the moment
Frequent episodes of uncontrollable eating, which is technically defined as twice a week for 6 months or once a week for 3 months
But even though stress eating and binge eating are different, there’s a reason that people often associate the two. Research shows that people who are experiencing higher levels of stress and anxiety are more likely to binge eat. And in both scenarios, finding ways to lower your stress can help.
The bottom line
It’s common to turn to food to help with negative feelings. This is due to the body’s natural stress response and how it changes different hormone levels. But if you feel like stress eating is making you feel worse about your health or body, there are steps you can take to reverse the habit. Try keeping nutritious snacks on hand, eating more frequent meals, or trying out a few stress-reduction techniques. And remember, you can adopt these healthy habits at any point in time, even after you have a day filled with cupcakes and potato chips (which almost everybody does).
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