Have you ever found yourself reaching for food when you're stressed, bored, or upset, even when you're not actually hungry? Told yourself you'll have more willpower next time, but somehow you always end up stuck in that same cycle? You are not alone. Emotional eating is something many of us, including me, experience. But what if I told you that it's not about willpower at all? It's actually about your subconscious mind.

I'm Roberta Bass, a women's health physiotherapist, menopause mentor, and a CONTROL practitioner. I help women change longstanding habits and subconscious patterns that affect their health and wellbeing. Today, we're talking about emotional eating—why it happens, how it's linked to hormones, stress, sleep, and subconscious behaviours, and most importantly, how you can start changing those patterns without guilt, restrictions, or relying on willpower alone.

Let's start by breaking down the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger because understanding this difference is key to making lasting changes. Physical hunger builds gradually, can be satisfied with a balanced meal, and stops when you're full. Emotional hunger is often sudden, triggered by feelings, and often leads to craving specific comfort foods even when you're not physically hungry.

Why does emotional eating happen? There are three key reasons why emotional eating is so common, especially in midlife—hormones, subconscious habits, and emotions.

If emotional eating has felt worse as you've gotten older, especially if you're in perimenopause or postmenopause, it's not your imagination. Hormones play a massive role in how we crave food, how our body handles stress, and how we regulate our emotions. When we're stressed, our body releases cortisol, making us crave quick-fix energy foods like sugars and carbs. Historically, stress meant survival from threats, and the body needed this extra energy to fight or flee. But in today's world, stress is more likely from work deadlines, family responsibilities, or feeling overwhelmed, which don't require physical energy, yet our body still drives us to seek food for quick relief.

Oestrogen plays a role in serotonin production, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood. When oestrogen levels drop, serotonin levels can dip, making us crave foods that temporarily boost serotonin, like chocolate, bread, and crisps. Progesterone, another sex hormone, has a natural calming effect that declines in midlife, making us feel more anxious and increasing feelings of stress, again leading to more emotional eating.

Many women in midlife experience increased insulin resistance, meaning the body struggles to regulate blood sugar effectively. This can cause blood sugar crashes, triggering cravings for quick energy foods. This combination of stress hormones, mood regulation changes, and unstable blood sugar makes emotional eating feel out of control, driven by biological and subconscious responses—not just a lack of willpower.

While hormones play a role, another key factor is our subconscious patterns. The subconscious mind drives about 90% of our daily behaviours, including habits we don't even think about. If you've ever found yourself coming home from work, going into the cupboard, and reaching for food before realising what you're doing, that's a subconscious pattern running on autopilot.

Many emotional eating patterns start in childhood. If food was used as a reward, comfort, or way to soothe emotions, the brain learns to associate eating with relief. Over time, this response becomes automatic. When we feel stressed, lonely, or overwhelmed, the brain triggers the urge to eat as a coping mechanism.

The subconscious follows a simple pattern: we have a trigger—like stress, boredom, or frustration—then a subconscious urge where the brain sends the message that food will make things better. We take action by eating for comfort, even if we're not hungry, because we believe it'll help. Temporarily, it probably does because we get a brief spike of feel-good hormones like serotonin and dopamine. However, this is often followed by frustration and guilt, and the cycle repeats until we change the subconscious patterns and how we respond to emotions.

Willpower alone won't stop emotional eating—not for long, anyway. So how do we change it? The key isn't to fight cravings but to rewire the patterns at a subconscious level. Start by bringing awareness to when and why you reach for food. A food and mood journal can help—not to track calories, but to notice patterns. Are you eating when stressed? When feeling overwhelmed? When procrastinating?

Next time you feel the urge to eat, pause and ask yourself: "Am I actually hungry, or am I looking for comfort?" Then identify what you truly need. If food is your way to deal with stress, what else could help? Maybe five minutes of breathing exercises, stepping outside for fresh air, drinking a glass of water or herbal tea, or engaging in a small, enjoyable activity before deciding if you still want to eat.

We can reduce cravings by balancing blood sugar and managing stress and sleep. Eating balanced meals with protein, healthy fats, and fibre helps prevent energy crashes. Prioritising stress management through relaxation techniques, mindfulness, breathing exercises, or walks—especially in nature—can naturally reduce cravings.

Sleep also has a massive effect on hunger hormones. Poor sleep increases hunger hormones and decreases the hormone that makes us feel full, weakening willpower. Getting good quality sleep makes emotional eating less likely.

Exercise is key. It lowers stress hormones like cortisol, releases endorphins, and improves mood, making us less likely to turn to food out of boredom or unhappiness. Even short bursts of movement, like a 10-minute walk, can disrupt an emotional eating urge and help us feel better.

For some women, these changes are enough. But for many, emotional eating feels deeply ingrained and hard to shift. That's where CONTROL comes in. If you've listened to my previous episode about subconscious reprogramming, you'll know CONTROL is a method designed to help you work with your subconscious mind, not against it. If you haven’t listened, go back and check it out.

Rather than forcing yourself to stop emotional eating, CONTROL helps uncover the underlying beliefs your subconscious has about food—whether it's providing comfort, stress relief, or distraction. Using structured techniques, we guide the subconscious to find new, more effective responses to emotions that don’t involve food. This means you're not just resisting cravings—you no longer feel the same automatic pull towards emotional eating in the first place.

If emotional eating is something you've struggled with for years and you're ready to make a real change, CONTROL could be the missing piece. To learn more, visit my website—details are in the show notes—and see how we can work together.

Emotional eating isn’t just about food. It’s about hormones, stress, sleep, and subconscious patterns. By making small changes in each of these areas, you can reduce cravings and feel more in control. Here’s my challenge for you: pick one small step today. Maybe it's pausing before eating, noticing your triggers, or moving your body for five minutes instead of reaching for food. These small steps add up.

Take care, and I’ll see you next time.