Comfort eating in the evening: it's relief you're after.

It's half past nine. Dinner's done, after one of those days: two meetings that went badly, a client who hasn't paid. You get up from the sofa and open the cupboard. Ten minutes later half the biscuits have gone, and you couldn't say what they tasted like.

Then comes the thought: I've got no willpower. I hear it a lot from the people I work with. That wasn't hunger. It was your head looking for a way to switch off.

How to spot it

It's easy to tell from real hunger.

• It comes out of nowhere. Real hunger builds slowly and can wait. This wants feeding now.
• It wants one thing. Real hunger is happy with an egg and vegetables. This asks for biscuits, crisps, chocolate.
• It starts in your head. A nagging thought, while your stomach says nothing.
• A full stomach doesn't stop it. You finish the packet without tasting it, then comes the guilt.

Why it happens in the evening

Three things pile up. None is about your character.

Stress wants sugar. After a day under pressure, cortisol, the stress hormone, is still high. It raises your appetite, mostly for sweet things, and lowers serotonin, which your brain uses to calm itself. Carbs bring it back up. Protein doesn't. That's why your hand goes to the biscuits, never the chicken.

Your brain knows the route. Tired, cupboard, relief. Your brain notes: that works, do it again. Packaged food smooths the way: sugar, fat and salt, measured out together for maximum pleasure. In time it happens by itself. The sofa and the hour are enough.

The day set it up. If lunch was a coffee and two crackers, your hunger hormone is high by evening, and after dinner you still fancy a nibble. A short night makes it worse: next day your body wants more carbs.

What to do instead

Holding out at an open cupboard is a losing battle. You need fewer temptations and another way to switch off.

Keep it out of the house. Sofa food stays at the supermarket. If it isn't in the house, you won't eat it. What's already there goes up high, sealed, out of sight. Every extra second between you and the packet makes you less likely to open it.

Change the reward. Just taking things away usually fails, because the need stays. Have something ready that's still a treat: plain yoghurt with walnuts, fruit with a few almonds, a boiled egg if you want savoury.

Five minutes and one question. When the urge starts, wait five minutes and ask: what do I need right now? Rest, letting off steam, company, the break you never got today. Even if you then eat, you've broken the autopilot.

Another way to come down. The relief you're after is a drop in tension, and your body can do that without food. Two breaths in through your nose, the second short, then a long breath out through your mouth, one to three times. Or a ten-minute walk after dinner. Choose now, with a cool head: a response picked in advance kicks in by itself.

A proper dinner, carbs included. Protein, vegetables and a normal portion of rice, potatoes or bread, so serotonin rises at the table, before the sofa.

Start with one thing, the easiest: the shopping. And at the cupboard, give yourself what you'd give a good colleague after a day like that: a better offer than biscuits.