Circuits, Synapses, Chemicals, and Environment
Whether because of insufficient early nurturance, inherited deficiencies, or lifestyle factors, many overeaters have brain chemistry imbalances that make them more susceptible to the energizing, soothing, and calming effects of particular foods and more prone to overeating them.
For some overeaters, a few simple lifestyle changes can help correct these imbalances. I discuss these in further detail in The Emotional Eater’s Repair Manual. Eating more unprocessed, whole plant foods (especially raw vegetables and foods high in amino acids and essential fatty acids) and reducing your intake of processed foods, alcohol, and stimulants like caffeine are a good start. Exercise is critical to good health, and aerobic exercise, in particular, releases mood-enhancing chemicals and promotes the growth of brain cells.
Good sleep is important, as is good sleep hygiene — habits conducive to getting the right amount and quality of sleep. These include exercising early in the day, refraining from stimulating activity and avoiding bright lights in the evening, and preparing for bed by calming down and dimming the lights. If you are having trouble getting yourself to make any of these lifestyle adjustments, your brain chemistry may be holding you back.
If you feel that the symptoms you’re experiencing and the substances you’re craving suggest a deficiency or imbalance in any of these chemicals, an adjustment to your brain chemicals may be warranted. There is a good chance you could benefit from a trial of natural supplements prescribed by an informed health-care provider. These include amino acids, essential fatty acids, enzymes, herbs, vitamins, and minerals. Medications also have a place in restoring brain chemistry. Once a prescribed medication has accomplished the initial restoration, the gentler natural supplements can often sustain it.
A medical examination must always be the first step in ruling out physical causes of brain chemical imbalances and any associated symptoms. Do not stop using any prescription drugs or begin taking any supplements without consulting your physician.
Chemical imbalances are caused not simply by an absence or decreased amount of any particular brain chemical but rather by the complex interplay of brain function and chemistry with environmental factors. All overeating behaviors are the result of a complex set of mechanisms that may include inherited deficiencies as well as faulty neurological programming from insufficient early nurturing and traumatic experiences. These, as well as our internal psychological state and our adult interpersonal connections, must be taken into consideration to facilitate recovery.
A multipronged approach is most effective for healing overeating patterns. If your symptoms and cravings are not too bothersome or severe, you may want to practice the mindfulness skills outlined in part 2 before addressing any brain chemistry imbalances. These skills, in addition to the lifestyle adjustments mentioned above, may be sufficient to strengthen the integrative circuits of your brain.
Learning internal attunement through mindfulness practice will help you connect to your inner world of feelings, unmet needs, thoughts, beliefs, and memories. By building and strengthening an inner nurturing voice and associated skill set, you’ll enhance the self-regulation circuitry in your brain, connecting top to bottom and left to right. At the same time, you’ll sharpen your self-soothing skills and learn how to calm your stress response. When all the parts of your brain are communicating and working properly, you’ll begin to notice that your favorite comfort foods have less of a hold on you.
Our bodies contain our histories — every chapter, line, and verse of every event and relationship in our lives. As our lives unfold, our biological health becomes a living, breathing, biographical statement that conveys our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, and fears.
— Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
When I asked Jan her reason for seeking therapy, she expressed concern that her weight had been creeping up over the past few years and she couldn’t seem to get a handle on it. A quiet and reserved fifty-four-year-old endocrinologist with a busy practice, Jan was mindlessly grabbing bags of chips, crackers, and cookies at work and drinking “a ton of coffee” to get through her long days. She was overeating at dinner, and on many nights she consumed two to three glasses of wine. She was also struggling with anxiety and low-grade depression, fatigue, migraines, bouts of fibromyalgia, gastric reflux, and an irritable bowel.
As a physician, Jan knew that part of the weight gain and physical symptoms might be related to diminishing hormones, general stress, food allergies, and blood sugar spikes caused by poor food and beverage choices, lack of exercise, and insufficient sleep. But she wondered if her overeating and physical complaints also had something to do with the challenges she was experiencing at home with her youngest daughter and the arguments she and her husband were having over the situation.
Vanessa, age fourteen, was getting poor grades in school, and any attempt Jan made to intervene and help was met with “rage-filled meltdowns.” Jan’s husband, Sam, had a better relationship with Vanessa, but he also was having trouble helping her with her studies or motivating her to do her homework.
Sam, a fifty-five-year-old software engineer who had been out of work a couple of times in the last few years, had more-regular hours than Jan. According to Jan, Sam was supportive of her, but he was concerned that she was working long hours and not taking very good care of herself. He complained about her lack of patience with Vanessa’s emotional struggles. Their older daughter, Tracy, age sixteen, presented no parenting challenges: she was a straight-A student and heavily involved in extracurricular activities. But Jan was concerned that Tracy was also gaining weight.
When I asked Jan if her marriage was satisfying, she said she was so busy working and raising the kids that she didn’t have time to think about her marriage. Even though she and Sam hadn’t been intimate for over a year and their sex life was “never thrilling,” she described Sam as a good husband and father; but she resented his inability to bring home a consistent income.
Jan added that she felt uncomfortable both in her body and with body contact. “I don’t feel good about how my body looks, and I don’t feel very sexual or sensual. Even though I’d like to have a hug here and there, I don’t feel up for anything more than that. I feel bad because I know Sam wants to be intimate. I felt more connected to my body when I was younger and more active. But I haven’t had that connection to myself in decades.”
As Jan shared her concerns with me, she showed little emotion, even as she described her daughter’s outbursts, the challenges of running a busy medical practice, and her resentment of her husband. She recounted her story as if she were reading a news report — her mouth was moving, but her body was stiff and motionless. There was a deeper disconnect that concerned me, and I was feeling the pain she couldn’t allow herself to feel. Clearly, she was stressed out and eating emotionally, but she didn’t seem to be feeling any emotions.
Running Away from Emotions
Most of us find it difficult to tolerate emotions for very long. Sure, we’re okay with pleasant, even arousing, emotions, like joy, contentment, happiness, and excitement. But we’re uncomfortable with deflating emotions such as sadness, hurt, loneliness, and hopelessness, or low-arousal psychological states such as boredom and apathy. Some of us are uncomfortable with anger — ours or anyone else’s. We have limited tolerance for what have been called the master emotions, shame and guilt. When we experience these painful emotions, or witness someone else experiencing them, we want to run away as fast as we can. We’ve been taught to quickly access our rational, upstairs brain and distance ourselves from unpleasant feeling states.
We don’t have much patience for uncomfortable bodily sensations either, as evidenced by