The research

Does mindfulness help with food cravings?

By Vallabh Kulkarni, Founder, ZULO

Published 15 June 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026

Mindfulness based interventions have been studied for food cravings and related eating behaviour. A 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis by Ruffault and colleagues pooled 12 randomised controlled trials of mindfulness training in adults with overweight and obesity. It found no significant effect on weight loss, but reductions in impulsive and binge eating, and a smaller increase in physical activity; the authors described the overall effect on health-related behaviours as short-term. On cravings specifically, a 2014 study by Lacaille and colleagues in Appetite found that participants trained to observe a chocolate craving as a passing event reported less intense cravings than those using distraction. The most consistent effect appears in techniques that ask the person to observe a craving without acting on it, rather than techniques that try to suppress it or replace it with distraction.

The mindfulness versus distraction distinction

Distraction works in the short term. The person turns attention away from the craving, the craving feels smaller, and the episode passes. The trouble is what happens the next time the same cue fires. The underlying loop, cue to craving to response to reward, was not addressed. The next cue produces the same urge at the same strength. Distraction is reactive.

Mindfulness based techniques ask the person to do something counter intuitive. Instead of looking away from the craving, the person looks at it. The goal is not to make the craving stop. It is to watch it pass while staying present with the sensations and thoughts. Over repetitions, this practice may teach the brain that an urge can rise and fall without a behavioral response. The cue to response link weakens.

Urge surfing: the most studied technique

Urge surfing is the most studied of these techniques. The person is taught to picture a craving as a wave that rises, crests, and falls, and to watch it pass without intervention. The technique was set out in Alan Marlatt's 1985 book Relapse Prevention. The 2009 brief intervention trial by Bowen and Marlatt was a smoking study: college student smokers trained in urge surfing reduced their smoking over the following week compared with control groups. On the food side, the 2014 Lacaille study in Appetite found that observing a chocolate craving as a passing event reduced craving intensity compared with a distraction control. The technique has been applied to cravings for food, tobacco and other substances.

The research on urge surfing in eating specifically is younger than the research in substance use but converges on similar findings. In studies of binge eating and craving reactivity, participants trained in brief urge surfing protocols show reductions in craving frequency, reduced food preoccupation, and small but measurable changes in eating behavior. The effect is most reliable when the technique is practiced regularly rather than reserved for moments of high craving.

Why suppression backfires

Mindfulness based craving work emerged partly as a response to the limits of suppression. Wegner and colleagues' 1987 work on the paradoxical effects of thought suppression, sometimes called the white bear effect, found that actively trying not to think about something can make the thought more frequent and more intrusive. Suppressing a food craving may amplify it in the same way. Distraction performs better than suppression but still leaves the underlying loop intact.

Cognitive defusion from ACT

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy contributes a related technique called cognitive defusion. The person is asked to relate to a thought as a passing mental event rather than a literal command. Instead of the thought "I want chocolate," the person notes "I am having the thought that I want chocolate." This small linguistic shift may reduce the thought's behavioral pull without requiring the person to suppress, distract, or argue with it. A 2012 study by Moffitt and colleagues compared defusion with cognitive restructuring as strategies for resisting a craved food and found defusion useful as an alternative to suppression.

Clinical findings

Mindfulness Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT), developed by Jean Kristeller and Ruth Wolever, has been studied in patients with binge eating disorder; the conceptual foundation paper describes reductions in binge frequency and food preoccupation across early trials, with improvements in measures of emotional regulation. Other mindfulness protocols, including brief single minute interventions, show smaller but consistent effects on craving reactivity in adults without diagnosed eating disorders.

Why ZULO uses a short pause

Short pauses may outperform longer distractions because the goal is not to wait the craving out passively but to observe it actively. The brain that learns to observe a craving without acting on it may slowly learn that the urge is not a command. The loop weakens with repetition.

ZULO uses a 30 second pause because the first moments of an urge are when you are most likely to act on autopilot. It is short enough that almost anyone can hold attention for it without training, which also makes it a useful entry point into longer mindfulness practices. Repeating the same brief observation many times per day may do more for cue reactivity than a single long meditation done weekly.

Mindfulness for cravings is not a guarantee of behavior change. Some users find observation difficult during high arousal states and benefit from combining it with a structured anchor such as paced breathing or sensory grounding. Others find that a brief written log of what they observed during the pause helps consolidate the practice. The consistency of the underlying habit of watching cravings rather than fighting them tends to matter more than the specific add ons.

ZULO is built around this short pause. Each session is one wave, observed and passed. Over weeks, the brain may learn to treat cravings as events that arrive, peak, and dissolve without requiring a response.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian about your own situation.

Published 15 June 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026 · By Vallabh Kulkarni · Aveor Studios Private Limited · All articles · Back to ZULO