The Binge Cycle - What’s Actually Happening in the Brain

If you struggle with binge eating, you may feel like it makes no sense, and yet it continues to happen.

You might find yourself thinking about food constantly, promising yourself you won’t binge again, and then it’s as though something takes over and you find yourself binging again. The aftermath may come with difficult emotions - shame, guilt, frustration, remorse - and also confusion about why it keeps happening. They may turn into resolve that it won’t happen again… and yet….

What many people don’t realise is that binge eating follows a very predictable sequence of brain and emotional states. It isn’t random, and it isn’t a failure of willpower. Understanding this cycle and why it happens can be a relief in itself. It can also help you respond to urges with more awareness and self compassion.

There are five key stages to the cycle.

1. The Dopamine Urge State

The binge cycle usually begins before any food is eaten. It begins when a trigger occurs. This might be emotional distress, boredom, restriction, fatigue, loneliness, or even just seeing or thinking about food.

At this point, your brain’s reward system switches on and dopamine rises.

Dopamine actually isn’t the pleasure chemical as some might think. It’s the motivation chemical.

When dopamine rises, your brain starts sending a very loud message that something is important and worth going after. It’s a bit like your brain turning up the volume on food and turning down the volume on everything else. This is what many people describe as “food noise.”Suddenly food can feel urgent, distracting, and hard to ignore. You might find yourself thinking about it repeatedly, imagining what you’ll eat, or feeling pulled toward the kitchen almost automatically. This isn’t because you’ve decided to binge — it’s because your brain is creating a strong sense of anticipation and “need.” The more the urge grows, the harder it can be to focus on other things, and the more food can feel like the obvious solution to whatever state you’re in. In simple terms, dopamine creates the feeling of wanting, the sense that relief or comfort is just one bite away, and that you should act now rather than wait.

Importantly, this urge is a biological state. It’s not a sign that you are weak or failing.

2. The Emotional Overwhelm State

As the urge intensifies, tension usually builds - emotionally and physically. Emotions that are tucked away or lying dormant may come to the surface. You might find you become restless, agitated or unable to settle. Thinking can become narrower and more intensely focused on the food. The binge can begin to feel inevitable.

This is because your brain is prioritising immediate relief over long-term goals. Executive functioning — the part of the brain that helps you pause and reflect — is temporarily less accessible, while the more emotional and survival-focused parts of the brain take the lead. These are the areas that respond quickly to discomfort and push you toward anything that promises fast relief, comfort, or escape. In this state, the brain is less interested in careful thinking and more focused on reducing distress as quickly as possible, which is why urges can feel so powerful and action can feel almost automatic.

Many people interpret this stage as a lack of control, but actually it’s a state of overwhelm combined with a heightened motivation towards relief.

3. The Relief State

Once eating begins, something important shifts. The dopamine surge that created the urge starts to settle down, and neurochemicals associated with comfort, soothing and safety increase (serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin). With it the intense mental pressure begins to ease and a sense of relief often appears. The noise quiets, the urgency softens, and the body can feel calmer or more numb. This is why the first few bites can feel so soothing. It isn’t just about taste; it’s about the release from the tension that built beforehand.

It’s also why binge eating can feel trance-like or automatic - as if everything else fades into the background and eating happens on autopilot.

So the binge doesn’t just bring pleasure - in fact it’s really common for it to stop being about the taste or pleasure from the food at all. It’s the relief and the numbing that is the real reinforcement of the cycle and why it repeats. It becomes an efficient way to escape distress, to silence internal noise, or to regulate uncomfortable emotions.

4. The Dopamine Crash State

Eventually the binge comes to an end — whether that’s because you feel physically full, uncomfortable, or because the trance-like state begins to lift. At this point, another shift happens in the brain and body.

The soothing chemicals that helped bring relief begin to settle, and dopamine can dip below its usual level. This can feel like a sudden emotional and physical drop. You might feel tired, irritable, anxious, or your mood drops in some way. That calm or numb feeling that the binge brought now fades, and awareness starts to return.

This can be when thoughts such as “What have I done?” or “Why did I do that?” appear. How you feel physically might also be more noticeable — fullness, discomfort, sluggishness, or bloating — which can then intensify emotions.

Importantly, this state isn’t simply about regret or guilt. It’s also a biological crash. The brain has moved from a high-urgency state, into a relief state, and then into a temporary dip in motivation and mood. When dopamine drops, everything can feel heavier and more difficult to tolerate, which makes this a particularly fragile stage emotionally.

Because of this, the mind often searches for explanations — and unfortunately, self-criticism is a very common one.

5. The Shame State

As awareness fully returns, shame and self-criticism frequently take over. Thoughts such as “I have no control,” “I’ve ruined everything,” or “What’s wrong with me?” can come quickly and feel convincing.

It’s important to recognise that shame doesn’t arise from nowhere. It is shaped by many systems around us regarding messages about food, body size, discipline, and morality. When eating is framed as something that should be controlled perfectly, any perceived loss of control can trigger intense self-judgement and feelings of shame.

Ironically, shame is one of the most powerful drivers of the next binge cycle.

It increases distress, reduces self-compassion, and can create a renewed need for relief — promises to “do better,” or compensatory behaviours can swing into action in an attempt to regain control. All of this sets the scene for dopamine urges to return.

Feeling shame here is NOT evidence that something has gone wrong with you as a person. It’s actually a predictable stage in a cycle that is shaped by biology, learning, and emotional need.

Recognising shame as part of the process can create a small but meaningful shift in this cycle. Instead of interpreting it as proof of failure, it can be understood as a signal that vulnerability is present and support is needed.

And within that awareness lies the possibility of responding differently — with curiosity, compassion, and care — which is where change gradually begins. It can offer a pause. Recognising shame as a predictable stage in the process can help reduce its power.

So… What Does Knowing All of this Mean?

Understanding this cycle can actually be incredibly powerful, because it helps shift the narrative from “something is wrong with me” to “something understandable is happening in my brain and body.”

These states are not evidence of failure, weakness, or lack of willpower — they are predictable patterns shaped by biology, emotion, and experience. And while the cycle can feel automatic or inevitable in the moment, it is not permanent and, importantly, it is not unchangeable.

Our brains are adaptable, and with awareness, support, and gentle experimentation, new responses can be learned within each stage of the cycle. In other words, you are not doomed to repeat this pattern, and you are not at the mercy of your brain chemistry — understanding what is happening is actually the first step toward creating more choice and compassion in how you respond when urges arise.

Ways to Support Yourself When Urges Arise

While urges may not be fully preventable, there are ways to respond differently when they appear. These aren’t quick fixes or rules to follow perfectly. Instead, they are gentle supports that can create small shifts within the cycle over time.

Pause and ‘Surf the Urge’

Dopamine urges are intense but temporary. Although they can feel urgent and overwhelming, they tend to rise, peak, and fall like waves. Even a small pause — five to ten minutes — can soften urgency.

This pause isn’t about forcing yourself not to eat. It’s about creating a moment of choice. Gentle grounding, breathing, stepping into another room, going outside for fresh air, or engaging your senses can help the nervous system settle enough to widen that space between urge and action.

Sometimes the urge will still be there afterwards — and that’s okay. The pause itself is a meaningful shift. Creating that pause is telling the brain there is a possibility of doing different even if to begin with it might not know what that doing it differently is.

Add stimulation in other ways

Because dopamine is connected to motivation, novelty, and reward, urges can sometimes reflect a need for stimulation rather than food itself. Introducing alternative forms of stimulation can reduce the intensity of food-focused thoughts.

This might include movement, music, sensory experiences, creative expression, humour, novelty, or connection with someone safe. The goal isn’t to replace food perfectly, but to broaden the range of ways your brain experiences reward and relief.

Notice what’s happening

Underneath many urges is an internal state that hasn’t yet been acknowledged — but you don’t need to put a label on it.

Instead of trying to name a feeling, you might notice things like: “my body feels tight,” “my brain feels buzzy,” “I’m restless or tired,” or “my energy just dropped.”

Even small observations about your body, energy, or attention can help you understand what’s driving the urge. Noticing in this way often reduces the intensity of urges and makes them feel more manageable, without needing the right emotional word.

Eat regularly

Consistent nourishment supports biological stability and reduces vulnerability to intense reward-driven eating. When the body experiences restriction or irregular eating, the brain naturally becomes more sensitive to food cues and urgency.

Structured eating isn’t about control or perfection — it’s about reducing extreme hunger, supporting nervous system regulation, and creating a more predictable internal environment where urges feel less overwhelming.

Get curious, not critical

Self-criticism tends to amplify the cycle by increasing distress and shame. Curiosity, on the other hand, creates safety and learning.

Instead of judging the urge, you might gently ask:
What state am I in?
What might have triggered this?
What do I actually need right now — comfort, rest, stimulation, connection, reassurance?

Curiosity shifts the experience from failure to information, which gradually weakens shame’s role in the cycle.

Regulate your nervous system

Urges often emerge when the nervous system is dysregulated — overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, or emotionally flooded. Gentle regulation strategies can make urges more tolerable and less urgent.

This might include slow breathing, warmth, rest, stretching, grounding, sensory comfort, time in nature, or co-regulation through safe connection with another person. These practices don’t remove urges instantly, but they reduce the internal pressure that drives them.

If a binge happens, respond with care

Perhaps one of the most important — and often hardest — moments is what happens after a binge. How you respond here can either keep the cycle going or start to break it. Choosing compassion over punishment doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen or minimizing your experience — it means noticing what you need, taking care of yourself, and interrupting the shame spiral.

This might look like eating your next meal without restriction, offering yourself some real kindness instead of criticism, doing something that comforts your body, or simply noticing what state you were in before the binge. It’s not easy — it takes courage to respond this way — but real change grows from understanding and safety, not from harshness or blame.

If reading this makes sense to you and you want some support, please do get in touch. I can help you find ways to respond that feel safe and manageable and without shame or pressure.

❤️❤️