Night Eaters: Why They Eat When They Should Sleep

The individual picture of the syndrome, like the lines on the hand, is unique. Someone wakes up literally 10-20 minutes after going to bed and runs to the refrigerator. Someone gets up closer to the morning, and someone cannot remember their forays into food at all, and it is possible to restore the traces of the crime only by candy wrappers and wrappers. Someone calms down when he eats a lot, and for someone a small amount of food is enough, but this must be a forbidden delicacy. Someone breaks down, only left alone for the night, and someone arranges a whole quest to quietly get to the refrigerator.

What do these people have in common? Loss of self-control and subsequent feelings of guilt and shame. Morning states after a night of gluttony are called by many a “food hangover” – when there is no appetite, but there is only hatred, self-loathing and promises “I will fix everything” and “this will never happen again.”

Reason 1: having a baby

“I didn’t have any problems with my first child, just a gift,” recalls 28-year-old Tatyana. – But with the second, the birth went with complications, and there were problems with feeding, and many anxious nights. I remember jumping up every hour to go to a crying baby, and on the way back I always looked in the refrigerator to eat something tasty. Such “rewards” in a year brought me about 15 kg. Now it is difficult to understand: whether it was these nightly reinforcements, or whether stress, fatigue and lack of sleep were the culprits. When the child became calmer and did not need to be approached at night, I still woke up several times and went to the refrigerator, as if my body was “on guard”, expecting that I was about to have to rush into battle.

The birth of a child is the most difficult test for a mother. There are many anxieties, experiences, and the body physically needs more strength, energy and more food. Often I can’t sleep all night without a break, I have to constantly refresh myself during the moments of wakefulness, and the “red button” immediately lights up in my head – oh horror, I eat at night. There is nothing left but to wait out this difficult period or make up for the deficit with at least daytime sleep, asking for help from loved ones.

Reason 2: Painful Breakup

“After 12 years of marriage, my husband left for another woman,” says Tamara, 42. – I can’t say that this was a complete surprise for me, “good people” have long hinted that he has someone on the side. And yet, when he left, I seemed to have fallen into the void. I didn’t want to go home, and when I came, I tried not to feel anything, stuck my head in the TV, took some food and flipped the channels endlessly. After some time, I realized that I began to gain weight, and decided to go on a diet. She returned home, drank a glass of wine at night and went to bed. But about an hour or two after that I woke up and went to the refrigerator.

I ate everything I could find, I could even drink a few raw eggs. I constantly scolded myself, but I could not do anything about it. She left the refrigerator only when she felt bouts of nausea. I stopped buying anything at home, left the refrigerator empty, but the desire was so overwhelming that I ran to the XNUMX-hour supermarket. Going to a therapist saved me, not because of the food, but because my pain of separation didn’t subside. In addition, my husband constantly called when he was drunk and told me how much he regretted leaving. The therapy took quite a long time, but when I felt better, the night attacks also went away. ”

Unfortunately, while experiencing life’s difficulties, we cannot always find emotional support in our environment. Then food, alcohol, everything that can dull unpleasant emotions becomes salvation. No matter how strong a person is, there are events that unsettle. And the last thing to do in this case is to scold yourself for trying to find relief. Tamara was lucky to meet a good specialist, but sometimes understanding relatives, friends or support groups, even in an online format, can become an emotional outlet. In such situations, the problem is not food or weight, but the inability of a person to cope with the situation and attempts to somehow forget.

Specialists note that people suffering from nighttime eating syndrome often have a history of addictions (drug, alcohol) and depression. Depression is especially aggravated in the evening, according to the principle of exhaustion of the psyche in a day. Often such people report sleep disorders (insomnia or the state of “no matter how much you sleep, you don’t get enough sleep”) – in fact, food here acts as a cure for these conditions.

Reason 3: new environment

“When I went to college, a lot of things changed in my life,” says 22-year-old Olga. – I moved to Moscow from a small town and began to live in a hostel. All around me, the girls talked about food all the time: what they eat, how much they weigh, and discussed newfangled diets. In one of these conversations, someone asked me if I wanted to get rid of my “provincial round cheeks”? At that moment, I experienced unbearable shame and decided to lose weight at all costs. I’ve never been overweight and never dieted, but suddenly I had a goal.

The first few kilograms went away very quickly, and I was in seventh heaven with happiness, my face also stretched a little, and it became noticeable. But after a while, I began to wake up at night and, like a zombie, go to the refrigerator. He was alone in several rooms, and I had my own shelf. I didn’t buy food for the evening on purpose, but when I had such conditions, it was as if I couldn’t control myself and ate someone else’s. I was ashamed of this, in the morning I promised myself to go on an even more strict diet and kept on more or less all day, but at night the attacks were repeated.

Stress due to a change of residence and distance from loved ones makes us look for ways to deal with it. But dieting is far from the best solution. The stronger the feeling of hunger, the more cunning tricks they come up with to get food. Kleptomania increases the feeling of guilt and self-dislike, life becomes even more unbearable and painful. One might even consider the idea that nighttime eating is itself “food stealing” that takes place on the fringes of consciousness.

How to overcome the “syndrome of night eating”?

1. Create your individual seizure profile. How often do they occur? How long ago did it start? What exactly are you eating? How much do you eat? Does the presence of other people in the apartment affect your nighttime behavior? Do you have seizures if you are not at home overnight? What is the structure of your sleep? How long before bed do you eat? Do events during the day affect the manifestation of seizures?
2. Don’t self-flagellate. Overnight binge eating is a problem, and you need support from yourself, at least. Why shouldn’t you berate yourself? Because every promise “it won’t happen again” is a fall into the abyss of despair and impotence, when you can’t keep your word. These emotions most often lead to overeating, not just at night.
3. Develop an action plan. This may be the end of strict diets. Of course, it’s easier said than done. But fighting a starving subcortex is like fighting a giant wave: you can’t beat it, you can only learn to maneuver on its crest. This may include reviewing your habits in relation to the sleep/wake cycle, undergoing a medical examination. And, of course, an appeal to a psychologist or psychotherapist.