Eating Disorders are rooted in disconnection from the body
So at this point, you might be sick of me harping on mindfulness and how it can be helpful for whatever you’re going through… but I truly believe it can! Today I’m going to be talking about a few mindfulness practices that can be especially helpful for eating disorders. Eating disorders are rooted in a disconnection from the body and appetite, so mindfulness can help get us back into connection with these things and can help us get curious about why we’ve gotten out of connection with these things in the first place.
With eating disorders and disordered eating, we tend to ignore our bodies’ messages to us. Our bodies tell us we’re hungry and we tell them not now. Our bodies tell us we’re satisfied but we tell them not yet. Our bodies tell us we need to rest but we tell them to push through the workout. Constantly ignoring your body’s messages will get you to a point where you start to lose connection with your body’s messages. You might even lose your ability to recognize your body’s hunger and fullness cues.
Mindfulness Practice 1: Body scan to connect back to the body
One great way to get connected back to your body is through a body scan. A body scan is a practice where you move your awareness from the top of your body down to the bottom (or vice versa), focusing on different parts of the body and observing what’s going on in each part of the body without attaching any meaning or judgment to what you experience. It’s easy to move to judging the different parts of your body and the sensations you feel in your body, but with a body scan, you simply observe what’s happening and get curious about it. There’s plenty of body scan scripts and videos you can find online, but check out my guided body scan here. When you can recognize how your body feels and get curious about what this might mean, you can gain greater awareness around what it needs and what it might be lacking.
Mindfulness Practice 2: Mindful Eating or Intuitive Eating
Another helpful practice for eating disorders is mindful/intuitive eating. Read more about mindful and intuitive eating. Practicing intuitive eating and mindfulness around your food habits can help you recognize and challenge some of the disordered thoughts and behaviors you might have around food and your body. It will also help you to gain awareness around how certain foods make you feel and what your body actually needs from you to thrive. If you can put this information to use, you can feel so much better in the body you’re in, whatever size it may be!
Mindfulness Practice 3: Journaling about beliefs around food and body
Journaling can be super helpful for raising awareness around our deep-rooted beliefs. I encourage everyone who is struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder to dig in to some of their beliefs around food and their body. Journal about your beliefs around food; what does it mean if you eat certain foods? Journal about your beliefs around your body; what would it mean if you were in a smaller or larger body than the one you’re in now? Write down any memories or thoughts that come up in relation to these beliefs and figure out where they came from. Then challenge them! Are they true? Does eating a certain food make you unwise or unhealthy or gross? Does gaining weight make you unlovable or unattractive? What makes it so hard for you to give up these beliefs?! Processing through this is tough, but it can be so rewarding in your relationship with food and your body!