Journey to Thinner Peace Blog

How to stop eating when you can’t stop eating (Calming the compulsion to binge)

A psychiatrist by the name of Jeffery Schwartz did a study on OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and found that people with OCD feel compelled to repeat behaviors like hand washing, even when they know it’s excessive.

If they don’t wash their hands when the urge hits them, they feel an incredibly high anxiety. Many psychologist use the classic diet advisors “just stop it!” approach to treat these patients, forcing them to do things like hold dog feces without washing their hands.  Surprise! This tends to be counterproductive.

But Schwartz took patients with an uncontrolled need to wash their hands did an MRI of their brains. He found that when they felt these urges the frontal lobe of their brains were all lit up or over stimulated.

So he then gave copies of the MRIs to his patients to look at. Every time they felt the compulsion to wash their hands he told them they were to just look at the MRI and say, “This is just my brain. This is just my brain.”

After that, they were to take a deep breath and find an activity they enjoyed and do that for 15 minutes.  This would lessen the desire to wash their hands.  What Dr. Schwartz noticed was that every time they would go thru this process, the next time the compulsion to wash their hands hit them, the desire was actually less and less intense. Over time it finally disappeared.  After the desire diminished or disappeared, new MRIs were taken. What Schwartz found was that the area of the brain that was over stimulated before was now normal.

Now, here’s the really interesting part of this study. Martha Beck believes (and early research suggests) that overeating is often a self-calming compulsion similar to OCD.  So when you think you can’t eat something, or something really stressful is going on in your life, your brain may just tell you not to turn on the tears. Instead of opening up the faucets and relieving the pain, the brain tells you instead where you might find the closest jelly donut, box of ding-dongs, or whatever type of food that will comfort you, so you can get rid of the high anxiety you’re feeling.

Keeping that information and research in mind, this exercise you’re about to learn may help you respond effectively to stress without having to eat anything.  I believe that in a process similar to the one Dr Schwartz observed in his patients, practicing this exercise repeatedly may alter the physical structure of your brain, so that you can no longer feel that compulsion and need to eat when you’re not hungry.

Exercise:

When you feel a compulsion or need to binge, before you reach for the carbohydrates, chocolate or anything else, take 3 deep belly breaths. One thing we know for sure, and you’ve heard it many times before but I will reiterate, you can’t breathe and think at the same time. And, right at that moment that’s a real good thing.  Okay so you’ve taken your 3 deep breaths. Now I want you to find something else to do for 15 minutes that you can get real joy from (have a handy list ahead of time so you’re prepared). It might be watching a favorite movie or television show, calling a friend, working in your garden, cleaning something, going for a drive, petting your dog or cat, taking a walk or running yourself a nice hot tub bath. The event can change. What’s important is that you simply do it instead of eating. So make your list now. And when the compulsion hits? Use it!