How to Stop Boredom Eating (10 Strategies)

Do you ever find yourself reaching for some exciting food because you're bored? Eating is quick-fix way to conquer boredom, but often leads to regret. In this post I want to talk about ten strategies to help you stop boredom eating. Let's begin by asking the question, "Why am I eating when bored?"

Why am I eating when bored?

For those of us who crave excitement, we want anything that will take us out of our mundane life and into a little bit of fun and excitement. And of course the most easily available option is the refrigerator. So of course we'll eat when we're bored if we enjoy food! It gives us that quick fix of fun and excitement to ease just a tad bit of our boredom. A better question to ask may be, "Why am I bored to begin with?" Let's take a look at that because if we can stop being bored, we can stop boredom eating.

Why am I bored?

Have you ever heard a friend say, "I'm never bored" or "Boredom is a choice"? I have. And each time I hear it, I think to myself (or more likely out loud), "I'm often bored!" In fact some days I feel like I'm going out of my mind with boredom!! So why are we bored, when our friend is never bored? I can think of ten reasons.

1. We like being busy and get bored when we're not. I listed this reason first because even people who are almost never bored sometimes struggle with boredom during evenings and weekends. If your life is filled with work during the day—and you're a person who enjoys being busy—then you may be bored at night or on weekends.
2. We're fun-loving people who crave excitement. When I think of my friends who aren't bored, they usually fall into three camps: they love accomplishment, they love stability, or they love hobbies. When you think about it, all three of those types of people can be satisfied in everyday life. The ones who love accomplishment can make a list no matter what's happening in their lives and work on accomplishment. The ones who love stability don't care if they have excitement because excitement by its very nature is a bit unstable. And the ones who love hobbies can usually find a hobby or two to fill up their free time. It's only people who crave excitement that have a hard time meeting those needs because regular life by its very nature isn't all that exciting because it's .... regular life!
3. We're procrastinators and the thought of all that horrible work we should be doing is making us feel bored. I don't know how many times I feel bored just because I have too much on my plate and all of it sounds very boring to do. That makes me want to avoid work and go get something fun to eat.
4. Our regular life doesn't fit our personalities. My dream job is to be a counselor at a Christian backpacking camp. Unfortunately, that's not a possibility for me right now, not to mention the fact that most Christian youth camps aren't looking for a 63-year-old married woman to be their camp counselor! We live in a culture that tells us to follow our passions and go for that dream job, but let's face it, the dream job isn't always practical, nor is it always what God wants us to be doing. That said, living a life that's different than our dream life can still lead to boredom. This leads to the fourth reason for boredom.
5. We have unrealistic expectations for life. When we believe the hype that we need to be living our best life and our passion, we start having unrealistic expectations for life. We might think all of life should be just as fun and exciting as the summer we spent as a backpacking camp counselor, when there is no way the rest of our lives will be that fun on a consistent basis. Our unrealistic expectations for life make us feel bored because we're focusing on what we don't have rather than on what we do have.
6. We expect ourselves to work too much without reward. W