The psychological community seems to love to come up with new names for problems (syndrome, in this case) and this is one of their most recent.
Those of us who work in the field of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) are less concerned with naming a pattern of behaviour than we are with helping to direct the person's thoughts, feelings and actions in more useful, appropriate ways. We apply the same overall strategies to all types of disorderly eating, such as anorexia, bulimia, comfort eating, binge eating, overeating, weight control and so forth.
What Is Night Eating Syndrome?
Currently someone is classified (by some doctors) as having this problem if they consume more than half of their calories after their evening meal and they get out of bed at least once a night to have snacks, usually carbohydrate based. They have to have been doing this for a period of at least three months to be diagnosed as having Night Eating Syndrome (NES). It has not been officially recognised as an eating disorder yet by much of the medical community, but it seems likely that it is just a question of time before it is.
Eating Problems At Night – The NLP Approach
This page is aimed at much more spectrum of problems concerning eating at night than the above narrow definition. If you are eating inappropriately, whatever time of day it is, your thinking can be retrained so that you can comfortably and easily re-adjust what you are doing. There is a truly vast range of less-than-appropriate behaviour's around eating after bedtime, from those who comfort eat lots of sugary food before bed, to those who feel irresistible drawn to the fridge for a snack in the early hours of the morning. NLP and hypnotherapy can help you overcome any and all of them.
Stress, Anxiety And Eating At Night
Everyone we have seen with this kind of problem has been stressed and anxious about it, and usually about other things in their life, as well. We work to help you to reduce the levels of stress in your life, to help you to feel less anxious, to help you to feel more positive in your outlook.
Direct Retraining For The Mind
The reasons why you eat too much at night can be many and varied. Whatever the original cause, or causes, those suffering with this kind of problem have inadvertently automated the behaviour. In other words, it's become a habit, a pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaviour that has become stuck in a 'loop', a bit like watching a TV program you can't stand but you find yourself watching it again and again anyway. We work to make you the director of your internal programs and we use a large range of direct reconditioning techniques, drawn from the fields of NLP and hypnotherapy to do so. Because we are more interested in what you are doing, and the way you are doing it, than trying to work out 'why' you do it, the work also tends to be quite rapid.
