How to Raise Awareness about Automatic Thoughts When You Wake at Night

Recognizing your automatic thoughts during the late evening and nighttime hours before you go to sleep will be difficult, but catching those thoughts and writing them down in your journal when you wake to eat at night may be even more challenging. How difficult it will be depends on how aware or conscious you are when you awaken.

When do you first realize that you are awake? We have learned from our patients that there is a wide range of responses to this question. Some people say that they are wide awake while still in bed and they immediately become preoccupied with worries from the preceding day. If you are awake and aware from this early point, then you should be able to record many of the thoughts you are having.

On the other hand, some people say they are not aware that they have gotten out of bed until they are standing in front of the refrigerator or kitchen pantry. If this is the case, then your chances to record your thoughts will be more limited, but not impossible. Remember, the more you train yourself to research your own behaviors, the more aware of your behaviors you will become. If you have trouble writing neatly at night and want to keep scrap paper in the kitchen (or wherever you eat at night), that can work, too. But be sure and transfer whatever you write on the scrap paper into your journal the next day so your thoughts are written in an organized way. This way you will be able to review all of your notes easily.

The more you train yourself to really take notice of your behaviors and the thoughts associated with them, the earlier in your chain of behaviors you will become aware of them. Give yourself some time to get used to this process. If at first you are able to capture only the thoughts you have after you eat, then start there. You will still gain great insights from doing just this step. When you are able, focus your attention on the thoughts that come before your night eating. As time goes by, seeing your thoughts written down on paper will help you to see the big picture, instead of seeing your night eating as just an isolated behavior unrelated to the other stressors and issues in your life.

Examining and Evaluating Your Thoughts
When you have some pages of notes of your thoughts, it’s time to examine their logic. Let’s examine a thought like, “I need to get up and eat something right now. I can’t stand this craving any longer.” How true is it that you need to eat something at that moment? What would happen if you didn’t eat? Would your hunger pangs become intolerable? Would you be unable to fall back to sleep? The only way to learn the true answers to these questions is to test them out. Have you lain in bed before without acting on the urge to eat at night? If so, how long were you able to fight your craving? Five minutes? Two hours? All night?

We are asking you to experiment with your usual chain of behaviors. For instance, if you normally wake up and immediately get out of bed, make yourself wait at least five minutes. At the end of those five minutes, reassess your craving. If it has lessened, see if you can wait another five minutes. Keep reassessing your cravings. Only then will you know if they are so intolerable that you absolutely must get up to eat something.

If your cravings overwhelm you, plan to change another part of your chain by trying to limit the quantity of what you eat. It will help to have something premeasured waiting for you that you prepared before you went to bed. You will know that everything else is off-limits. This may be difficult, but as you continue to keep records of your thoughts, you will see how overindulging affects you, perhaps by increasing your feelings of guilt, depression, or anxiety.

You will also see that successfully eating smaller amounts at night can increase your feelings of self-efficacy and accomplishment. The more you expose yourself to the negative consequences of your night eating episodes, the more rewarding eating a smaller portion will become.

As limiting your snacking becomes easier, we suggest that you try having some water or a low-calorie drink instead of food. This may take some time, but in the long run, you will wean yourself from unhealthy eating and replace it with low-calorie substitutes. Not only will substituting something healthier than your favorite, high-calorie nighttime food help you to feel better about yourself, it also won’t add as many pounds. Moreover, if you have problems with indigestion, acid reflux, or any other digestive problems, these discomforts are likely to diminish as you decrease your night eating.

Related posts:

1. How to Raise Awareness about Automatic Thoughts in the Evening
2. Types of Night Eating Syndrome – The Compelled Evening and Nighttime Overeater
3. Causes of Eating Disorders – Self-Defeating Thoughts
4. Dieting and Night Eating Syndrome
5. Embarrassment and Night Eating Disorder
6. Night Eating Syndrome and Disturbed Sleep
7. Night Eating Syndrome – Starting a Journal and Dealing with Family and Roommates
8. Night Eating Syndrome and Sleep
9. Night Eating Syndrome and Your Health
10. Night Eating Syndrome – Tips for Keeping Track of Your Food Intake