When you struggle to balance the hunger for ideas and the ability to digest and use them it can easily lead to a narrow road with mind hunger at one edge and mind boredom at the other. The landscape of the road changes changes constantly and can cause you to unknowingly drift towards the edge of your travel lane. Our brain uses prepackaged responses for habits, to streamline our response.
You go over to the edge and feel mental hunger or boredom. What is your habitual response? Do automatic negative thoughts begin to flood your mind? You feel bothered or stressed?
In reaction to all this do you use food to cope with mind hunger and mind boredom? Food is easy, it is always available. I understand. Eating to soothe stress is a coping mechanism I have had for most of my life. It has become an unconscious habit.
Let go of Rules and Habits that don’t work
There are a default rules that set up these habits. These rules need to go. For example “Chocolate solves all problems” is not a functional rule. “Feeling hunger is bad and scary” is another rule that doesn’t make sense. Starving may be bad and scary, but feeling hunger is a normal part of being alive. Eating food to sooth emotional unrest and mind hunger no longer helps me.
I am at the point where these crazy old rules and the habits they support just don’t work anymore. Overeating overloads my digestion and makes me heavy and tired. It anchors me in an unhealthy past.
Do you have some food rules that no longer serve you?
Rule changes and Habit upgrades can be tricky. Bad habits never really go away. You have to actively develop and strengthen new rules and behaviors that work for you. Develop and support new go to behaviors.
It is important to identify the habit and look past it for the trigger the action and reward that the habit fulfills. So if the triggers are boredom, discontent, anger, anxiety, you get the drift. The action in response to any of these triggers is to eat or drink and the reward is sensory engagement and distraction.
How do you put habits in place to get out in front of this?
So many people talk about this with no direct experience of food dependence They have no direct experience of the power eating to soothe and help you cope. It is not easy or automatic. Getting out in front of eating habits that don’t serve is a process.
First accept and love the real you right now. I do a practice sometimes in the morning to help me with this. Stand at the mirror and look into my own eyes, and say “I love and accept myself as I am.” “The fact that I exist means I am lovable and worth loving.” Louis Hay has an meditation App that I learned this exercise from. Don’t be surprised if this is difficult, or you can’t meet your own gaze. If you want a challenge try it naked in front of a full length mirror.
Second you need space to look at your habits and the triggers. You need space to process and digest rather than cope with your life. Space comes from not over scheduling life. Don’t have your inbox full with 400 emails each day. Most of the time you delete all but 20. Stop reading and Un-enroll from emails that don’t support your journey or are just trying to sell you something. Create mental space with meditation or appreciation on a daily basis. Practice loving kindness towards yourself. Take an 20 minutes off from texting and go out into nature.
Third Start to develop new rewards, that are deeply satisfying, feel really good and easily accessible. Rewards cannot harm you or anyone else. Rewards are individual and when replacing food you may need a bunch of different ones to fit different situations.
Habits to replace eating to soothe your mind
- Hug your partner
- Pet the cat
- Walk the dog
- Breathe or meditate
- Rub my hands with oil
- Get up and walk around
- Call a friend
- Legs up the wall
- Roll out my feet.
- Rent a Movie
We all have to take care of our minds to grow our spirit. Digesting our thoughts, ideas, experiences and feelings as they arise creates way less mental clutter. No-one is perfect, we don’t always have control of the amount stuff that comes at us at any time. Our busy world focuses on fear and stress far too much. It is easy to be overwhelmed. Build Habits that help and soothe in the go to section of your mind. Then they are there for when you need a little support with the twists and turns of your life.
The information provided on this website and blog is not a substitute for professional medical care, treatment or advice. All the material here is for information purposes only. Always share strategy and work with your health care team.