Is Boredom a Reason to Overeat?

Many of the emotional eaters I work with tell me they eat when they’re not hungry because they get bored. This initially puzzled me because boredom is a relatively mild experience in the overall world of feelings. Boredom is defined as “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” I was first struck that the words “weary” and “restless” seem to contradict one another. The “weary” part (depleted in energy) clearly indicates the need for down time or relaxation. The “restless” part, however, indicates feeling fidgety, tense, or agitated. What then is going on when these two seemingly disparate states collide and induce the emotional eater to eat when not hungry?

MI suspect that boredom, more than just “weary” and “restless,” is a sense of foreboding about even more uncomfortable feelings that lurk beneath the surface, such as sadness, loneliness, fear, anxiety, and anger.

Let’s imagine that “Mary” is going along through her day. She is busy, occupied, and has no time to connect with herself, and thus isn’t paying any attention to her thoughts or feelings. After the workday, she returns home feeling tired (“weary”) and restless (“agitated”). She’s not hungry because she worked through her usual lunch hour, then overate around 4 p.m. because she began to get a headache and realized she hadn’t eaten anything since 10 o’clock that morning.

Mary is now too tired to pursue any meaningful activity that she would enjoy or that needs to be done at home, because this would take energy. She is also, however, aware of a sense of dread about simply relaxing in front of the TV or with a book. An emotionally healthier individual would be apt to appreciate this time, to allow herself to feel her tiredness, along with any other feeling that might arise; she might reflect on her day and decide she needs to regularly build more time into her day to relax and recuperate. An emotional eater such as Mary, however, will want to repel any negative feelings that might arise. Additionally, she doesn’t have the experience of, or give herself permission for the self-care that would be most beneficial in this moment. She recalls the ice cream in the freezer and, before she knows it, spoons out a large serving in a bowl, thinking she wants to relieve her “boredom.” The following morning, when she realizes that the pants she’d planned to wear to work are too tight to button, she chastises herself for eating the ice cream the night before.

Emotional eating, for many people, leads to a level of self-hatred and self-loathing that causes tremendous pain. Why then does Mary go for the ice cream when she’s not hungry? Can the state of boredom, alone, be sufficient to explain engaging in this type of sabotage?

My suggestion to Mary (and to others who might be confused about why they eat when they’re not hungry), is to sit with the boredom long enough to allow the emergence of whatever deeper, more informative feelings lie beneath it. Whether that feeling is sadness, loneliness, hurt, or fear, that feeling is more likely to inform you about what may be lacking in your life than boredom ever will. Boredom tends to lead to distraction, so acts as the protective layer that hides more painful feelings. Overcoming overeating requires taking the time to acknowledge and, at least briefly, experience the feelings that we have. Experiencing our feelings can help us take better care of ourselves and can inform us about ways of living that might be more helpful. Putting extra food into our bodies because we feel bored will never help us do that. But putting our feet up and sitting with ourselves, without the ice cream, just might.