How To Stop Night Time Binge Eating

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Last updated on June 24th, 2024 at 10:49 pm

If you’re binging at night, it might feel like it’s impossible to stop.  Night time is a particularly challenging time for many people who are experiencing binge eating. 

This is because the social and environmental conditions that might trigger a binge are different during the night time hours. 

If you are binging at night you likely: 

• Are restricting your food during the day
• Have a fear of eating around other people
• See night time as an opportunity to splurge on food
• Find the time alone with food soothing 
• Use night time binging as a reward for difficult days
• Are Sneaking or hiding food

You might feel it is impossible to know how to stop nighttime binging or eat intuitively without binging.  You likely feel like the cycle of binging and then promising yourself you will “be good” the next day will never end. 

This article explores some of the reasons why you might be binging at night, some strategies to reduce night time binging, and coping tools for the difficult emotions that come up in binge eating recovery. 

What Is Late Night Binging

Late night binging is binging that happens during the evening hours.  

Nighttime binging is characterized by: 

• Eating large (significantly more than most people) amounts of food in the evening 
• Feeling an urgency to eat
• Extreme hunger
• Intense mental hunger
• Feeling like you can’t stop eating 
• Extreme guilt after you eat the food 

When you first begin a binge, you are met with an immediate surge of dopamine (your pleasure neurotransmitter) and in the brain.  Your reward response to food is often greater than a person that doesn’t engage in binging and restricting.  

Late night binging is particularly challenging because it might be difficult to use coping tools that would be available during the day (for example, seeking out social support or doing a coping activity that might wake other people in the home from sleep)

Night time binging can lead to anxiety, grief, future restriction, and eating disorder-related IBS.

Why Do I Keep Binging At Night

Night time is the most common time you are likely to experience a binge.  

The reasons night time is the prime time to binge is: 

• Other people in the household are often  asleep (and can’t watch you eat)
• There are less distractions such as work or school 
• The mind has time to focus on anxiety and stressors of the day
• You might be hungry because you have restricted all day
• You are using binging as a reward for a hard day 
• You may have difficulty falling or staying asleep 
• You may opt for easy convenience foods that are easier to binge on

Since family and friends may be winding down or sleeping during the evening hours, it might also be difficult to get the appropriate meal support you need to reduce or eliminate night binging. 

No matter what your reasons for binging at night, you probably feel powerless over the binge. Food guilt is likely overwhelming you. You probably feel like there is no hope that you will ever stop binging at night.  

Restricting All Day And Binging At Night

Many people that binge at night restrict their food during the day. 

You might restrict your food after binging at night because: 

• You’re still feeling overly full from the binge
• You need to feel in  control of your body again
• You’ve convinced yourself you won’t binge again
• You don’t want to eat too many calories in a day
• You have a fear of gaining weight

While restricting during the day might seem logical after a binge, it’s actually the worst thing you can do to prevent future night time binging. 

How To Stop Binging At Night

The most important thing you can do to reduce binging at night is to shake up your common binge routine and identify and reduce triggers for a binge. 

Here are some strategies to help you reduce binging at night. 

Eat Regularly Throughout The Day 

The most important thing you can do to stop night time binging is to eat normally during the day. This can be more challenging than it sounds.  A dietitian can help you set up a meal plan. 

Eating regularly and reducing night binging will include: 

• At least 3 meals and 3 snacks daily 
• Eating around friends and family
• Eating no more than 1 hour after you wake up 
• Eating every 2-4 hours during the day 

Add But Never Take Away Food

Sometimes the power of a binge can be in the compulsion to finish a single food item. 

In order to disrupt a binge try this: 

• Add multiple food choices to your plate
• When you feel you want to binge on one food item, try switching to another food choice. You can always go back to the food you desire to binge on. 
• Change the types of food you are choosing (for example if usually go for carbs, try eating a protein first)

Push Off The Binge For 5 Minutes

Pushing a binge off can be a powerful strategy to disrupt the behavior associated with a binge.  Try pushing a binge off for 5 minutes and increasing the increments you push off the binge by 5 minutes week after week. 

Slow Down

Challenge yourself to slow down when you are eating. This can help to break the strong  reinforcers that are usually associated with the binge. 

To slow down with eating: 

• Set a timer for 30 minutes and commit to filling up the full duration with eating
• Put your fork down between bites
• Use chopsticks 
• Drink sips of water between eating

Use Mentally Stimulating Activities 

The goal of having alternative activities to binging is NOT to use these as ways to restrict your eating.  Instead, think of these activities as simply an alternative way to experience pleasure. 

It’s important to know that when you first start these activities, the pleasure response will not be as intense as what you experience with a binge. Over time, the pleasure you get from these activities will increase.  

Mentally stimulating activities that can be done at night include: 

• Tetris
• Knitting
• Puzzles 
• Reading
• Video games 

Try to avoid screens such as television or scrolling on social media if these are activities that you usually associate with eating. 

Change The Environment

Changing the environment can alter the stimuli that you commonly associate with food and help you to reduce binging. 

Try these things to shift up your environment in the evening hours: 

• Always put food items on a plate or in a dish 
• If you commonly eat in front of a screen, commit to not eating in front of screens
• Adjust the temperature in the room 

Set A Bedtime Routine 

A bedtime routine can help you to get your body to experience better quality rest.  A routine sends signals to your brain that it’s time to sleep and put other activities to rest for the day. 

Some good bedtime routine activities include: 

• Journaling
• Meditation
• Quiet music
• A hot bath 

Try to avoid falling asleep to screens as this will keep your brain active, and may make it more likely that you will wake up in the middle of the night with the urge to binge. 

Schedule A Time To Binge

As weird as it sounds, if you want to stop binging you MUST allow yourself to binge.  Restricting your food in any way (including attempts to avoid binging or compensate for a binge with food restriction) will lead to bigger, more frequent binging. 

Try scheduling a binge by: 

• Designating a time of day to binge 
• Try setting your binge time at least 2 hours before bedtime (or it might disrupt your sleep and cause additional night time binging)
• Reduce the amount of times you schedule binging week by week if possible

Analyze Your Level of Pleasure

What activities in your life are bringing you pleasure besides binging?  Now is the time to take a good look at activities that are giving you a big reward response.  

Activities often associated with pleasure include: 

• Time with family
• Arts and crafts
• Playing an instrument
• Gardening 
• Workplace accomplishments

If you are not feeling like you are experiencing pleasure often from activities other than binging, it might be a good time to take up a new hobby.  

These activities are not meant to replace binging but rather improve the pleasure you experience on a regular basis so binging might become less important. 

It’s good to do a pleasure assessment if you are normalizing your meals and snacks, reducing triggers, and trying other strategies to reduce night time binging and it just doesn’t seem to be working. 

Support Reducing Night Binges

If you are binging at night or have binge eating disorder, it might feel like you are completely alone in your struggles. This is simply not true. Try seeking the support of someone like an eating disorder dietitian who can guide you in your recovery journey. 

Other coping tools to support yourself in recovery include: 

• Respecting your body 
• Reading body positive books 
• Using positive mantras to stay strong 
• Stop body checking
• Doing body image work
• Practicing joyful movement‘

It is not impossible to become binge free with the right tools and support.