If your clients have been restricting for a long time, fullness can feel foreign and trigger panic. How can you help them get through it without spiraling?

She was shaking as she stood in her closet, riffling through clothes while tears built up behind her eyes. The panic was taking over her body and she still couldn’t find anything that didn’t feel tight over her bloated stomach.

She had eaten a normal dinner. Nothing extreme. Nothing she even felt bad about. She hadn’t even binged. But her stomach felt full, and it hadn’t been full in a very long time. It felt foreign. It felt wrong.

“Why did I eat that much? I was doing so well, now I’ve ruined it! What if I gain weight now?” She was spiraling and she knew it.

When we think of disordered eating, particularly when restriction is involved, we often think about helping our clients to eat more. But what is often overlooked is helping them to get through the feelings after they eat.

Feeling full can be one of the most triggering sensations for your clients. It’s not just the physical discomfort, it’s the anxiety, the guilt, and the fear that they’ve lost control. More often than not, they want to ‘undo’ it, or ‘fix’ it, and then completely avoid feeling that way ever again…

But feeling full isn’t the problem they need to solve or avoid, it’s the reaction they’re having to feeling full that they need to work on.

Here are some strategies to use when fullness feels unbearable:

1. Distraction

For most of my clients, learning to sit with their feelings of discomfort isn’t something we tackle straight away. I want their brains and bodies to be more nourished for that. So we start out with distraction. And that’s okay. It’s a perfectly valid coping tool. Often my clients:

• Binge watch a TV show! Either something cozy and comforting that is already familiar (for me this would be Friends) or something that hooks them in and focuses their mind on something else, like a mystery
• Play a game, do a puzzle, work on a craft like crochet or knitting
• Listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks
• Get some fresh air
• Ask a loved one to be with them and help distract them – just talking can work wonders

This strategy isn’t avoidance because they’re using it intentionally to give their nervous system a break. It’s not something they’ll do forever.

2. Signal to the body that you’re safe

Right now, fullness feels like a threat. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. We need to send the signal to the body that it’s safe. One way to do this is what I call ‘hijacking’. I will get my clients to pair feeling full with one of their favourite activities. We are ‘hijacking’ the good feelings from the activity and connecting them with food in the brain. My clients have:

• Wrapped themselves in a blanket and read their favourite book
• Curled up with their pets or gone horseback riding
• Listening to calming sounds of the ocean or bird calls, either in real life or recorded
• Planned fun activities with their families and friends

3. Weighted blankets

Deep pressure stimulation is firm pressure over the body. It stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms you down. Think:

• A weighted blanket
• A hug
• Rolling yourself into a burrito/swaddle

4. Box breathing

Deep breathing is another way to regulate the nervous system. I like to think of it as a box with 4 even sides. Inhaling is one side, holding your breath is another, exhaling is one side, and holding your breath again closes the box.

• Inhale for 4 seconds
• Hold for 4 seconds
• Exhale for 4 seconds
• Hold for 4 seconds
• Repeat 4 times

It can be helpful to place a hand on your belly to encourage breathing deeply – you should feel your breath rising and falling in your belly.

5. No matter what strategy you use, challenge the belief behind it

These soothing tools are powerful, but they’re more powerful when combined with mindset work. What does your client believe about fullness?

• “It means I’ve eaten too much.”
• “I can’t trust myself around food.”
• “If I feel full, I’ll gain weight.”

Not all thoughts are golden! They’re fears inherited by years of dieting, restriction, and shame. And your client can choose to challenge these beliefs (Where do their beliefs actually come from? What evidence do they have to back up these beliefs? Are these beliefs serving them?) and reframe them.

• “This is what it feels like to be nourished.”
• “I’ve honored my body’s needs.”
• “My body is working exactly as it’s meant to.”

6. Rinse and repeat

Have you heard of exposure therapy? Intentionally exposing yourself to something scary until it no longer feels so scary? Repeated exposures to feeling full is going to have the same effect.

Every time they sit with the discomfort (even if they use distraction or soothing tools), they build tolerance. They teach their body that fullness doesn’t mean danger, and they teach their brain that nothing bad happens when they nourish yourself.

Eventually, what feels unbearable initially starts to feel… ordinary.

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