Coping Skills for Eating Disorders: 10 Types & How to Use Them

Why Are Coping Skills for Eating Disorders Important?

Coping skills for eating disorders are the stepping stones to lasting recovery. They provide strategies for managing emotions, coping with triggers, and promoting healthier responses to urges related to disordered eating. Coping skills for eating disorders empower individuals to navigate the challenges of recovery without falling back into the harmful behaviors and patterns they are trying to heal.

10 Coping Skills for Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are complex illnesses that require a wide range of support. Coping skills for eating disorders vary greatly, but all are designed to help increase a sense of control, improve mood, enhance self-awareness, and increase self-confidence. There are infinite ways to cope effectively with eating disorders.

Remember to be patient with yourself while you are finding what coping skills work best for you. There is often a period of ‘trial and error’ as you explore new skills for coping.

Here are ten effective coping skills for eating disorders to try:

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness, the practice of living in the present moment, is a powerful ally in interrupting harmful patterns of thinking that often accompany eating disorders. With its help, an individual can learn to ‘Urge Surf,’ which includes acknowledging an eating disorder urge without judgment and imagining it like a wave in the ocean that rises and falls. Mindful journaling is another skill that can help you to pause and reflect before reacting to a situation based on an immediate negative evaluation of yourself or others.

Mindfulness also plays a key role in fostering the concept and practice of intuitive eating, an approach often taught to those who are seeking to heal their relationship with food. Intuitive eating offers ten principles, all of which are aligned with the components of mindfulness, such as non-judgemental awareness around food, attunement to hunger and fullness cues, and the importance of honoring your body’s needs.⁴

2. Emotional Regulation Techniques

Disordered eating behaviors are maladaptive coping mechanisms that help individuals manage stress and difficult emotions when they are not taught how to do so in an effective way. Learning emotional regulation techniques as coping skills can help to empower you to choose healthy coping strategies instead of harmful behaviors when distressed. Some emotion regulation techniques include deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and journaling.

3. Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring, sometimes called cognitive reframing, is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) technique utilized to examine and challenge negative self-talk, negative thoughts, and negative thought patterns. Identifying, exploring, and challenging negative thoughts regarding body image, food, societal beliefs, and more is a critical part of eating disorder recovery.

Cognitive restructuring reminds us that thoughts are just our perceptions, not facts. When combined with mindfulness, cognitive reframing can encourage lasting change and nurture a more balanced connection between thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and the connection between food and body. Incorporating mindfulness with cognitive restructuring for coping with an eating disorder allows you to take a critical look at your long-held beliefs and emotions about food and body without judgment.

4. Supportive Social Connections

Building a solid support network is a vital coping skill for eating disorder recovery due to the isolation and shame that often accompanies and reinforces disordered eating. Support networks can include friends, family, pets, neighbors, coworkers, etc., and are shown to impact mental health and well-being positively.⁵ Healthy support from social connections while in recovery should include empathy, psychoeducation, understanding, open communication, encouragement, and accountability.

Beyond friends and family, a critical component for those in eating disorder recovery is a treatment team of professionals such as a licensed therapist, registered dietitian, and a primary care physician. Not all in eating disorder recovery require a full treatment team of qualified eating disorder professionals. Still, those with physical complications or concerns due to their disorder need to be monitored by medical professionals.⁶

5. Self-compassion

Self-compassion is the process of turning compassion inward toward yourself.⁷ For many, cultivating self-compassion as a coping skill takes time and hard work. The components of self-compassion (self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness) can be used individually or together as coping skills to help counteract the harsh self-judgment, isolation, and persistent negative thought patterns that often accompany eating disorders.⁸

Cultivating compassion for yourself as an eating disorder coping skill allows you to recognize that eating disorder recovery is a process with inevitable ups and downs. By fostering self-compassion, you create a nurturing internal environment that supports resilience, healing, and the gradual alleviation of your relationship with food and your body.

6. Eating Regular Meals & Snacks

A coping skill for eating disorders that may get overlooked is the idea that regularly feeding your body is a coping skill.  Eating regular meals and snacks is an important coping skill in recovery because this practice helps to regulate blood sugar throughout the day and, therefore, mood, brain function, and anxiety.⁹ Eating regularly also increases comfort with food over time.

If you are interested in working with a registered dietitian to aid in eating disorder recovery, they might provide you with a meal plan. Meal plans help to ensure that you do not go long periods of time without eating, give you ideas of what to eat, and a framework for how much energy (food) your body needs.

7. Setting & Maintaining Boundaries

Setting boundaries is a crucial coping skill for eating disorders. In a world obsessed with diet culture, learning how to set and maintain boundaries is paramount. Body shaming and food shaming are, unfortunately, normal experiences that negatively impact our relationship with food and our bodies. Having a script for setting boundaries with someone who is discussing harmful ideas about food and the body allows you to protect your recovery.

Here are some examples of how to set and maintain boundaries:

• “I need your support in my recovery. Please avoid commenting on my food choices and/or body. It is not helpful, and it is triggering to me. If you continue, I will leave the room.”
• “I’ve noticed that you have been making comments about my food and/or body, and it’s negatively impacting me. I really need your support and understanding in my recovery. It is helpful to avoid discussing food choices and/or bodies negatively.”
• “I’m working on my eating disorder recovery, and it’s helpful to me when we can keep our conversations about food and/or bodies positive. Negative comments impact my recovery, and I need your help in maintaining a supportive environment.”
• “I’m in a sensitive place in my recovery, and negative comments about my body and/or food choices make things harder. I need your understanding and support, so please withhold these types of comments. If you continue, I will change the topic.”
• “Talking negatively about your appearance or others’ appearance makes me uncomfortable and is not helpful for my eating disorder recovery. I am trying to put less emphasis on outward appearance right now. I would greatly appreciate your support on this.”
• “I understand that you see dieting as a ‘healthy’ behavior, but in my eating disorder recovery, discussing any kind of food restriction is harmful to me. I think it might be helpful to switch topics.”

Boundaries help you cultivate an environment that supports your eating disorder recovery, allowing you to focus on self-compassion and the pursuit of well-being. During the recovery process and otherwise, we should always be free from the pressures of unrealistic beauty standards and diet-centric expectations.

8. Regular Mindful Self-care

Self-care is a daily practice that considers all aspects of being human. There are six domains of self-care: physical, professional, relational, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.¹⁰ Some examples of self-care are ensuring adequate sleep, regular hygiene practices, eating regular meals and snacks, meditation, journaling, time in nature, reading for pleasure, engaging with hobbies, maintaining boundaries, relaxation, spending quality time with loved ones and pets, and attending regular therapy sessions.

Here is a self-care checklist that can help remind you of how to best care for yourself:

• 7+ hours of sleep
• Medication and/or vitamins
• 3 Meals
• 1+ Snack(s)
• Hydration
• Brush teeth
• Shower
• Connect with a loved one
• Relaxation activity

9. Creative Expression

Having a creative outlet for emotional expression, such as drawing, writing, dancing, singing, or creation of any kind, can help to regulate mood and emotional well-being. Creative expression is a wonderful coping skill as it allows you to process emotions experientially using the creative process, building confidence and increasing resilience. Expressive arts therapy has been shown to support a wide variety of mental health challenges.

10. Gentle Movement… Maybe

Movement and exercise as a coping skill in eating disorder recovery should always be handled with great care. Overexercise or exercise addiction are behaviors that often accompany eating disorders due to their influence on appearance, and in some cases, movement might need to be closely monitored or even stopped.

Gentle movement is addressed as a principle and practice of intuitive eating for its many benefits that go beyond appearance. Gentle movement can be defined as mindful, compassionate, and intentional movement practices such as walking, stretching, and other low-impact activities. If overexercise plays a part in your relationship with food and body image, professional support may be helpful.

Monitoring your intentions for movement and honoring your body’s needs is crucial when adding gentle movement to your coping skills toolbox.

How to Develop an Eating Disorder Coping Skills Toolbox

It is often helpful to think about coping skills fitting into an imaginary toolbox that you carry around with you everywhere you go, filled with strategies that are specifically for you. An eating disorder coping skills toolbox might include mindfulness skills, a meal plan, alarms on your phone at meal and snack times, music, positive affirmations, a list of your most common cognitive distortions, a journal, and so much more.

Building a coping skills toolbox of healthy coping strategies that are unique to you and your needs will undoubtedly support you through the challenges of eating disorder recovery. Having a variety of tools ensures flexibility, which allows you to choose the most fitting strategy for the given moment and will help foster sustained progress throughout your healing journey.

Tangibly, it may be helpful to make an actual list of what coping skills work best for you in a journal or a notes app on your cell phone.

Here are some tips for how to develop an eating disorder coping skills toolbox:

1. Self-reflect on what you need: Begin by reflecting on your experiences, emotions, triggers, and the common challenges you face. It is helpful to identify stressful situations specific to you and your experience to help understand what coping skills might be best for you and your eating disorder coping skills toolbox.
2. Brainstorm coping skills you want to try: Make a list of the positive coping strategies that you already engage with regularly in your life, and include coping skills that you are interested in trying or learning more about. Note any coping skills that you feel hesitant to try or skeptical of.
3. Identify which skills are helpful for when: Identify which coping skills might be most helpful for the stressful situations with which you need help coping. For example, if you find you are very anxious before mealtime, listening to music, going for a walk, or utilizing meditation beforehand might be helpful options for coping with this stressful situation.
4. Be patient: Remember to be patient as you try out different coping skills for different situations to see what works best. As mentioned before, there is often a ‘trial and error’ period that arises when building your eating disorder coping skills toolbox.  Some things might work at certain times for certain things but not others. Just take note.
5. Observe what works/doesn’t work: Note any observations while trying out different coping strategies for eating disorders. Even though it may be hard to suspend judgment, try to think of filling up your coping skills toolbox as a science experiment or an archaeological dig and report what is observed as best as you can.
6. Prioritize the most effective skills: Take time to evaluate your list of coping strategies to ensure you find the skills that are the most accessible and effective for you. Consider picking two or three skills to prioritize practicing.
7. Create your toolbox: You can choose to create a physical toolbox for your eating disorder coping skills, or you can create one in a digital space like a dedicated folder on your device. Make sure whatever you create is easily accessible to you and your loved ones (should you feel comfortable sharing this with your support system).
8. Include a variety of tools: Make sure your coping skills toolbox is diverse. Include coping strategies for various situations, like quick stress relief techniques and more time-intensive strategies. It can be helpful to use the six domains of self-care when ensuring variety in your eating disorder coping skills toolbox: physical, professional, relational, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.¹⁰
9. Integrate skills into daily life: Start incorporating coping skills into your daily routine, especially during moments of calm, to ensure you are not associating stress with the skills. Regular use of coping skills helps to normalize their use and reinforces their position in your life, making them readily available when needed. Regular practice strengthens your ability to employ a skill in times of need, fostering confidence and resilience.
10. Regularly update and revise: As you continue through eating disorder recovery, you will grow and evolve, as will your toolbox. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your coping skills and be open to trying new strategies. Needs change over time, and having a flexible toolbox ensures it continues to work for you.

Tools & Technology That Can Help You Cope With an Eating Disorder

Supportive tools and technologies can be profoundly useful for coping with an eating disorder. We now have mental health-focused eating disorder apps available to us for coping skill games, meal and snack accountability, emotion tracking, positive affirmations, and so much more. Embracing technology as a complement to therapy and healing can equip you with immediate and personalized support when needed.

Here are recommendations for tools and apps that can help you cope with an eating disorder:

• Recovery Record
• Rise Up + Recover
• Brighter Bite – ED Recovery
• What’s Up? A Mental Health App
• MindShift
• Eating Disorder Support

How to Know If a Coping Skill Is Effective Vs. Ineffective

It’s completely normal for a coping skill to work for one person but not another. We all have our own unique needs, experiences, and circumstances that influence what coping skills work for each of us. Effective coping skills empower you by promoting self-awareness, emotion regulation, healthy decision-making, and more. Conversely, ineffective coping skills often feel forced, are used inconsistently, and often fail to decrease distress over time.

Here are a few signs that a coping skill is effective for you:

• Increased self-awareness:
  • You find that you are able to pause before reacting
  • You are more aware of your internal experience
  • You are more aware that every person has their own internal experience

• Emotion regulation:
  • You have an easier time navigating intense emotions
  • You can bring yourself a sense of calm by using a coping skill
  • You find you are reacting more appropriately to situations

• Consistent application:
  • You are able to consistently apply the coping skill in various situations
  • You find that the use of the coping skill often yields positive results

• Improved daily functioning:
  • You notice an increased ability to engage with work, school, relationships, and acts of self-care with a bite more ease

• Long-term impact:
  • The coping skill has a positive impact beyond the immediate moment of application
  • You notice sustained emotional balance

• Personal satisfaction:
  • You experience a sense of personal satisfaction, accomplishment, or empowerment from using the coping skill
  • You feel more confident in caring and advocating for yourself

How to Ask for Support in Practicing Coping Skills

When seeking support through eating disorder recovery or implementing coping skills, it’s important to remember that open communication is key. If you need support from a loved one with a coping skill, remember to clearly articulate what you need support with, specifically how they can best support you, and be open to their response and any questions they may have.

It might be helpful to share insights into your coping strategies to educate the support persons in your life on how to best support you. Be specific about the role the support person can play in assisting your efforts to cope. Encourage a continued conversation to promote understanding of your journey and build a collaborative environment where your support system can actively contribute to your healing experiences.

Here are some ways to ask for support from a loved one in practicing coping skills:

• “I’ve been working on some coping skills to manage stress, and I would really appreciate your support. Can we talk about it and figure out how you might be able to assist me? I think it would all feel more manageable with some help.”
• “I think that engaging in [specific coping activity] really helps me when I’m anxious. Would you be open to doing it together? Having your companionship would mean a lot.”
• “I’ve been learning new coping skills, and I’d love to share them with you. I think your input and support would be helpful for me to implement them. Can we talk about how you could support me with incorporating these skills into my routine?”
• “I’ve learned that [specific coping skill] is really helpful for me. If you notice that I’m feeling overwhelmed, could you gently remind me to check in with my [body, thoughts, emotions, surroundings]?”
• “I’ve been figuring out which coping skills work best for me, and I’d love to talk about it with you. Would you be open to that? It would be helpful for you to better understand how to support me when I’m in need.”

How To Encourage a Loved One to Use Coping Skills

Encouraging a loved one to use coping skills in eating disorder recovery is a great way to express your love and support. Supporting a loved one in using coping skills involves the encouragement of open and empathetic conversation and understanding. Express your genuine interest in their recovery journey, offer praise when you notice their efforts to cope positively, emphasize progress over perfection, avoid judgment, and remember to be patient.

Additionally, it is a good idea to educate yourself about your loved one’s chosen coping strategies. Educating yourself will allow you to provide better support and will show your genuine interest and willingness to actively participate in their coping practices and recovery. This type of support reinforces a sense of connection and solidarity, strengthening your role as a supportive presence in their recovery.

When to Seek Professional Support

When it comes to disordered eating of any kind, it is never too early to seek professional help from a trained eating disorder professional. The sooner disordered eating is addressed, the better the chances of finding a balance between food and your body.

If you think you might be struggling with disordered eating, an online therapist directory might be useful in finding a qualified professional to start working with. Seeking out professional services from a therapist can be intimidating. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of seeking support for eating disorder recovery, online therapy platforms are safe spaces to explore and access care from your own device.

There are many different types of eating disorder therapy to explore.¹ Dialectical behavioral therapy for eating disorders has been useful for those who struggle with bulimia and binge eating disorder as it is aimed at teaching individuals specific strategies that help increase confidence; skills and strategies include mindfulness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance techniques. Radically open DBT has been helpful for those struggling with anorexia nervosa as it is aimed at helping those who struggle with overcontrolled teaching skills to be more adaptable.