Meditation for Those of You Struggling With an Eating Disorder

Self Hypnosis and Meditation has many benefits no matter what ails you, whether its chronic pain, depression, anxiety, or an eating disorder. As someone who has suffered from eating disorders for many years, and recovered, I found that meditation is can be a very useful tool in dealing with stress, and finding clarity, balance, and peace in your life.

This is an exercise that you can do in your own home, or any private, quiet setting. This is specifically meant for someone that is currently struggling with Bulimia, Binge eating, or Overeating. I find that it is most effective when you first wake up in the morning.

Lay down somewhere quiet.

Close your eyes and take about 10 deep breaths.

In your mind, repeat these words to yourself:

Feel the energy flowing throughout your body, as you breathe in, your body is falling deeper and deeper into relaxation. Your arms are getting heavier, your legs are getting heavier, your head is getting heavier, and your whole torso is getting heavier and heavier.... now your body feels so heavy that you cannot lift your arms or legs. Your eyelids feel so heavy that you cannot open them. Now visualize a white light hovering over your head, the light is there to absorb all the negative feelings you have, it's there to absorb all your pain and sadness, all your frustration, all your self destructive feelings, and all the hate you store towards yourself. Now the light soaks all this pain up and now the light leaves your body along with all your negative feelings.

Now there is a bulb of blue light the blue light is a ball of positive energy, warmth and love. The blue light enters through your heart and flows throughout your body. Now you will feel love towards yourself. The blue light tells you t no longer loathe yourself and your body, the blue light tells you to eat when you are hungry and to use food only as fuel. The blue light tells you not to use food as a means of control or to use it as a means to comfort yourself in times of stress or sadness. The blue light will give you self love, peace, and happiness.

Now breathe deeply and with each breathe wake up a little more, by the 10th breathe, you will be fully wake......

Repeat this exercise whenever you feel like binge eating. Sometimes you're body doesn't really need the nourishment, your mind and soul does, and you are using food as that replacement.

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Mindfulness of Breath or Mindful Breathing for Eating Disorder Sufferers

Mindful breathing originates from Buddhism and it has been taught for centuries. In fact it is one of the major principles of Buddhism and you must learn it first of all in order to be a Buddhist.

We need to learn mindful breathing to be able to control our body and mind as well as our cravings, urges and feelings. When people have eating disorders they don't breathe properly: their breathing is usually shallow, erratic, superficial, sometimes difficult. How often have you been out of breath - just for no reason at all? How often have you been unable to take a deep breath although you felt like you need one?

Breathing is a vital body function and therefore mindful breathing is an important part of your recovery from an eating disorder.

Now, I ask you to sit in a chair comfortably, or cross-legged on the floor -whatever you like the best. Relax and be mindful. This means you should focus all your attention to your breathing without judgment and reactivity. Just a word of judgment will slow down the healing process significantly, so don't judge, don't react. Just surrender.

This set of exercises teaches you to concentrate your attention on your breath without stretching any muscles. This what we call - mindfulness of breathing.

Mindfulness of breathing will make you relax without any stretch, wherever you are, at home, at work, alone, even in bed. Being able to observe the breath and have a degree of control over our reactivity, or perhaps attitude towards the breath is important in the sense that we are starting to learn self control, not just relaxation.

This set of exercises will also help in developing a degree of concentration in your mind. Often our mind is busy, stressed, obsessive, where we repeat over and over negative thoughts, unhelpful thoughts. This exercise will help you focus and remain focused.

Make sure you sit comfortably, in a chair which keeps your back straight, and this time your neck must also be kept straight. Neck straight, back straight, comfortable seated. Focus all your attention at the entrance of your nostrils and be aware of the breath coming in, going out. Simple breath, only breath, your own breath.

Feel the air you breathing - it may feel warm or cold. Just feel it without judging and be simply aware that the air is flowing continuously at the entrance of your nostrils. Notice if it comes more through the right or left nostril, if it deep or shallow, fast or slow.

When you are aware of the incoming and outgoing breath, there is no past or future. You are in the present moment, from moment to moment. Time almost doesn't exist.

It is not often that your brain is in the present moment. Your mind wanders: in the past, in the future, in other dreams or fantasies but very rarely stays in the present moment. There are reasons for which this occurs. There are parts of the brain which are constantly activated by habit or because there's a memory that is more or less stressful or emotional. The strength of this activation in the brain is such that we tend to repeat the thought or the memory. And because of this repetition, these pathways in the brain are activated and the thoughts related to these pathways keep intruding. They keep intruding over, and over, and over again, until you stop nurturing them by not thinking them.

Try just observe what is, rather than thinking of what is. Don't count "One, two, One, two." Or "In, out, in out... ",. It can actually make you forget about the breath. It can put you right in the mode of thinking, not just observing.

Learn about your own mind by focusing on your breath, from moment to moment, without judging, evaluating, or reacting to the experience. Keep practicing.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a recognised athority in the eating disorders area. She is an author of many books on women health. She propagates mindfulness therapy and neuroplasticity as a treatment for eating disorders.

http://meditation-sensation.com/

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How To Cope With The Social Stigma Of a Eating Disorder

Obsessive thinking means having thoughts of food and eating, or your weight and body shape, on your mind for most of the time. Compulsive eating has a lot in common with bulimia. One way in which they are similar is the vicious cycle of avoiding food and losing control of your eating and feeling depressed and a failure. How they differ, is that compulsive over-eaters tend to eat a little food a lot of the time and do not try to get rid of it afterwards, while bulimia involves distinct periods of binge-eating and purging. Large amounts of food can be consumed throughout each day, however, and most compulsive over-eaters are overweight, and obese. The average age of compulsive over-eaters is older than anorexia and bulimia.

Why do people become compulsive about their eating? It reflects a particular kind of relationship with food. Food can become a substitute for other sources of pleasure and ways of valuing ourselves that may be lacking in the compulsive over eater's life. It can become an attempt to keep one's attention from painful experiences, thoughts or feelings one is unwilling or unable to face. Compulsion is about control and desperately wanting to be in control but feeling that one lacks control. This can be a lack of control over one's eating, one's body, one's behaviour, one's emotions, one's relationships, the things one fears. The compulsive eating holds in abeyance all those other things in which one fears not being able to have any control. Being out of control in other areas of your life. Overeating can become the smokescreen that conceals the real things one fears and avoiding it.

There are lots of theories about what causes eating disorders. Certain personality characteristics and family types have been suggested as risk factors. This is not to say these factors must always be present for an eating disorder to develop (or that they inevitability lead to eating disorders). It simply means that one may be more at risk if one has these personality characteristics or lived in one of these families. Also, these factors tend to be interconnected, and personality should be seen in the context of family background. Certain personality characteristics and life experiences show to increase the risk of someone developing an eating disorder. This produces a dependency on others, but also a fear of the effect others might have. Becoming socially isolated and withdrawing from people to the point of fearing social contact. Whether or not one is introverted or socially isolated before developing an eating disorder, it is virtually inevitable one will become so afterwards. This becomes a serious problem for many eating disorder sufferers. Once social contact is lost it can be exceedingly difficult to re-establish. Social isolation and loss of friends brings depression and a desperate sense of helplessness. Deprived of stimulating activities, your world can shrink around you, leaving only your eating and body-image to focus on. Becoming increasingly preoccupied, one sinks deeper into a self-perpetuating cycle of desperation and loss of self-control. A lot of anorexics have this characteristic, and it often reflects a rigid family background.

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Dealing With an Eating Disorder

It can be difficult to understand why a close friend or family member succumbed to the horrible world of eating disorders. It can be even more difficult to pull yourself out of that world if you are the one in it. There are a number of reasons why people, especially young women and girls, will end up in the downward spiral that is anorexia or bulimia, but most will agree that it is because they simply want to be thin. Sadly, Hollywood is not helping with their insanely thin movie stars, and social media only makes the problem worse. A simple Google search for "ana is beautiful" (in reference to anorexia) shows that there are too many people who have a twisted view on these terrifying and deadly disorders.

Anorexia nervosa is an extreme psychological disorder where the person will eat very little in order to become thin. They are usually terrified of becoming overweight, and so control their diet much more strictly than anyone ever should. Anorexia nervosa is different from anorexia, which is simply a loss of appetite or interest in food. Women who suffer from anorexia nervosa typically are so unhealthy that they do not have regular menstrual cycles, which can lead to osteopenia and may eventually develop into osteoporosis. They are also at risk of developing other health issues like an irregular heartbeat, dehydration, depression, rough scaly skin, water intoxication, and kidney stones, among others.

Bulimia nervosa is also categorized as a psychological disorder. The person will binge on major amounts of food, stuffing themselves full, and will feel guilty afterward. This will lead to overreactions such as purging (which means to vomit on purpose), exercising more than they can handle at a time, and taking on crash diets. They may also overuse laxatives and deny themselves food. The problem in the beginning is that they will feel like they cannot control their eating, that they must continue to eat. It can be difficult to identify whether someone has bulimia nervosa because their body weight may seem fine, unlike with anorexia nervosa.

In the end, each of these disorders, as well as binge eating on its own, must be addressed by a professional in order to make sure the individual can recover appropriately. There are several routes they can take, such as psychotherapy, hospitalization, or checking into a facility that specializes in eating disorders. The problem with getting them to accept treatment is that they know food will always be a part of their lives as long as they live. An eating disorder is not like a drug problem, because with drugs, you can simply choose to avoid people who lead that lifestyle. Eating disorders follow you around, and you can't avoid food because if you do, you will die. This is why people who suffer from anorexia or bulimia are resistant to seeking treatment, and you must work hard to be sympathetic instead of angry.

If you are suffering from one of these psychological issues, please seek treatment and ensure you have insurance for your medical needs. Read stories about anorexia in order to better understand your disease and open your mind to treatment.

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Do You Know Somebody With An Eating Disorder?

Shriveled pin-like girls that sip on coke all day or those that burn the last of their life's fats away feverishly on a treadmill or still those that throw up every meal they 'accidentally' ingest are not all that a rare sight these days. They are everywhere. Young women that have Anorexia or Bulimia are on the rise. Unfortunately, most women have nothing on their minds but how to get rid of a couple of more pounds. They work up strategies, follow them religiously and make it a matter of life and death for themselves- quite literally so!

To most of us, it seems hilariously insane; to yet others, the strangest of the strange phenomenon. However, what most of us fail to recognize is that Anorexics and Bulimics are nothing but people who require a good psychological treatment. It has been shown by recent research that eating disorders are a result of underlying psychological inadequacies or pressures. The cultural idealization, or rather 'idolization', of slim, youthful body-types has led to increased peer pressure. Propagation of this ideology via social media has had no beneficial effect on the scenario either. These sufferers tend to refuse having a normal healthy body weight, obsessively fear over gaining pounds and consider themselves to be, unrealistically so, over-weight; when all they truly are is under-weight.

Anorexia can cause menstruation to stop, eat away at the bones, lead to disintegration of the skin and stress the heart muscles out. In the worst cases, it can also lead to death. Bulimia, on the other hand, is the name given to a recurrent cycle of binge eating and purging. The patient nibbles away at food all through the day, taking in more than they should and purges it away through self-induced vomiting, fasting or excessive exercise. It is not to be forgotten that apart from all this, these patients are in a constant state of turmoil where they have to deal with conflicting thoughts and feelings of guilt. It shows how an eating disorder can turn your life upside down and throw you into depression.

The bitter reality? Such eating disorders are only just on the rise. That day is not far when each of us will know someone who has an eating disorder; be it someone who runs away from food or someone who maintains an obsessive relationship with it. So, do you know someone with an eating disorder?

Irteza R is an expert online author and an internet marketing specialist. He enjoys reading novels as much as he enjoys writing articles.

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