Sleep eating

57I struggle w what I call sleep eating. Which is eating in the middle of the night out of emotion, boredom, and sometimes hunger. In an effort to stop this behavior I journal. Sometimes I lose the battle. I'm 2 months out and down 57 pounds. I will bring bottled water to bed. I am posting this because I want to know if anyone else does this or has had this issue. What has worked for you? 

I don't do this but I have watched on TV where people will lock up food so they can't eat it. Also sleep disorders are generally due to high stress. So find ways to reduce your stress. I just learned of a new app called headspace that helps you learn how to meditate. Look into that maybe?

Thank you for your response and suggestions 

You're welcome

Do you wake up in the middle of the night to eat?  

The hunger doesn't wake me. I invariably wake up and can't fall back to sleep. So I'm half awake when I decide to eat something.  I hope that answers your question

Perhaps it might help to practice meditation/mindfulness to help you to get back to sleep?  

You aren't really "sleep eating" since you are awake and are aware of what you are doing (and why you are doing it), but I understand why you call it that. 

Some people literally get out of bed, fix something to eat, eat it, and then go back to bed without ever knowing what they are doing.  (I had two nights where I was under tremendous stress and took a prescription sleep aid on top of a muscle relaxer (NOT recommended, BTW!) and apparently did it... The only evidence was that there were things out of place in the kitchen and refrigerator!) Many people report sleep eating when taking the sleep aid Ambien.

My first suggestion would be to figure out why you are waking up in the middle of the night and address that.  You cannot eat if you are sleeping, of course.

In the meantime, though, I would suggest doing the same types of things you would do during the day to avoid eating.  I suggest that clients have an actual physical list (which is very useful, even if it sounds silly) of things that will distract you from eating.  If the first thing on the list isn't helping, go to the next item of the list and so on until you find somethign taht distracts you sufficiently. Things that keep your hands busy will be most effective since you cannot do something like knit or do cross stitch or somethign crafty and eat at the same time.

Lora

Lora, 

Thank you for your response and suggestions! 

57 pounds in 2 months is awesome