Eating with Eyes Wide Shut

Find yourself gaining weight and feeling excessively full in the mornings for no explicable reason? You may be suffering from sleep-related eating disorder.

- By Noor Anand Chawla

Twenty-four-year-old Sheena Tripathi (name changed on request) had long outgrown her childhood habit of sleepwalking. However, when she shifted to a new city after a job change and began sharing an apartment with co-workers, she developed a new kind of parasomnia—eating in her sleep. Her flatmates often heard her moving around the kitchen late at night, but it wasn't till one of them walked in on her rummaging through the trash to eat discarded food while still seemingly unconscious, that they suggested she get professional help.

Dr Neerja Agarwal, the CEO and co-founder of mental health platform, Emoneeds, explains, "Her lack of memory of these episodes left her feeling helpless and frustrated."