WEIGHT LOSS AND NEUROSCIENCE
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. PHIL 4:8
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The brain is amazing, it is often said that we only use a small percentage of the brain capacity and that most of our thinking is repeated from learned thoughts or memories from many, many years ago. In March 2016, my father was unresponsive and we took him to the emergency room. I thought he would die that night, but he survived the night. We stayed with him, but he was not able to communicate. All we could do was pray. We said the Lord’s prayer, the Hail Mary and then the Glory be. My dad recited the prayers with us. I was amazed.
I knew he learned those prayers from a young age; my uncles mentioned to me that they would pray as a family the rosary every night. That was not our tradition growing up but we did attend mass every week and those prayers are a part of our vernacular.
Just as prayers can be marked into our brains, so can fears, worries, doubt, traumas. One of our brain’s primary purpose is for our survival. Our brain also seeks comfort and pleasure, which is also tied to our survival. Some of us learned to cope with our environment with food, or we learned to overeat because we were told. Our culture has also trained us to eat often with the boom of the snack industry. In my case, as an endurance athlete, I was taught to eat many small meals, sometime eating every 3 hours. So why is it so easy to develop bad habits? When we eat sweets or rich foods, it releases dopamine, a pleasure hormone, our brain is marked and we learn that this is good. We repeat that action and the brain then forms a strong neuropathway.
Training the brain to stop the habit of overeating goes against our programming and can be challenging. Our brain desires to be efficient and developing new habits require massive effort and reinforcement. Most people will not attempt to evolve their brain because of this effort. In fact, the effort to stop the habit, requires one to fail. It is the failure that strengthens the habit. This sounds counter intuitive, but think of it this way, so a muscle to gain strength you must work to failure then in that failure, the muscle fibers repair stronger. For a toddler to learn to walk, each time that child falls, he or she pushes up to stand again until their muscle gains the strength to stand.
Now let’s look at the brain. The brain is a muscle; to work it you must think. Thinking new thoughts is like push-ups in the mind. I think of building new neuropathways as the groove in the grey matter, it’s kind of like the definition in a muscle.
Let’s say the thought you choose to practice is, “I no longer choose to overeat to comfort myself from fear or boredom.” It would be important to practice this thought daily. Perhaps it works the first two-three days but on the fourth day, you fail. This gives you the opportunity to choose to reinforce the new thought. Most of us would take this a sign to give up, we are not capable. If the toddler decided to give up, no one would walk. Neuroscience says that even mature brains can build new neuropathways, so continue to think new thoughts, especially when you face failure. If you experience failure, you are doing it right. Thinking is the greatest way to evolve our brain.
ox Anna
I knew he learned those prayers from a young age; my uncles mentioned to me that they would pray as a family the rosary every night. That was not our tradition growing up but we did attend mass every week and those prayers are a part of our vernacular.
Just as prayers can be marked into our brains, so can fears, worries, doubt, traumas. One of our brain’s primary purpose is for our survival. Our brain also seeks comfort and pleasure, which is also tied to our survival. Some of us learned to cope with our environment with food, or we learned to overeat because we were told. Our culture has also trained us to eat often with the boom of the snack industry. In my case, as an endurance athlete, I was taught to eat many small meals, sometime eating every 3 hours. So why is it so easy to develop bad habits? When we eat sweets or rich foods, it releases dopamine, a pleasure hormone, our brain is marked and we learn that this is good. We repeat that action and the brain then forms a strong neuropathway.
Training the brain to stop the habit of overeating goes against our programming and can be challenging. Our brain desires to be efficient and developing new habits require massive effort and reinforcement. Most people will not attempt to evolve their brain because of this effort. In fact, the effort to stop the habit, requires one to fail. It is the failure that strengthens the habit. This sounds counter intuitive, but think of it this way, so a muscle to gain strength you must work to failure then in that failure, the muscle fibers repair stronger. For a toddler to learn to walk, each time that child falls, he or she pushes up to stand again until their muscle gains the strength to stand.
Now let’s look at the brain. The brain is a muscle; to work it you must think. Thinking new thoughts is like push-ups in the mind. I think of building new neuropathways as the groove in the grey matter, it’s kind of like the definition in a muscle.
Let’s say the thought you choose to practice is, “I no longer choose to overeat to comfort myself from fear or boredom.” It would be important to practice this thought daily. Perhaps it works the first two-three days but on the fourth day, you fail. This gives you the opportunity to choose to reinforce the new thought. Most of us would take this a sign to give up, we are not capable. If the toddler decided to give up, no one would walk. Neuroscience says that even mature brains can build new neuropathways, so continue to think new thoughts, especially when you face failure. If you experience failure, you are doing it right. Thinking is the greatest way to evolve our brain.
ox Anna
