During eating disorder recovery, it can often feel like triggers are everywhere and this may feel impossible to manage.
A trigger is something that may cause an intense, uncomfortable, and frequently upsetting emotion. Triggers can be social, situational, environmental, psychological, or physiological.
When someone is triggered, they might feel the need to find distraction, relief, or an escape from that uncomfortable emotion. As a result, a person with an eating disorder may often feel a compulsive urge to act on disordered thoughts and feelings.
It is important in recovery to understand that the comfort from an eating disorder is fleeting and ultimately harmful, and that there are more effective, sustainable, and healthy ways to cope.
Awareness is the first step. Identifying what triggers a difficult emotion will help to avoid that particular trigger or prepare an alternative way to manage it in the future.
When faced with an urge to engage in an eating disorder behaviour, pause. This approach recognises that urges come in waves, and eventually, they will pass too. As uncomfortable as it is, surfing the urge can support you to allow the urge to pass in its own time.
Stay calm – notice what is happening, and what you’re thinking and feeling at this moment. Try not to judge or react but instead, notice them with curiosity. If judgemental thoughts appear in your mind, try to think of them as passing clouds that don’t require your attention.
Replace the eating disorder response to triggers with healthier, adaptive ones. These activities likely will not feel as effective, especially at first, but the more you are able to pair a difficult feeling with a non-eating disorder related activity, the stronger that link becomes, and the more effective the response strategy will be.
To challenge the difficult beliefs, thoughts and emotions that may come after a trigger, the first step is being able to identify them. Once you can notice them, this can help you to challenge or distance yourself from those thoughts and see the situation in a different and more helpful way.
Here are some examples of unhelpful thinking habits:
This could help identify the reason or the cause of this thought or where it might come from. Next is to challenge and slowly shift your thinking from thoughts that cause distress to more neural and positive thinking. This can be quite tricky at first, particularly if you have a habit of talking to yourself in a negative way. When you struggle to think of something neutral or more positive to say to yourself, you may like to consider what you would say to a friend or loved one.
It might help to write down your feelings and thoughts and to try to identify which of these might be driving your eating disorder behaviours. Once you have recognised the trigger, you are able to choose whether to engage in this behaviour, or to challenge the thoughts and feelings instead.
Another tip for managing challenging thoughts might be to ‘name the voice’. You may find it helpful to think of your unhelpful thinking as a separate person, or voice, to yourself. Give this person or voice a name (for example, someone with anorexia may call their eating disorder Anna) and practice calling out and naming the unhelpful voice when it appears. For example, when an unhelpful thought comes up you might say (or think) "Ah, this is Anna talking. I'm going to use some distraction techniques to shift my focus". This can help remind you that these thoughts aren't the real you, and that you don't have to pay them any attention.
It can be difficult to be around people, especially if they don’t know how you might be feeling. Many social occasions and activities might involve food. When going out for a meal, it can be useful to have a think beforehand about what might help reduce the anxiety (before/during and after the meal).
When struggling with an eating disorder, it can be hard to feel understood by those with less experience or awareness of eating disorders and what these can involve. And it can get even more frustrating when people’s understanding of eating disorders is influenced by social stigmas and common misconceptions. Luckily, not everyone will lack understanding, but it can happen, and it can be triggering.
Sometimes it can feel harder for those that lack understanding to offer support, but it is also important to remember that although people around you may not understand what you’re going through it doesn’t mean they won’t support you.
You don’t have to continue fighting this on your own. You can help them gain a better understanding of eating disorders by directing them to our Helpline or to our ‘Supporting someone with an eating disorder’ webpage.
Another key part of eating disorder recovery is learning how to deal with and manage triggering discussions or comments.
If things get difficult, it might help to prepare ahead and think of what things might help you cope and make you feel more confident. You could think of some strategies to steer the conversation away from triggering topics by choosing a different topic or engaging with the group in a different activity. It might be a good idea to have a list of activities or conversation topics ready to use as a Plan B.
This is where our knowledge of social stigmas comes in and we get to set a boundary and use compassionate self-talk. This judgement from another person is part of their own biases which they may be projecting as an issue onto you. Remember, your body is personal to you, and your value isn't determined by what others think.
Comparing ourselves to others is natural, but it's often unhelpful. What works for someone else might not work for you because everyone has different needs. Since we don’t know everything about others, comparisons aren't as helpful as you might think.
Even when comparing yourself to your past self, remember that you are never the same at any point in your life. Life changes, and so can you, along with your needs and goals.
Social media can be a huge source of fun and a great way to connect with others. However, it can also be a huge source of triggers if not used positively or constructively. There are lots of different aspects to think about, for example, the type of content and people you follow.
Social media is full of airbrushed, photo-shopped images, it is not a realistic representation of other people’s lives and bodies as well.
Most of the time, people will only show what they wish to on their social media accounts, and this might result in accounts showing ‘perfect’ lives where everyone seems happy or successful.
When comparing yourself to the pictures you see online it’s likely that you’re comparing yourself to a highly edited picture someone has posted.
Social media is also full of people who appear to be experts and gurus, sharing hints and tips on all sorts of topics. Most of the time this information is not based on facts or research and does not take into consideration some important factors such as people’s individuality.
It’s important to be able to recognise when social media is having a negative impact on you, one way to do this is to ask yourself, “do I feel better or worse after using social media?”
It can be helpful to set some boundaries when using social media, such as setting time limits, muting or unfollowing less positive accounts, deleting certain apps, etc.
Another alternative would be to think of distractions or other activities to engage in when finding social media particularly overwhelming.
You can read more about social media and eating disorders on our website. We know that it can be hard to protect yourself online and to find positive communities – we have some tips on how to find a supportive community on our website too.
How to deal with triggering content
Journaling can be a great way to release your thoughts and emotions, whether on paper or digitally using your phone's notes app. Writing things down can be therapeutic, helping you process what’s happening and how you’re feeling, especially when emotions are overwhelming. By keeping a journal, you can look back and see how your thoughts and feelings evolve over time, reminding you that difficult times are temporary and change is constant.
Here are some helpful journaling exercises that you can try:
Grounding techniques can help you feel more in control and regain mental focus when you experience intense emotions, by forcing you to focus on the present moment and bringing your attention back to reality, rather than getting caught in distressing thoughts.
Ideas for grounding techniques:
Sometimes, when we’re upset, we tend to breathe quickly and shallowly. This can make us feel more tense, dizzy, and anxious. By taking deep breaths, we can calm ourselves down and feel more balanced and relaxed.
Here are some examples of breathing techniques you can try on your own:
Reference: https://www.mindbodywell.com.au/articles/urge-surfing-learning-to-ride-the-waves/