Eating awareness week

The week of 27th February is 'Eating disorders awareness week'. This is an area that affects so many people and it doesn’t matter what age you are, it can happen completely out of the blue, or after a stressful life event. Whether it is controlling eating, avoiding eating, or selective eating.

The brain picks up quickly on cues (thoughts that enter our heads – a bit like annoying pop-ups on our computer screen that are advertising products we may have looked at once but actually don’t want to buy). This can dictate how we behave around food, it is then really easy to develop unhealthy, unwanted habits which become a negative cycle of behaviour.  

This process can be exhausting, frustrating, and isolating. We feel we are in conflict not only with ourselves but sometimes with our families who don’t quite understand how difficult it is when we are stuck in these patterns. Very often, we can’t even understand ourselves. The drive to control what we do/don’t eat, the temptation to eat more than we should, or avoid foods which we believe may kill us becomes all-consuming. We may feel judged by others, threatened or full of anxiety which can really impact our sleep as well and compound the whole issue. 

This anxiety around food creates a lot of cortisol in our brains, this is a great chemical for getting us to make a quick exit or take our hand off a hot plate, however, it is not so good when we are producing it in large quantities over a long period of time. Cortisol is also known as the stress chemical, this is also the chemical that can impact our sleep.

There is so much that can be done to help clients with eating issues and reduce their cortisol levels. In what can seem like an uncontrollable battle, there are steps which we can take, tiny shifts in behaviours and patterns of behaviour that can make a significant difference in helping us take back control.

Using hypnotherapy and psychotherapy, we help clients break the loop and association with foods, so they can cope much better. It enables them to make healthier choices and breaks the shackles these habits seem to hold over us. It helps create a subconscious change, by altering the way they respond, think, feel and behave towards food. 

We do this using our brain's fabulous neuroplasticity (the brain’s near-magical ability to literally rewire itself based on our habits, thoughts, and the experiences we have). This enables us to view food differently - taking away the threat. We all have the capacity to create new neural pathways – if ever you have thought about something differently or tried taking up a new hobby, you are creating a new pathway. The more this is used, the more habitual it becomes.  

Clients create new neural pathways, and new connections, using scientifically based tools to help them. 

If you would like more information please get in touch via my profile.