Boredom and Eating Habits

How much does boredom affect our eating habits?

Boredom is a common and rather frequent emotion, observable across various cultures.

It arises from the perception that a situation is no longer stimulating and, as a result, we experience a reduction in the intensity of our emotional response to that situation.

In other words, when we are engaged in pursuing a goal, we experience various emotions; but when we remain in a particular emotional state for too long, the response gradually begins to fade, triggering a new signal suggesting it’s time to move on to another activity.

That signal is boredom.

Boredom can be directly linked to what we’ve previously defined as “emotional hunger”; this phenomenon arises in response to the inability to regulate our emotions (including, of course, boredom).

So why does boredom lead us toward food—and particularly toward the search for highly caloric and unhealthy foods? One hypothesis is that the pleasure we feel immediately after consuming such foods helps to suppress the negative emotion that triggered the sense of hunger.

One helpful tip might be to use boredom—not be ruled by it—as an opportunity to listen to ourselves, our emotions, and our thoughts; to experience a “pause,” to get to know ourselves a bit better, and to learn to distinguish physical hunger from emotional hunger, and hunger from satiety.

In this case, it may be helpful to keep a journal or use your smartphone’s notes app to jot down everything you observe. Writing and rereading these reflections can help develop greater awareness of all the emotions and behaviors that trigger dysfunctional eating habits.

Giulia Zanchi
Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist in Training