Somatics & Binge Eating, Part 1 ~ How Your Body and Nervous System help Shape Your Relationship with Food
Binge eating typically stems from a complex combination of biological, psychological, environmental and social factors, and is far less about the food itself than it may appear from the outside. In the moment, a binge is often a way of trying to change how you feel - and food is one of the fastest, most reliable ways to do that, at least for a while.
In this blog, the first of a two-part series, I explore the role of the body and where somatic work can come into play in healing binge eating.
You may have come across these ideas before, particularly as somatics and the concept of “regulating your nervous system” have generated quite a buzz on social media in recent years. In this blog I explain what these terms actually mean and look at how understanding your body’s stress responses can help with binge eating.
SOME “somatic” Definitions
Soma simply means body. So “somatic” refers to anything to do with the body as it’s lived and felt from the inside, including it’s responses, emotions and nervous system state - rather than how it looks from the outside.
It can help to separate out some of the different somatic definitions and approaches:
Somatic awareness is the ability to notice what’s happening in and around your body - and becoming curious about what those signals might be telling you. It draws on several senses: interoception (signals from inside your body), proprioception (where your body is and how it’s moving, including posture, balance and muscle tension) and exteroception (what you take in through your outer senses - touch, temperature, sound, sight, smell and taste).
Interoception is the sense that tells you what’s happening inside your body - for example, hunger, fullness, thirst, a racing heart, a knot in your stomach, the need to rest. In binge eating, it is often the part of body awareness that can be most helpful to connect with.
Attunement - if interoceptive awareness is the ability to notice what’s happening inside, attunement is what you do with it: listening to those signals and responding with care, rather than overriding or ignoring them. Intuitive Eating describes this as eating in attunement with your body and it’s a skill that can be rebuilt, however disconnected you might feel right now.
Somatic practices are relatively simple things you can do with your body to help it settle or feel safe, such as slowing your breathing, moving or grounding yourself in the present moment.
Somatic therapies are specialist, often trauma-focused approaches delivered by trained therapists that work through the body to help process difficult or overwhelming experiences.
Please note, I’m a nutrition practitioner and not a trauma therapist so am not going to speak to somatic therapies in the blog, as this is a different kind of support. However, some somatic awareness and practices are often folded into my nutrition work which focusses on mindset and behaviour as much as on food itself. Some practitioners call those everyday tools “sensory” strategies, keeping the word “somatic” for deeper therapeutic work.
the body ANd Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are classified as mental health conditions, because thoughts, emotions and beliefs - about food, weight, shape and self-worth - sit at their heart. But mind and body are so closely interconnected that the body is always part of the picture too, including in binge eating.
Consider that an eating disorder can show up as body-based symptoms and behaviours - the ones other people may be more likely to notice, such as changes in weight, digestive discomfort, fatigue, or binge eating itself, although this usually happens behind closed doors. What is less apparent, or invisible to others, is a person’s inner experience in their body - including all the emotions, sensations and urges they feel, every day and including during and after a binge.
That inner experience is very much part of the eating disorder story. Some practitioners and researchers see disordered eating as substantially a body-based challenge - driven by responses to nervous system states, interoceptive disconnection, emotional dysregulation and habitual physiological patterns.
In any case, if healing your relationship with food focusses purely on thoughts and behaviours and overlooks the body - or if your attention remains stuck on how the body looks (as is the case in many eating disorders) - then real opportunities to heal could be missed.
Used at the right time in eating disorder recovery, somatic awareness and practices can help to rebuild the connection directly and, over time, teach the body new patterns - though it can be gradual work.
When body connection breaks down in BINGE EATING
Research has found that people who binge eat or eat emotionally often struggle with interoceptive awareness and find the body’s signals harder to read and respond to. This makes sense for a number of reasons:
Consider that if you’ve dieted, this will have taught you to override your natural hunger signals in favour of following its rules.
Eating quickly, eating while distracted or finishing the plate because you were taught to can override fullness in the same way.
There’s also self-objectification - the habit of seeing your body from the outside, as something to be looked at and judged, rather than experienced from within. In a culture that places so much value on appearance, many people, particularly women, learn to monitor how their body looks almost constantly. Research suggests this outward focus is linked to lower awareness of the body’s internal signals - when so much attention goes on how your body looks, there’s less left for noticing how it feels. It’s also closely linked to body shame, which is a known driver of disordered eating, including binge eating.
Also consider that stress and emotion can show up as a churning stomach, a tight chest or a restless, empty feeling that can easily register as “I need to eat”. This might seem like hunger, when really the body is asking for rest, comfort, reassurance or a break. Chronic stress and poor sleep can certainly scramble cues.
For people who have experienced trauma, tuning into the body can feel unsafe or can bring difficult experiences to the surface.
Neurodivergence plays a part too: many people with ADHD find hunger only registers once it’s urgent, especially during periods of hyperfocus, and many autistic people describe internal signals as muted, delayed or hard to interpret.
Hormonal changes, including perimenopause, and some medications - GLP-1s among them - can also change appetite signals significantly.
None of this means a better connection to your body is out of reach. It may just take more patience, and sometimes more structure and support.
Bingeing and the Nervous System
People who experience binge eating often describe the moment before a binge in some quite distinct ways. Sometimes it’s described as a buzzing, restless feeling - wired, on edge, unable to settle. Sometimes it’s the opposite: flat, heavy, numb, as though the volume on everything has been turned down. And very often, by the time they notice what’s happening, the eating has already begun. It can feel as if the decision was made somewhere other than their head.
Each binge can look like a loss of control in that very moment, when body and food feel disconnected. But in reality its roots usually start much earlier - sometimes deep in a person’s past, and very often in the hours or days before, in signals that were missed, overridden or pushed aside, long before the urge to binge arrived.
Consider first how every day pressures can build and how a binge can be the end point of a nervous system that has been under strain.
When I talk about the nervous system here, I mean the part that works automatically in the background (the autonomic nervous system) - managing things like your heart rate, breathing and digestion as well as your stress response. That stress response is designed to keep you safe. When it senses threat or pressure, it gears up - heart rate rises, muscles tense, your mind speeds up. When the pressure is too much or goes on too long, it can tip the other way, into shutting down: switching off, going numb and conserving energy.
Modern life can give that system plenty to respond to - from relentless to-do lists, work and financial pressures, caring for others and poor sleep, to erratic eating patterns and even the daily news.
Under-fuelling is a stressor on the body in its own right. When you skip meals, diet, or simply run on too little across a demanding day, your body registers that as a threat, and both your stress response and your drive to eat can ramp up.
Stress, tiredness and overwhelm build through the day but, if you’re used to pushing through, you may not notice until you’re running on empty. The body’s quieter requests - for a rest, a break, comfort or connection - go unanswered and by the evening food feels like the fastest way to meet them all.
Many people end the day both stressed and under-fed, and food, particularly rich, comforting food, is one of the quickest ways to shift that state. It can calm a wired body or briefly bring a numb one back to life. For a short while, it works.
This is why I often say to clients: your body isn’t sabotaging you. It is trying to look after you, with the fastest tool it knows.
BINGEING AND TRAUMA
When the roots of bingeing lie in past experiences, trauma can be part of the picture. Trauma doesn’t just up as thoughts or memories, it can affect nervous system responses and the wider body. If there is a connection between binge eating and past trauma, you might benefit from a trauma-informed or somatic therapist. Some clues might be:
your reactions often feel out of proportion to what’s happening and linked to the past
tuning into your body leaves you feeling overwhelmed, flooded or unsafe
memories, flashbacks or nightmares come up when you slow down or notice your body
you often feel disconnected, unreal or “not there”, or lose track of time
Somatic therapies such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy or Somatic Experiencing are specialist approaches that use the body to help process trauma. They require specific training, and they’re delivered by qualified therapists. If this resonates, it’s worth speaking to your GP, or looking for a registered therapist through the UKCP or BACP directories - ideally one with trauma and eating disorder experience. Nutrition support can sit alongside therapy.
Bringing it together
The onset of an urge to binge could look from the outside like a relatively sudden moment. But, as we’ve seen, it has usually been building for some time - often through a combination of missed or overridden body signals, a nervous system under strain, and a body that has been running on inadequate nourishment.
Understanding the somatic dimensions of your eating can help you transform how you perceive your body. Rather than being something to fight or control, it can be seen as something to work with - and this is often a point where real, long-term change can begin.
In part two of this blog (coming soon), I look at how somatic awareness and practices can help in binge eating recovery, including the connection between steady nourishment and nervous system safety, how to build your body awareness slowly, and some of the body-based tools I use most with clients who binge eat.
Take a nourishing step forward today
If this resonated with you, you don't have to navigate this alone. I offer nutritional therapy and behaviour change support for binge eating disorder, emotional eating, disordered eating and yo-yo dieting patterns, and I'd love to help you find your way back to more ease and trust with food.
Explore my support options or book a confidential, no-obligation enquiry call to see if working together feels right.
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