As We Think, So Do We Eat?
Did you hear Dr. Alan Marlatt on KUOW (one of Seattle's NPR affiliates) Friday? If not, you can listen on-line at kuow.org. He was a guest on "Sound Focus" at 2 p.m. Marlatt is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, with a focus on addictive behaviors. In the 1970s he began studying college students who were heavy drinkers. He was using meditation to lower his blood pressure, and found that teaching the students to meditate and be mindful reduced drinking rates by 50%. Since I am always on the lookout for ways to ease my tendency to eat impulsively, I plan to read whatever I can find about his work. During the radio interview he described imagining our urge as an ocean wave and our breath is the surfboard that moves us through it. He says 'urge surfing' will make the craving subside. Do you use your mind to help you eat healthy? As we think, so do we eat?
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I did not hear Dr. Marlatt speak. But using the mind to help understand and "control" urges is new. Jack Kornfield is just one of many practitioners in the healing arts (psychology, western medicine, integrative therapies, etc) who has written on the subject, and in his book, "A Path With a Heart", he talks about using Mindfulness to engage (without harm) whatever urge or lust/desire thoughtfully, instead of simply resisting or running away from the strong emotions attached to these urges. One example he gives is a monk who had an overwhelming desire to eat mounds of sweets. After engaging this thought for sometime, he mindfully purchased and began to eat a decent sized portion of these sweet foods, tasting and chewing carefully, enjoying every morsel. The forbiddenness of it was over within the first bite, and he found that thinking about having to eat all of it was what he thought it would be. Without having to eat much of it at all, his overwhelming desire to eat sweets diminished.
One of the exercises I have people do with me is one that coms from the Mindfulness Meditation camp: mindfully eat one raisin, as slowly as possible, and observe everything associated with eating that raisin. People find that there is much going on in the process of eating, if they will just pay attention! Eating with that kind of mindfulness slows the process down, makes it enjoyable, and makes preparing your food feel more worthwhile.
As I finish preparing the framework for my first set of 6 classes on Yoga for Weight Loss, I feel really determined to give my group opportunity to experience this, and see that it does make a difference in the way they select and enjoy food.
I appreciate your insights. Did I know about your Yoga for Weight Loss class? How can I find more information on it? Thanks, yogadancer.
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