Written by: Rita May, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
How to stop emotional eating to escape boredom and monotony.
(Why you eat when you are bored and procrastinate and how to stop doing it).
Boredom
Medical experts call it the ‘disease of our time.’ It’s not just for children anymore.
As defined by the German psychologist, Theodor Lipps, boredom “is a feeling of unpleasure arising out of a conflict between a need for intense mental activity and lack of incitement to it, or inability to be incited.”
Boredom can arise from
not having anything to do (e.g. while you wait for something),
having to do something you don’t like to do,
during a monotone activity,
being overstimulated,
living an unfulfilled life,
living out of alignment with your values and
not having a purpose.
Suffering from chronic boredom can make it easy to fall into a rut of negative habits (destroying relationships, self-sabotaging, gambling, overspending) and self-destructive behaviour (overeating, smoking, drinking, drug abuse) just to create some change, excitement and drama in your life or to escape this uncomfortable feeling.
Let’s talk about emotional eating a bit more as this is my expertise.
Emotional eating to escape boredom
Food is an inexpensive, easily available distraction whenever you have “nothing to do,” or even while you’re doing some boring task you would rather not do.
This study shows that boredom is one of the most common triggers of emotional eating.
In fact, it’s been demonstrated that people who are often bored eat more food in general. Moreover, after doing a boring task, people have an increased desire to eat “exciting” food, aka unhealthy snacks.
When you are doing a boring task in your office you can’t “just find something more interesting to do”. You need to finish that job. But you can have a snack while you work to take away the boredom a little bit and do something “interesting” or at least different.
Food is almost always available. Having a snack is possible even when you’re tired or short on time on top of being bored.
Eating is also a way of procrastinating on a task you don`t want to do.
Let`s see some reasons you might feel bored so you can identify your triggers. You will also find solutions to manage these situations without eating (or other negative habits we discussed earlier).
I see 4 main reasons for boredom eating
1. Overstimulation
Maybe the most common reason for boredom is the endless array of stimuli that bombard your every waking moment, making it difficult to concentrate on any given topic. Consequently, you get bored.
Much of the internet experience revolves around instant gratification. This leads to a shorter attention span overall.
This makes it harder to engage in more difficult activities that may provide meaning, excitement, or real entertainment.
The idea that we turn off the noise for a few seconds to ourselves, to just close our eyes and be at peace, is now a foreign concept.
That’s why full-grown adults are transfixed on playing games or browsing through their social media every free millisecond. Downtime can be scary.
But stillness allows your mind and body to rest, focus, and recharge.
Stillness is not laziness. It’s quieting your body so you can focus your mind.
2. Having “nothing to do”
Learn to get comfortable with empty time. Having “nothing to do” doesn’t have to be boring.
Taking some time for yourself to be with your thoughts can be very uncomfortable at first, but stick with it.
Watch a tree outside, listen to the birds, or just sit and see where your thoughts wander. Tell yourself a story, or just let your mind wander.
You might be surprised by how relaxing and interesting it can actually be!
Experts say letting your mind wander can boost your creativity and improve your mood.
Although mind-wandering can lead to increased anxiety and depression for some people, the results of a 2019 study suggest that intentional mind-wandering can mitigate anxiety, depression and stress.
Once you’re OK with silence and stillness, you can step back and think about what you really want to do, without being tempted to reach for food (or other negative habits) to escape the boredom.
What sounds truly interesting? Not just busywork or “killing time” for the sake of doing something. Most likely it won’t be food.
3. Being bored with your life
When life feels boring, it can be tough to get out of bed in the morning. Everything seems colourless and dull.
It feels like you're going through the motions, without any real sense of purpose.
You clock into a job daily that you hate. The work is mundane, the commute is long, and your supervisors are inconsiderate.
Often even the weekends hold no joy for you, they are also the same every time.
Dealing with boring tasks and everyday monotony
Boring classes, meetings and office jobs are part of modern life.
When you feel tempted to reach for food during a long and boring online meeting or class you can also try to keep your hands busy instead by doodling or using a spinner ring, desk toys (e.g. a pendulum) or fidget toys.
Have you tried to engage with a boring task and find something interesting about it. Or make it more interesting in some way?
Alternately, you can try music. Music increases dopamine levels in the brain similarly to food.
Get enough sleep
When you’re tired, you get bored easily because you don’t have the energy to really pay attention to anything.
If you’re well-rested, it’s easier to get engaged with any activity and find the interesting aspects of a situation, even if it’s in general boring.
Change how you view life
Feeling bored and unhappy about life can become a habit.
When you habitually view life as hard, boring or meaningless, then your brain focuses on these aspects of your life, even during the good times.
One way to change this is to start to improve your self-talk about your life.
Try to incorporate gratitude into your daily habits. In a grateful state of mind, you focus on the good more than the bad.
If your life is chronically boring, change it
If your job is chronically boring, it might be time to consider a new job.
Or if your relationship is boring, then you need to approach your relationship differently.
Change isn’t always easy. Even when you are bored with life, it can be hard to get up and do something different.
Once you identified the most boring area of your life, start small and create new habits to make it more interesting or meaningful for you.
Make plans for the activities you enjoy
Maybe you’ve gotten into the habit of doing something you don’t enjoy over doing something that you enjoy. This is very common.
You may have stopped painting or playing an instrument or going for a walk, to do housework or something else that you think you should do.
When you have plans to do things you enjoy, there’s always something to look forward to. Life feels less boring and more exciting.
Consider stopping some of the activities you don’t enjoy anymore
This doesn’t mean you just abandon all your responsibilities.
But look at your life and at the things you do and ask yourself whether your activities are really meaningful or joyful for you.
Perhaps you watch the news every night just to fill the time.
Or maybe you party every Friday night simply because all your friends do it.
If something no longer feels meaningful to you, don’t do it. Fill that time with something you enjoy instead.
But be aware, it’s unreasonable to expect to be happy all the time. It’ll also lead to feeling bored.
4. Living out of alignment with your values
You may even have a life that others envy – a good relationship, solid job, happy kids, nice house, fancy possessions – but you still feel bored.
You may be living on other people’s terms
You work where other people think you should work.
You live where other people think you should live.
You spend your free time doing things that other people think you should do.
You live your life out of alignment with your values, you lose track of who you are and your life becomes boring.
Values exist whether we recognize their presence in us or not. They help us to act with integrity, and when our life priorities are aligned with our values, we are well on our way to experiencing fulfillment in our lives.
Do you know your values? With this free Assessment on Identifying Your Values guide, you can easily determine them.
You may have heard this before, but the only way for you to truly figure out what provides happiness, contentment, and meaning in your life is to actively engage in life and do things.
Get out there, explore and try new things to uncover what works for you.
PS.: If you want to stop boredom eating, I have a free training video for you here showing my 6-step strategy to eliminate emotional and binge eating.
I offer private coaching sessions too. Book a free 1-hour call here and let‘s talk about your specific issues and what you want to achieve. I’ll give you a step-by-step strategy to reach your goal for free.
Rita May, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rita May is a scientist turned Emotional Eating and Health Coach. She helps driven professionals and entrepreneurs who are successful in other areas in their life but struggle with their weight because of emotional and stress-eating.
Her coaching method is based on three pillars: the science of nutrition, psychology, and a bit of spirituality.
She doesn’t believe in the one-diet-fits-all approach. Instead of giving you a diet plan, she helps you choose a way of eating that you enjoy because that’s the one you will be able to sustain in the long term.
However, nourishing your body is not enough. Our wellbeing is also affected by stress, relaxation, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, joy, self-awareness, our personal history and so much more.
Using her Mindfulness to Food Freedom method and How to stop eating your feelings workbook she helps her clients eliminate emotional and stress-related overeating or binge eating. She designed her Healthy Habits for Permanent Weight Loss program to help busy professionals and entrepreneurs lose weight and improve their health with just a little time investment per week so they can focus on their work, business, and family.
