On Wintering and Learning to Be With the Quiet in Eating Disorder Recovery
It’s the first winter after my divorce.
My son—four years old at the time—leaves with his dad on Christmas Day. I stand in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, then close it. The house feels immediately too big. Too quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that feels peaceful.
The kind that feels dangerous.
I don’t think, I need rest.
I think, Something is wrong.
The holidays and togetherness keep going without me, and my nervous system does what it knows how to do: it reaches for intensity and predictability. I take refuge in Stephen King. I watch every version of It—both movies, the eighties miniseries. I eat popcorn, only popcorn, for four days.
There’s something regulating about the intensity—the familiar rhythm of fear meeting my system in its alarmed aloneness. It gives me just enough distance from the grief, just enough containment, to keep going.
Eventually, I emerge from the horror-movie haze.
And even as I do, I know this isn’t the answer. It’s a way through—not a way with myself.
Eating Disorder Recovery and the Nervous System
These coping patterns are ones people in eating disorder recovery know intimately: when quiet arrives, the body doesn’t rest—it reaches for strategies. Restriction. Distraction. Numbing. Structure. Stimulation. Control. These aren’t moral failures or lack of insight. They’re nervous-system wisdom shaped by earlier experiences of aloneness, overwhelm, or unmet need.
Winter invites us into slowness, spaciousness, restoration. But that invitation assumes that quiet feels safe. For many people recovering from disordered eating, it doesn’t. If your system learned early on that stillness meant danger—or that needs would go unanswered—winter can feel like something to survive rather than yield into.
Here are three things I’ve learned about wintering when quiet feels scary, especially in recovery.
1. Don’t confuse coping with failure.
Watching horror movies on repeat and eating popcorn for days isn’t a healing strategy. But it is information.
So often in eating disorder recovery, we rush to label behaviors as “bad,” “regressive,” or “a setback.” But coping tells the truth about what the system needs in that moment: containment, predictability, sensation, relief from internal noise.
Instead of shaming these responses or trying to override them with willpower, the work becomes listening. We build enough resonance and attunement to gently hold the grief, fear, and panic that surface when things slow down.
Your coping makes sense.
Start there.
2. Wintering isn’t a mindset—it’s a nervous system capacity.
You can’t think your way into rest. And you can’t force yourself to “embrace winter” if stillness activates threat.
When quiet triggers alarm, the body stays busy—hyper-focused on food, rules, routines, or distraction—no matter how much you want rest to feel nourishing. This is why eating disorder behaviors often intensify during unstructured time, holidays, or long winter evenings.
Therapy creates a place where we slow things down together. We notice what happens when there’s too much space. We get curious about the parts that brace when there’s nothing to manage or fix. We don’t rush them. We stay with them.
Over time, the body learns that rest doesn’t have to mean collapse or abandonment.
3. Sometimes the body needs to experience safety before it can believe in it.
Here is where nervous-system-based work matters.
The Safe and Sound Protocol, for example, works beneath conscious effort. Rather than asking your system to understand something new, it supports a gradual shift from threat toward safety. The volume of alarm turns down. Quiet doesn’t disappear—but it softens.
As safety grows, eating disorder behaviors often loosen—not because they’re being fought, but because they’re no longer needed in the same way. The body begins to trust that it can be alone without being overwhelmed, still without being unsafe.
When winter is supported, it becomes less about endurance and more about learning how to be held in rest. Old strategies fall away naturally. New options emerge. You don’t have to dissociate, restrict, or distract just to get through.
If this season feels harder than it “should,” nothing has gone wrong. Your body is doing exactly what it learned to do.
And it can learn something else—slowly, with care.
At Reclaiming Beauty, this is the work we care most about: listening to what your system knows and helping it discover that quiet and solitude don’t have to mean danger. If you’re longing for support this winter—through eating disorder therapy, nervous system work, or simply being met where you are—you are warmly welcome here.
Get Started With Nervous System Healing in Eating Disorder Recovery in Asheville, NC Today
At Reclaiming Beauty, we're here to help you on this journey. Our therapists are all nervous system trained and are dedicated to providing a weight-inclusive, safe and understanding space for you to explore your coping patterns and heal your nervous system. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and take a step towards your healing.
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Discover an integrative approach to well-being at Reclaiming Beauty. In addition to body-centered psychotherapy and eating disorder therapy, we offer personalized embodiment coaching to unlock the wisdom within, fostering self-compassion and resilience. Or, explore the transformative benefits of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP). This is a non-invasive auditory intervention that enhances social engagement and reduces stress.
