One grey and drizzly morning in November a few years ago, I jumped in my car and headed to my local Big Tesco.
My intention at Big Tesco was simple: To load my trolly with all of the foods I wanted to eat without anybody being by my side to reassure me.
So, for the first time in a long time, in I went. There would be no lustful browsing. There would be no "I'll buy that next time". I was going to go for it with all of my commitment.
And initially, all was good. All felt fine.
Until, (in the words of Abby Lee Miller), I hear this agitating, grating voice - of a lady nearby who was busy scanning the barcodes of food packets on the shelf. Scan as you shop? No. My Fitness Pal.
She was using her iPhone to scan the barcode of the items in order to announce to her friend (and it seemed to the entire store) the calorie content of the foods she was manhandling.
I rushed ahead, intent not to be put off by display. It's only 2 dieting Dianne's, I told myself. Not your path, Han, I affirmed. Those actions are not in alignment with the life I want to live.
Onwards I went to the freezer section.
Now at the freezers, I paused.
Beside me in the aisle paced a man in a loose gym vest, tight shorts and baseball cap scouring the shelves for ice cream. He had Halo Top in one hand, and an Oppo Ice cream in the other. For those of you who aren't familiar, these are low calorie 'ice creams'. Both went into his basket, accompanying the several tubs of 0% fat greek yoghurt that were resting in there.
Not your path Han, I told myself again. If I opt for those foods, I maintain my eating disorder. The only possible reason I'd be picking them would due to restriction, and fear of the alternative. So, I got the Ben and Jerries that I had written on my list and hurried away.
Though that shopping trip was not a disaster, owing to the stability of my recovery by this point, I remember returning home feeling defeated. Is this the world I am trying to recover into? One where everybody is obsessed with calories, tracking and dieting? One where people scan their foods and trade off satiation for low-energy alternatives? One where 'health' is really just disrespecting and depriving your body's needs?
And so that's exactly what I asked my mum and older sister.
I've never heard the word calorie mentioned in a supermarket, my sister said.
Nobody I know scans their food Han, my mum added.
So what was going on? Why did it seem that everybody and their pet dog was calorie counting to me, but everybody in my sister's and mum's worlds weren't?
And so we come to it, the entire point of this blog.
RAS
The reason behind the phenomena described above is linked to a bundle of nerves at our brainstem. This is called the Reticular Activating System, but I'll refer to it as RAS going forward.
In short, these nerves in our brain are there to filter out unnecessary information so the important stuff gets through. Unbeknown to us and in the background of our mooching, it takes what we focus upon and creates a filter for it. Pretty smart, eh?
A little while ago now, my dad was on the search for a new car, since his was on it's last legs (wheels). Each and every night, he'd present us with photos of one he had his eye on, only to spend the next week searching for a better one. On conclusion that there was no better option, he'd return to a former option, which by then, had obviously been sold. The reason why I'm telling you this is because this is a time I really noticed my RAS in action. Suddenly, any time I hopped in my own car and travelled anywhere, Audi's seemed to dominate the road. Every other car seemed to be the exact Audi model my dad showed us at the dinner table each night.
What was happening here was that since I had been paying attention to my dad's car presentations, my brain was more alert to spotting them. It was sifting through the data (from my environment) and presenting me with the pieces that are important. Forget the tonnes of Fords, the VW's and the Volvo's on the road. My brain had no interest in those. It only alerted me to the Audi's.
Have you had anything like this before? Perhaps when you learnt a new word and now suddenly you have started hearing it everywhere? Or maybe you've been in a crowd full of talking people, yet immediately snap to attention when someone says your name or something that sounds similar? If yes, that's your RAS in action. Trying its best to keep you focusing on the stuff you've been focusing on previously (because it deems that stuff must have been important, otherwise why would you have been focusing on it?!)
One final example of the RAS in action can be observed in a study that was carried out on couples with newborn babies who live near airports. The study found that both parents would sleep right through a plane taking off nearby (extremely loud). Yet, the mother would wake up if the baby stirred in the next room (comparatively, a much lower sound level).
And that’s the Reticular Activating System at work. The RAS learnt through the neural pathways that a plane is not important or threatening to the mum. However, the baby stirring was important information – so the RAS lets it through, allowing the mother to tend to the child.
Confirmed Beliefs
In the same way, the RAS seeks information that validates our beliefs. While we received filtered information from the world through the parameters we give it, our beliefs are actually shaping those parameters. This is where I think it gets really interesting in terms of ED recovery. The RAS makes us see what we want to see and in doing so, influences our actions. So, like as in my Big Tesco venture, my belief system at the time was rooted in fear of higher calorie options, and safety of lower calorie options. Why? Because that's what I'd cemented in my brain through my previous actions, choices, media consumption etc. So, was it actually true that everybody in Big Tesco was choosing to eat low-calorie foods? No. Of course not. There were plenty of very normal eaters in there too. However, my brain was on the lookout for existing biases to confirm. And that's why my mum or sister hadn't noticed calories being discussed or packets being scanned - they hadn't taught their brain that this data was important to be listening out for. And that's why I don't notice people discussing calories in the supermarket now. I've taught my brain that calories are irrelevant data to me (via my actions of not basing food choices on calories), and so my brain doesn't alert me to discussions about them.
Since working with others during their recovery journeys, I've recognised this happening far beyond just the realm of calories. One recent example of this was a client's perception that every woman in the city she was visiting seemed to be thin. In actually, her brain was filtering out the individuals who resided in thin bodies due to the focus she has previously paid to thinness. Her brain was rejecting any information that contested this.
How can we use this in recovery?
I believe that this information about the RAS is really useful for a couple of reasons. First, it can be reassuring to know that our brains are filtering information. We are often getting a distorted image of the truth that has been warped by our ED preoccupations.
Secondly, with the knowledge that our RAS tunes into what we want to pay attention to, we can more readily recognise the harm caused by spending energy on certain actions that communicate importance to your brain (like body checking, nutritional label analysing etc).
Finally, the idea of "setting your intent”is a strategy that mindset coaches use to translate focused desires to actions. This basically means that if we focus hard on our goals, our RAS will reveal the people, information and opportunities that help us achieve them. A completely unrelated to recovery example of this is:
If you really want a pet dog and set your intent on getting one, you’ll tune in to the right information that helps you do that. That doesn't necessarily mean it all falls into place and a dog turns up to your doorstep. It's not manifestation or magic. However, if lots of your energy it going towards your intention of getting one, you will be better equipped with the understanding of how to make it more of a possibility due to being alert to pieces of information that might make it more possible, like adverts about local litters or conversations of dog breeders. It’s not a coincidence that you're suddenly noticing lots of puppies every time you leave the house. It’s your Reticular Activating System influencing the world you see around you.
Comentarios