Somatics & Binge Eating, Part 2 ~ Somatic Tools and Practices to Help You Reconnect with Your Body
In the second part of this two-part blog, 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.
If you’d like more background before reading on, check out part one first. In it, I look at how the body, or “soma” relates to binge eating, how the body’s signals can become disconnected, missed or overridden, and the potential role of the nervous system, stress and trauma.
NOURISHING FOUNDATIONS - HELPING CREATE SAFETY IN YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM
As mentioned in part one, people with eating disorders may have over-ridden their natural body cues for many years leading to a disruption in interoception, which is why, in recovery, hunger and fullness cues can’t always be relied on straight away to guide eating.
In binge eating, appetite cues can be unreliable in different ways for different people. Sometimes waiting to feel hungry might mean waiting until hunger is urgent, while, for other people, eating becomes grazing or erratic with little connection to hunger at all. In more restrictive eating disorders, hunger may hardly register. It can surprise people to learn that binge eating often goes hand in hand with restriction or under-eating and that undernourishment can happen in any body size.
This is why one of the early steps in recovery is usually to create safety with food through some supportive structure or ‘scaffolding’. In practice, this is about eating regularly and enough (even if you’re not hungry) as a way of giving your body steady nourishment. This is one of the most important things you can do for your nervous system - not just for your nutrition and your recovery.
A body that’s been fed steadily through the day has one less reason to feel anxious and under threat. Through regular eating, the stress of any under-fuelling eases, binges urges become less intense and, gradually, appetite signals start to come back online or feel more reliable. As they do, the dependence on structure can loosen and eventually listening to the body can take more of the lead.
For some eating disorders, this can take considerable time. In anorexia, for example, prolonged under-eating can leave hunger muted or absent, and the sensation of fullness can arrive very early or feel distressing. Following a meal plan, rather taking cues from the body to eat, is often an essential part of recovery for some time, whilst rebuilding trust with the body is a slower process. Reliable signals will return, but this may require patience.
EVERYDAY NERVOUS SYSTEM CARE
Alongside what I call ‘nourishing foundations’, some other everyday habits can help your nervous system spend more time feeling settled. In turn, you’re less likely to be running on empty by the evening or end of the week, therefore, helping protect yourself against bingeing. These include:
Rest and sleep. A tired body is a more reactive one. Protecting sleep is nervous system care.
Pauses and time outside. Even taking a few minutes between tasks - for a cup of tea, to step away from a screen, to get some fresh air and daylight - gives your nervous system a chance to reset, rather than building pressure until the evening.
Connection and small pleasures. Time with people who feel safe and easy to be around can help to settle the nervous system. Being open to small opportunities for enjoyment through-out the day is all helpful and means food doesn’t have to be the only source of comfort or reward.
Movement that feels good. Moving for regulation and enjoyment, rather than to burn off what you’ve eaten.
BUILDING YOUR SOMATIC AWARENESS SLOWLY
If a goal is to build a better connection with your body, when working with eating disorders, it can often help to start simply with ‘somatic education’- simply learning a little about how your body and nervous system work. Even simply acknowledging the idea that your body is a resource of wisdom can be a significant first step.
Then an entry point for somatic awareness could then look like practising regular check-ins with your body, noticing and naming how it feels, and creating small moments of feeling safe and settled more often - all before trying any body-based work more directly related to food or the more somatic aspects of Intuitive Eating.
Simple attunement check-in. A short moment of noticing: how do I feel in my body right now? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? Even simply noticing that you have a body, stretching, or feeling your feet on the floor - are all valid and effective.
As we saw in part one, your nervous system is constantly responding to what’s happening in and around you - gearing up under pressure, shutting down when it’s overwhelmed, and settling when it feels safe.
Rather than trying to change these responses straight away, it can be really helpful to learn to recognise them first and how they affect you.
A simple way to do this is to think in terms of three broad states which you can notice both generally through the day, around eating, and in the lead-up to a binge. The ‘arousal scale’ below comes from Dr Catherine Cook-Cottone, whose work on embodiment and eating disorders I draw on, and it runs from 1 to 10:
Relaxed and Calm (1-2) - your comfort zone. Your body, emotions and thoughts feel clear, and you feel safe enough to rest.
Engaged (3-6) - your growth zone. Things feel active but manageable. This is where you can learn, try new things and stretch yourself, including in recovery.
Distressed (7-10) - at the edge of, or outside, your window of tolerance. Your body, emotions and thoughts feel unmanageable. This can look like overwhelm - feeling wired, urgent, on edge - or like shutting down: flat, numb and disconnected.
None of these states is to be considered “bad” - they are all normal responses and most us move between them through the day. But binge episodes are much more likely to occur in the distressed range. And, as we saw in part one of this blog, they can show up as ways to negotiate overwhelming internal experiences of different kinds - for example, to take the edge off feeling wired and activated, or to try to feel something, or switch off further, when in shut-down.
Learning to notice where you are, and what helps you move back towards calm or engaged, can open up choice in moments that used to feel automatic. Importantly, recognising where you are early in the day means you can take early steps to self-regulate, which could really help protect against a binge later on.
A 60-second body check-in. Pause for a moment, wherever you are.
What do I notice in my body, and what am I feeling? Your breathing, any tension, your energy, and try to name any emotion as precisely as you can.
Where am I on the scale from 1-10?
What might I need right now? Food, rest, comfort, connection, a break?
There are no right answers and you don’t need to change anything. Just noticing is the practice. It’s easiest to learn this when you’re calm. You might even try setting a reminder a few times a day and checking in when nothing much is happening so the skill is there when you need it.
Over time, practices like this can help rebuild trust in your internal signals and checking in with your body becomes much more automatic, needing less conscious effort. That’s the natural way interoception is meant to work - much in the same way my cat stretches, moves, or wanders over to his bowl when he is hungry, without having to think about it!
OTHER BODY-BASED TOOLS & PRACTICES
Alongside the everyday foundations and body check-ins, there are numerous body-based tools that can help you when an urge to binge arises - approaches that either help shift the state of being at the time, or help ‘ride the wave’ of discomfort.
In my experience, somatic tools can help take the edge off a mild to moderate urge, but may have less effect once an urge is at full strength. This is one reason why regular eating matters so much. A body that’s been fed steadily tends to produce weaker urges, which gives everything else you can do a better chance to work.
Here are some of the tools I use most with clients who binge eat:
Slowing the breath. A longer out-breath than in-breath can help calm the stress response. Try breathing in for a count of four and out for six, for a few rounds. It is simple and available any time and anywhere.
Grounding through the senses. Simple physical actions can bring you back into your body when you feel wired or far away: shaking out your hands and arms, tapping lightly along your arms or legs, pressing your feet into the floor, squeezing your hands together, or wrapping yourself in a blanket. Small, discreet versions work just as well at a desk or in a queue.
A self-soothing menu. A list, made in advance, of non-food ways to help shift your state of being. For an activated body, this might be a walk, a warm bath, calling a friend or listening to calming music. For a shut-down body, it might be stepping outside, putting on music you love, making a warm drink or messaging someone. Food can still be on the menu - it just doesn’t have to be the only thing on it.
Urge surfing. Drawn from mindfulness and ACT, urge surfing means noticing an urge to binge (or otherwise) as a wave in the body - building, peaking and passing - and riding this wave rather than acting on it straight away or fighting it.
A Kind Hand practice. How you speak to yourself in a difficult moment matters. Self-criticism tends to add to the sense of threat, while self-compassion - meeting yourself with the kindness you’d offer a friend - can help your body settle. It can be physical too: placing a hand on your chest or stomach, or wrapping your arms around yourself, is a simple form of supportive touch that many people find calming. Research has linked self-compassion with lower levels of disordered eating, including binge eating.
And, if you do experience a binge, try to meet your body with self-compassion afterwards, rather than punishment. A check-in, some rest if you need it and eating your next meal as normal (rather than skipping it to “make up” for it) all help to break the cycle rather than restart it.
None of these are quick fixes but they work by helping your body feel safer more often, so that over time food no longer has to play that role. In sessions together, we work out which of these suit you, your patterns and your body, and what to do when they don’t seem to be working.
If any leave you feeling worse rather than more settled, don’t push on. It can be a sign that more specialist support could be really helpful - I touch on this in part one.
A PROCESS OF COMING BACK TO YOUR BODY
As time moves on and your body begins to feel safer, the work can move closer to your experience with food and eating itself including building confidence with hunger and fullness cues, and exploring the sensory side of eating through Intuitive Eating and mindful eating practices.
In fact, in eating disorder recovery, the whole process of body connection really goes beyond food to all the many experiences of being in your body including everything from self-regulation, interoceptive awareness, feelings, distress tolerance, physical sensations, rest, movement, comfort, care, expression, creation, choice, boundaries, pleasure and connection, and appreciating what your body can do for you - to living in line with what really matters to you.
There’s a word for what all of this is moving towards: embodiment - the experience of living in your body, rather than watching and judging it from the outside. And when you think about it through this lens, there are many wonderful opportunities to have a relationship with tour body, without having to comparing it to anything or anyone.
Dr Catherine Cook-Cottone, in her book Embodiment and the Treatment of Eating Disorders, defines embodiment as "a way of being in which being is understood as residing in and manifesting from the body as one experiences the internal, external, and existential dimensions of life".
My Conclusions
For many people who binge eat, years of dieting, body-checking and disconnection have made the body feel like an object, a project or a problem. It may even feel like something to fear. But really, it has been trying to look after you all along, in the only way it knew how.
If you’ve only ever paid attention to your ‘surface body’, then discovering that your body is a resource of wisdom can be transformational. Learning to listen to your body - to notice its states of being, read its signals and offer it more ways to feel safe - is gradual work. But it is valuable work that can move eating disorder recovery to the next level and give you the time, energy and skills to live the rest of your life to the full.
Nutrition and body-based work aren’t separate - one can help make the other possible. However, I do consider steady nourishment one of the most important foundations of my work with clients, as it reduces the physical stress of under-fuelling and the intensity of the drive to binge.
The purpose of introducing somatic education and simple body-based work in my practice is self-awareness and regulation - the sensory and body-awareness strategies above, which help you notice what’s happening in your body, understand why, and find more ways to settle it. It’s all part of rebuilding a calmer, more trusting relationship with food.
Take a nourishing step forward today
If this resonated with you, you don’t have to figure everything out alone.
I’m Sarah Grant, a BANT Registered Nutritional Therapy and Behaviour Change Practitioner with Advanced Practitioner accreditation in Nutritional Therapy for Eating Disorders. I support people with binge eating disorder, emotional eating, disordered eating and yo-yo dieting, 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.
Reference sources
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