Welcome to The Eating Disorder Institute

Meditation for Eating Disorders.

Meditation for eating disorders is an important part of the healing process.  Whether you have anorexia, bulimia or binge eating meditation will bring you enormous benefits if practiced regularly on daily basis.

People who meditate regularly are able to re-focus their mind which is important to recovery. Although it sounds easy to do it is not simple to learn especially for beginners and this is why some people say that they tried to meditate but gave up because it didn’t help them.

The point is that they didn’t do it correctly. They didn’t focus while meditating and allowed their brain to wonder and allowed other thoughts to come into their mind while they were meditating. This was their biggest mistake.

There is no point in doing meditation if your head is full of other thoughts during the meditation exercise.  When you meditate (especially for stopping an ED) you should concentrate completely on the meditation and not on anything else. You must learn to let any stray thoughts flow through your mind and not get stuck in there.

Ideally, meditation should reach your subconscious mind (where eating disorders live). The subconscious mind can only be reached if the conscious mind (thoughtful, logical mind) is silent. If your mind is constantly processing thoughts, that means your subconscious is shut and is dominated by conscious mind at that time.

Healing from an eating disorder occurs when your brain works on the subconscious level and let me state here: only the subconscious level not the logical level. Why is that?  – You may ask. It is because your subconscious mind is responsible for all your feelings and emotions.

It does not work on logic or rationalizing, you can not rationalise your way out of an eating disorder: if you could no one would have an ED. Eating disorders are a problem of your feelings and emotions and these are the domain of the subconscious mind.

ED sufferers normally don’t have problems with their logical part of the brain. Many of them are very intelligent and even high achievers. They understand that what they do in terms of eating does not make sense and is harmful to the body: but they still continue to abuse it because of their problem with the subconscious part of the mind.

The subconscious part of the brain works on pictures, senses and emotions. People have a certain picture of themselves in their mind and that’s why they are driven so much to achieve this image, whether it is factual image or not.

When people starve themselves or binge and purge they do it not because of logic, they do it because of the strange internal sensations they have which leads them to perform these abnormal behaviours based on food abuse.

The subconscious mind also holds your belief system, your memories, your automatic responses and your programming. Eating disorders live there and that’s why they become automatic – people start their abusive food behaviour automatically although they may not necessary want to do it.

So, how will meditation help recover from eating disorders?

1.       Meditation will improve confidence and self-control.

2.       Reduce stress which provokes ED symptoms.

3.       Improve concentration on positive things and stop focusing on the ED.

4.       Bring inner certainty which is important for the sufferer.

5.       Improve people’s relationships with others and themselves.

6.       Improve immune system response and health overall.

7.       Bring joy into their life.

8.       Give their ability to let go negative emotions when they arrive.

9.       Improve their ability to work and study.

To conclude, regular meditation (mindful awareness) should be the number 1 strategy used to get better for people with eating disorders. If you haven’t mastered meditation yet – you still remain a slave of your own mind.  Master meditation and you will become a master of your mind. You have a choice of who you want to be: a slave or a master. I would certainly go for a master.

Dr Irina Webster MD.

Mindfulness Training for Eating Disorders.

Most eating disorders are linked to significant amounts of stress, mood disturbance, anxiety, phobias, substance abuse, and physical complications. All these factors have to be addressed when someone is trying to overcome an eating disorder.

Mindfulness training is a technique which can help a person to cope with all these factors. Mindfulness means a calm awareness of body functions, feelings, emotions, thoughts and sensations. Mindfulness consists of paying attention to an experience of the present moment – without moving into thoughts from the past or concerns about the future. Using mindfulness training people with eating disorders can attain control over their body and mind.

What exactly does mindfulness do for the mind and body?  The main benefits of mindfulness are:

1.       Calm and quiet the mind. This will bring more happiness, joy, positive feelings, appreciation and gratitude into people’s lives.  It will also increase kindness to yourself and others which is necessary for ED sufferers as they often behave badly to themselves and others due to their conditioning.

2.       Diminish the grip of habitual responses that cause suffering. ED sufferers all have certain habitual responses to their feelings, thoughts and emotions. For example, bulimics have habits to binge-purge at a certain time a day; anorexics have strict habits and routines about their diets and exercising.

Mindfulness can diminish these habitual behaviours to the point that the sufferer is able to choose how she/he is going to behave at a particular moment.

For example, instead of realizing 10-30 minutes later that you’ve been lost in bad thoughts about your body, weight, food, your bad memories or fantasies from the past, a person can stop themself after only 30-60 seconds from wandering thoughts using mindfulness training. With practise, people can increasingly observe these habitual responses and choose to respond in other more constructive ways.

3.       Develop a stronger “observing self”. This means to observe what one does. It is like you having a third person who sits inside your own chest and constantly watches what you do.
Mindfulness makes a person become an observer of what one does, thinks and feels.  This helps to have better control over their eating disorder thoughts and behaviours.

For example, when a person gets stressed, instead of reaching for alcohol or going on a binge -purge cycle, the person could simply sit and observe the negative emotions and sensations which were brought on by the stress until they are gone.

Unlike relaxation techniques mindfulness can be developed to the point where it can be practiced in the middle of stressful situations. So instead of reacting to stress a person starts to respond wisely. While being mindful a person can still remain alert and respond appropriately to the situation at hand, instead of being over powered by it.

4.       Slow down the pace of thoughts and become more attune to the present moment.   Eating disorder people often complain that they have too much continual inner “chatter” and images from the past or from the future in their minds.
This chatter and images don’t simply go away, because that’s the nature of the human mind. But they can be settled down with practice. This settling down of the mental processes brings relaxation and freedom.

With practice one will have the ability to choose what to think about instead of being dragged along with uncontrolled thoughts and feelings. This effect can be experience after just 8-12 minutes of mindfulness state of mind. So, if one practices mindful awareness at least 10 -15 min a day, it may possible for him/her to choose what to think instead of their thoughts going uncontrolled.

Mindfulness will also increase your concentration letting you perform task , study and work with better accuracy. It also improves the immune system and general health. It regulates the autonomic nervous system which control automatic functions of the body organs. Mindfulness is a great anti- aging factor as it improves metabolism of the cells.

Most eating disorder sufferers who practice mindfulness training find it an incredible tool to beat their problem right at root of the disorder, in the subconscious mind .

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