Are You Hungry Or Just Bored?

Have you felt the need to keep eating even when you were full? Just stuffing yourself with snacks because you are bored, well, you are not the only one. I do it, too, and I am sure many others do too. It is a habit I am trying to break because I donʼt need the extra calories, and I mostly stuff myself with unhealthy food that adds no nutritional value to my body.
If you like me, you should know that food, especially junk food, helps with dealing with many situations, including boredom. Many people turn to food when they are depressed, happy and even heartbroken. It is a way to cope because it offers dopamine, the happy hormone or feel-good chemical in our brains. And that is what is low in our brains when we are bored, so yeah, we turn to food.

Boredom eating starts small, just a small snack between meals and after dinner. It feels good because it tastes good, and before you know it, there are wrappers of biscuits beside your bed every night. Experts refer to this as psychological hunger because despite eating a full meal, you still crave more food/snacks, and it is like the hunger cannot be satisfied. While it may seem good short term because it takes your mind off troubling things, or it just feels good because it is tasty, it may not be what you want in the long run because you could become so dependent on it and start putting on unwanted weight.
Trust me, I know it is not an easy habit to break. But the first step is to acknowledge that it is a coping mechanism you use to feel good, and you can change it or reduce the level at which you indulge in it. So start small, and eat fewer snacks than you usually do. And then, as you progress, reduce it to one snack a week. As you feel yourself getting used to eating less, try not snacking or eating more after you are full. Listen to your body and donʼt try to feed it more because you are bored. With time, you break out of boredom eating and replace it with better coping mechanisms.