Eating Disorders

A study performed by researchers at the School of Psychology at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia found that exposure to idealized media images of “perfect” thin female and muscular male body types had negative effects on an individual’s own body image and body change behaviors.

One hundred thirty-three women and 93 men were assessed for body image beliefs before being exposed to the images. The researchers wanted to know how certain psychological factors predicted changes in the study participants’ emotions after being exposed.

The Eating Disorder Inventory-2, the Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire, and the strategies to increase muscles subscale of the Body Change Inventory were used to assess attitudes before image exposure. Participants were surveyed for body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin/athletic ideal, body comparison, self-esteem, depression and identity confusion.

Researchers wanted to see if attitudes in these areas made people more or less susceptible to body dissatisfaction and unhealthy body change behavior after viewing idealized images.

After being assessed, the participants were exposed to idealized thin female and muscular male models. Visual analogue scales were used to measure changes in post-exposure state body dissatisfaction, anger, anxiety and depression.

Results showed a marked increase in eating disorder symptoms in women and body dissatisfaction in men. Women appeared to be affected by their attitudes in all psychological areas assessed; men were mostly affected by psychological attitudes in internalization and body comparison. 

What’s interesting is that the women began to display a change in behavior, picking up eating disorder behavior as a result of exposure. Men simply felt badly about their own bodies, but they did not appear to turn to drastic measures as a result.

This may be because women were more affected by the state of their self-esteem than the men, which could make them more likely to “punish” their bodies as a result of dissatisfaction.

This information points to a possible need for greater media responsibility in relation to the images they portray. People also need to be educated about the role of the media and the ways in which those portrayed achieved the “ideal” bodies. Many images are airbrushed, and many models turn to unhealthy behaviors to achieve the supposedly “healthy ideal.” 

If you want to know more can go here

Does bulimia affect the way my brain works?

Having bulimia can cause your brain to start working in a different way. This has a lot to do with Endorphins, Malnutrition and Serotonin.

Endorphins

Endorphins are powerful, natural drug-like chemicals that allow you to experience pleasure, a reduction in pain and lower levels of stress.

Endorphins are natural opiates which have a very similar effect to heroin on your brain. This can explain why having bulimia can sometimes feel like an addiction. Bingeing and purging triggers waves of endorphins which helps to establish the powerful compulsions you feel when you get the urge to binge and purge.

Has bingeing and purging ever given you that ‘high’ feeling? One explanation for this is the ‘flood of endorphins’ that surge through your brain. Of course over time your brain becomes accustomed to your elevated levels of endorphins and needs more to create the same effect. This demand and reliance usually compels you to increase episodes of bingeing and purging.

The obsessive behaviour that you often experience when you have bulimia is often caused by nutritional deficiencies.

 Protein malnutrition

With restriction (remember bulimia is a form of restriction) the activity of the brain shrinks. When this happens your natural brain chemistry becomes disrupted and you can experience anxiety, depression, irritability, obsessiveness and low self esteem. This is primarily a result of protein malnutrition because the four brain chemicals that control your mood are all derived from the amino acids in protein.

Tryptophan, Serotonin and Bulimia

You have probably heard of serotonin – it is one of the most well know mood regulators. Serotonin is made from an amino acid called tryptophan. When you don’t get enough tryptophan serotonin levels can drop very low very fast. Tryptophan is just one of the nine essential proteins needed for your brain to function properly.

Regardless of your life circumstances or accomplishments, when your serotonin levels drop so do your feelings of self-esteem. As the brain continues to be starved it can only deteriorate further and become more self-critical. When this happens you become even more trapped by your bulimia.

Just as a vitamin C deficiency results in an outbreak of red spots, a tryptophan (and serotonin) deficiency results in an outbreak of obsessive and compulsive behaviour.

Of course there may be additional psychological elements in the picture too, but a low-serotonin brain is ill equipped to resolve them.

INTERESTING FACT...        

In many people a drop in serotonin and a lack of essential nutrients causes a loss of appetite, but in some people, for reasons that we don’t entirely understand the appetite and desire to binge actually increases.   

What about the evidence?

• In one study people with bulimia were deprived of the protein tryptophan. As a result their serotonin levels dropped and they binged more violently, eating and purging an average of 900 calories extra each day.
• In a separate study adding extra tryptophan to the diet reduced bulimic binges and mood problems.
• Recently it was suggested that even years into recovery, people could experience a return of their cravings, compulsions to binge and purge and mood problems after only a few hours of tryptophan depletion.

This evidence suggests that not getting enough tryptophan could actually lead to the development of bulimia.

Here at bulimia help, while we understand that there are often psychological elements to consider in relation to the development of bulimia we KNOW that taking practical steps to reverse malnutrition and vitamin and mineral deficiencies really is the main key to recovery.

If you want to know more can go here

Self-Esteem and Self-Acceptance

It seems like everywhere you look there are books and blogs and television segments on how to improve your self-esteem.  But what is self-esteem and why do we want to increase it, anyway?  Self-esteem relates to your sense of worth or excellence as a person.  To have a healthy self-esteem is to show concern or respect for yourself.  And the truth is the way we treat ourselves is the way we will allow or tolerate others to treat us.  Clearly, it is vitally important to have a healthy self-esteem so that we can treat ourselves and others in a respectful, kind, and personally responsible manner.

Self-esteem actually grows out of something called self-acceptance.  Self-acceptance is when we can accept our weaknesses or faults without an undue amount of self-punishment.  It is also when we can happily accept compliments, believe them, and acknowledge the good seen in us by others.  Many of us struggle to see the good in ourselves while focusing an inordinate amount of attention on what we perceive to be our faults or weaknesses.  How sad it is that we human beings often create stories about how and who we are, using the negatives we see, and cling to them as if they defined us absolutely, as if there was no possibility for change. 

But humans do possess free will and the ability to choose differently each day.  If you consider yourself to be a certain way, you will have created evidence in your life that you are this way.  Think of something you would like to accomplish, some big goal or dream that you have.  Now, instead of thinking of all the reasons why you can’t do it (because you are shy, or unintelligent, or lazy, or worthless, or some other imagination you have decided to believe about yourself) think of a positive trait that you know you possess.

  Let’s say you believe yourself to be bold or that you have boldness in you.  When facing a daunting task ask yourself what a bold person would do in that situation.  Now, act “as if” you were that bold person.  It will not be comfortable at first but this is okay.  You are starting the process of “fake it until you make it.”  Soon enough, as you act more boldly in all areas of your life, you self-esteem will grow.  The truth is you already possess the quality of boldness among a myriad of other positive traits.  It is just a matter of pulling it forth, and practicing it until you are comfortable.

Suggested Activity:  Grab your trusty pen and journal.  Think of a child in your life.  Think of all the characteristics he or she possesses.  Focus on the positives and write the list through the eyes of love you have for this little person.  Now, think about this.  You were a child once, and therefore possess from the day of your very birth all the amazing characteristics that you’ve just listed.  Maybe you haven’t been expressing certain characteristics on your list lately, but they are in you nonetheless.  How does knowing this change the way you see yourself? 

Be Courageous!

Dr. Todd Snyder

If you want to know more can go here

4 Reasons Intelligent People Fail Socially

In my years of teaching people how to overcome their shyness and social anxiety, there’s a weird pattern that I keep noticing again and again…

…and again and again and again…

…and it really amazes me.

I Call It “The Genius Failure Paradox”

“The Genius Failure Paradox” is the tendency for UNUSUALLY intelligent people to have very LOW levels of social skills or confidence.

After contemplating this particular paradox, discussing it, and working on it for an awesome amount of time, I’d like to share my thoughts about it with you.

I assume that if you’ve read this far, then you probably see yourself as smarter than the average man or woman.

You know that you’re a little different than other people.

You probably realized at a young age that you saw things differently and thought differently than others in school…

And you’ve probably realized that your smart mind gives you an advantage over others in many areas of life…

But unfortunately, this smart mind of yours can actually be WORSE than USELESS when it comes to…

Your Social Life

By the way, I did say WORSE than useless.

It can actually be like having a hammer when you need to tighten a bolt. If you use the tool you have for the job, you’ll most likely make the situation WORSE.

Of course, it’s hard for a smart guy to even IMAGINE a situation where his smart mind could HURT his chances for success…

But trust me, this is one of those situations.

So relax, open your smart mind, and let me share with you the ten reasons why smart people fail in social situations… and what to do about it.

REASON #1: They Look For Information, Not Skills

It BLOWS MY MIND how many smart people I meet that just don’t GET IT when it comes to basic social skills.

When they want to overcome shyness or social anxiety, they look for that one magic piece of information that will let them fool other people into liking them, instead of actually becoming a genuinely outgoing person on the inside.

It’s as if they have logically reasoned that social skills are for lower beings who need to play games… and not worth the time it would take to learn them.

Social skills are just that… SKILLS.

They’re not social INFORMATION.

They’re not social THEORIES.

They’re social SKILLS.

And you don’t get them by THINKING about them. You get them by GETTING them.This means you’ll learn more by in one hour of actually getting out of the house and talking to people than you will in ten hours of “education”.

You get better by DOING. Period.

This leads me to…

REASON #2: They Think Too Much

Do you ever notice how so many people out there who are great at being confident and making conversation also happen to be…

Downright stupid!

It usually doesn’t take long to realize that the people who are the most sure of themselves also often happen to be unintelligent.

Why can people who SUCK at thinking be total ROCKSTARS when it comes to socializing?

And why do YOU, a smart person, find it so difficult to act confident when you probably deserve to do so more than most people?

It’s because making conversation and socializing can’t be “figured out” or solved by thinking.

But that’s what most shy and socially anxious people try to do.

If they can’t think of what to say, they go on thinking and thinking and thinking…

Never realizing that THINKING TOO MUCH is one of the main reasons they have a problem to begin with!

If you are standing around a group conversation, and not talking, it may be tempting to retreat into your head and get carried away in thought. You have to use some discipline to resist this temptation. Force yourself to “stay with” the conversation and stay involved with it. Once your focus is in the right place, then it becomes a lot easier to come up with things to say.

REASON #3: They Psych Themselves Out

Smart people do something that fascinates the hell out of me…

They come up with all the reasons why everything WON’T WORK when it comes to social situations.

They actually figure out why what it is that they would like to do will probably fail…They use their amazing creative imaginations to imagine all kinds of horrible pictures and scenes…

And then they use those imaginary outcomes to create negative emotions… which ultimately stop them from having success.

THEY DON’T EVEN TRY.

Now, if you’ve thought something through and come up with a good reason why it would fail, it makes sense to not do it, right?

I mean, why would you want to do things that are going to fail?

It is sound logical, but HORRIBLE thinking when it comes to the REAL WORLD… and overcoming shyness and social anxiety.

Because shy and socially anxious people have a tendency to OVERESTIMATE. You overestimate the probability that something bad will happen, and you overestimate the consequences if something bad did happen.

Usually, failure is not as big a deal as your mind makes it out to be. The little failures are necessary to improve your skills.

Using your mind to come up with all the reasons why things won’t work in this area of your life and then avoiding them … this is what leads to ULTIMATE FAILURE.

You must learn to overcome this habit if you have it.

REASON #4: They Can’t Deal With Fear And Other Emotions

A smart person’s STRENGTH is his MIND.

His WEAKNESS is often his EMOTIONS.

Smart people are often IMMOBILIZED by FEAR.

Totally stopped.

FROZEN.

And since many smart guys aren’t comfortable dealing with things they’re not good at, they just repress or RUN away from fear.

Many people would rather DIE in lonely isolation than admit that they don’t know how to deal with their emotions… or, GOD FORBID, ask for help!

Hey, I went for YEARS like this.

I know what it’s like.

But the reality is that anyone can learn to handle and even MASTER their emotions (even fear)…if they just take the time and effort to learn HOW to do it.

If this is you, then do yourself a big favor… take the time. Take the effort.

Don’t worry about whether someone else will look down on you for studying “self help.”

What matters is you doing the things that YOU need to do FOR YOU.

…I think the reason why I’m so fascinated with “The Genius Failure Paradox” is because I have had to struggle with all of these issues for a lot of years of my life.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m the smartest guy on the planet…

But, I don’t think mamma raised no fool.

And it always bothered the hell out of me that even though I was so good at figuring things out…

…I couldn’t figure out what I was missing when it came to being social.

Something tells me that you know what I’m talking about.

Well, after beating my head against the wall for a few years… trying all kinds of crazy stuff… I finally got the “bright” idea to start studying people who were “naturally” good socially.

By carefully studying what the “naturals” did in social situations… and learning how they minds worked, I began to realize that overcoming shyness and social anxiety wasn’t entirely LOGICAL.

I realized I was doing many things in a fundamentally wrong way, and the more I tried to “fix” my problems, the less progress I made.

It was only after I started to change my core personality and truly become more extroverted that I started to make progress.

Much of what I learned was very tough for me to accept… because my logical brain just didn’t want to buy into it.

It’s like that quote that goes “You cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking which created it.”

That’s what this is like.

It took me quite a long time, but I continued to learn, test, and refine what I was learning until I personally figured out how to overcome shyness and social anxiety…

I learned how to become confident whenever and wherever…

I learned how to build a social circle of friends from scratch…

…and most importantly, I learned how to GET RID of that “empty” feeling that I carried around my whole life because I didn’t know how to not be a hermit.

And once I got this area of my own life together, I decided to start helping other shy and socially anxious people get this area of THEIR lives together.

If you want to know more can go here

End Anxious Thoughts In 4 Easy Steps

After having visited my site I can almost imagine what your repetitive anxious thought might be.

Maybe it’s a fear of:

-a panic attack
-never being free of general anxiety
-a bodily sensation that worries you
-a fear of losing control to anxiety
My name is Barry McDonagh and I have successfully taught thousands of people in over 30 different countries, how to end general anxiety and panic attacks.



Whatever your particular fear is, I want to share some tips and techniques with you over the coming days that will not only help you end these fears but also reduce your general anxiety level dramatically.

After many years of coaching people to be anxiety free, I have noticed that those who experience panic attacks or general anxiety almost always deal with the frequent occurrence of anxious thoughts.

Anxiety has a sneaky way of seeding doubt regardless of whether the fear is rational or irrational.

So what can be done for people who suffer from repetitive anxious thoughts?

To begin, lets look at how an anxious thought is powered and then I will demonstrate how to quickly eliminate the intensity of the thought.

Say for example you are going about your daily business when an anxious thought enters your mind.

Whatever the nature of the thought, the pattern that follows is usually quite predictable.

The anxious thought flashes briefly in your awareness and as it does so you immediately react with fear as you contemplate the thought. The fearful reaction you have to the thought then sends a shock-wave through your nervous system. You feel the result of that fear most intensely in your stomach (due to the amount of nerve endings located there).

Because of the intense bodily reaction to the thought you then get sucked into examining the anxious thought over and over.

The continuous fearful reaction you have to the thought, increases the intensity of the experience. The more you react, the stronger the thought rebounds again in your awareness creating more anxious shock-waves throughout your body. This is the typical cycle of anxious thoughts.

For some it feels like the anxious thoughts are hijacking their peace of mind.

Because of the reaction you are having, you may continue to spend the rest of your day thinking about the anxious thoughts you experienced.

“Why am I thinking these thoughts?” “Why can’t I shake off this eerie feeling?”

The harder you try not to think about it, the more upset you become. It is like telling someone

‘Whatever happens do not think of a pink elephant’.

Naturally enough it’s all they can think about. That’s the way our brains our wired.

So how can you eliminate these unwanted anxious thoughts?

To begin with:

-when you start to experience anxious thoughts, it is very important not to force the thoughts away.

Let the thoughts in. The more comfortable you can become with them, the better. These thoughts will never go away fully but what you can learn is to change your reaction to them.

By changing your reaction to the anxious thoughts you become free of them.

Once you establish a new way of reacting to the thoughts it does not matter if you have them or not. Your reaction is what defines the whole experience (and that applies to almost everything).

Everybody experiences fleeting thoughts that many would consider scary or crazy. The difference between most people and somebody who gets caught up in them, is that the average person sees them for exactly what they are, fleeting anxious thoughts, and casually ignores them.

The anxious person is at a disadvantage as they already have a certain level of anxiety in their system. The thoughts easily spark feelings of further anxiety which builds into a cycle of fear. You break the cycle by changing how you react to the fearful thought.

Here is an example of how to approach this:

You are enjoying the way your day is going but then all of sudden a fearful thought comes to mind.

Before you would react with anxiety to the idea and then try to force that thought out of your mind.

This time, however, say:

“That’s a fear of X. I could worry and even obsess over that but this time I’m going to do something different. I’m not going to react to it. I’m also not going to try and stop it either. I’m just going to label the thought and not react.”

Then the thought comes again with more intensity and possibly with new ‘scary’ angles you never considered. When this happens you do exactly the same. As if you were observing a cloud passing overhead, you simply

-Observe it,

-Label it (fear of whatever), then

-Watch it as it passes by with no judgment.

then

-Move your attention on to what you were doing.

Observe, Label, Watch, Move on

See the anxious thought for what it really is: -one of the thousands of fleeting sane and insane thoughts every one of us experiences daily.



If you are a more indoors type of person then instead of thinking of the thoughts like clouds passing in the sky, you might try imagining a large cinema screen and the anxious thoughts are projected out onto the screen in front of you. Play around with this approach. Find what works for you.

The key thing to remember is to:

Observe, Label, Watch, Move on

By practicing this approach you gradually stop reacting with fear to the thought and you learn to treat it as nothing more than an odd peculiarity.

When you are at a stage where you are comfortable doing the above exercise and you feel you are making good progress, then try this additional step:

Actually invite one of your more regular fearful thoughts in.

Call the fear to you, say you just want it to come close so you can observe it.

It may seem like the last thing you would wish to bring upon yourself, as you don’t particularly enjoy these thoughts but this approach can be very empowering. You are now calling the shots. You actually invited the issue in.

By doing this you are discharging the dense vibration of fear surrounding the anxious thought. That fear was sustaining itself on your resistance, -the idea that you could not handle these thoughts.

The fear quickly evaporates when you turn around and say “yes of course I can handle these thoughts.”

Fear intensifies when we pull away from it. Anxious thoughts become a mental tug of war if we struggle with them.

It is the mental struggle of pulling against the anxious thoughts that creates the inner psychological tension.

The inner tension is fueled by thoughts like:

“I can’t handle to think about this -please go away”

“I don’t like that thought- I want it to stop!”

Take a different stance. Invite anxious thoughts in. Willingly sit with them, label them and do your very best not to react.

Yes, it does take practice but very soon you find yourself in a unique position of control. You are no longer a victim of fearful thinking but a decision maker in what you will or will not be concerned about.

As with every technique there is always a level of practice involved in the beginning. Initially you start observing but then suddenly get anxious about the fearful thought. That’s very normal in the beginning.

Keep at it. Practice and you will quickly see how less impacting those fearful thoughts become.

Do not let your mind trick you into believing that your anxiety is something you will always have to struggle with. That is simply not true.

Not alone is it possible to control the occurrence of anxious thoughts but I can teach you how to end panic attacks and general anxiety if that is your goal.

You can have the life of your dreams. Anxiety does not have the right to steal that hope from you.

I’m going to e-mail you my mini series. It will help reduce anxiety levels significantly.

Some of this information forms a small part of the Panic Away Program. My full program eliminates panic attacks and general anxiety very quickly and has proved highly successful with both long and short term sufferers of anxiety. The results speak for themselves.

To Learn more about Panic Away visit: www.PanicAway.com

Here are some of the things you will learn from Panic Away…

-Learn how to be empowered and gain confidence by engaging a simple technique to defuse any panic attack.

-The four most powerful approaches to creating an enduring anxiety buffer zone (particularly useful for those who experience GAD).<

-Learn to avoid making the one mistake almost everyone makes during a panic attack episode.



Here is a small sample of how the course has helped others:

…learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years

I must tell you that out of all the items you can purchase regarding anxiety related products on the internet, I learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years that I’ve had this condition.

I had been on Xanax and Klonopin for about 10 years, but this December, I decided to withdraw from it thinking I didn’t need the pills anymore according to some of the programs I ordered claiming “miracle cures”. That’s when all my symptoms started again. I felt as if I had wasted the past 20 years trying to get better.That’s when I started searching the web for home based “cures”. I ordered so many programs I started to get confused from too much conflicting advice. Also, I was promised support but I am still waiting replies from some of the more expensive programs!

You are a true gentleman, and I am going to post a very positive feedback on a website you might be familiar about called: Tapir?

Talk to ya, Andy

If you want to know more can go here