Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Comfort Food
By Lynne Gots, posted on November 10th, 2011.
I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately. Maybe it’s the shorter days and chillier weather triggering a primal instinct to fatten up for hibernation. Or maybe it’s all the glistening Thanksgiving turkeys and pumpkin pies on the covers of the magazines arriving in the mail. Either way, I find myself collecting recipes for hearty casseroles, stews, and soups featuring potatoes, squash, and root vegetables.
Most of the time, eating is routine—mechanical, even. If you’re like me, you inhale breakfast before rushing out the door in the morning and grab a quick bite to sustain you through the afternoon. By dinner, you’re famished, and you wolf down your food so quickly you barely taste it. Hardly the mindful eating recommended both for weight control and optimal satisfaction.
Contrast the way most of us eat on a daily basis with a recent meal I experienced at a highly touted new restaurant. Each dish contained a sensory rush of contrasting tastes and textures. There were subtle sauces and foams that delivered a distilled essence of pure flavor before vanishing on the tongue. I ate slowly and savored every mouthful. By the last forkful of dessert, I was sated but not stuffed.
The dinner was one of my most memorable. But I wouldn’t want to eat that kind of fare every day. In fact, the next night, still out of town and looking for a good place to eat, I opted for pizza. Crusty and smoky from the wood-fired oven, it was anything but evanescent, the antithesis of the previous night’s foamy confections. Delicious. It was exactly what I wanted and left me perfectly satisfied without having eaten too much.
Different foods for different moods. That’s what truly mindful eating is all about. And why rigid diets—which proscribe whole categories of nutrients such as carbs, or sugar, or fats—don’t work over the long haul.
You don’t have to indulge in rich sauces or exotic ingredients to enjoy eating mindfully without breaking the calorie bank. Yes, it’s possible to take as much pleasure in crisp vegetables and nourishing whole grains as in a take-out burger and fries—more, even, if you think about the tastes and textures you’re craving. Sweet or salty? Crispy or creamy? Hot or cold?
But sometimes only the burger and fries will do. So go for it. But be mindful, and you may find less is more.
Tags: mindful eating
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
By Lynne Gots, posted on November 2nd, 2011.
I had to take my dog Freddie to the vet the other day for an infected paw. As I’ve said in previous posts, Freddie has many fears, and if he could rank them, he’d give Dr. Hambright a 9 or 10 on his BUDs (Barking Units of Distress) scale. I’d rate going to the vet with Freddie an 8 on my SUDs scale (Subjective Units of Distress—the measure commonly used to create an anxiety exposure hierarchy in behavior therapy).
Even though I’m very nervous about vet appointments with Freddie and really, really don’t want to go, I’m willing to endure them because the health of my dogs is important to me. When I work with people who struggle with anxiety, I talk a lot about recognizing the difference between wanting and willing. It’s a critical distinction, and it can make or break someone’s progress in treatment.
Why would we want to put ourselves in a situation that causes our hearts to pound, our palms to sweat, and our heads to spin? Because avoiding the things that scare us only makes our fears worse in the long run. Even more important, it keeps us from doing what we truly value.
In case you’re thinking wild horses couldn’t drag you to a behavior therapist under those circumstances, let me clarify. Exposure therapy requires you to confront your fears gradually. It’s not like the classic Far Side cartoon, which depicts a person dealing with a fear of heights and snakes by suspending himself in a glass elevator over a pit of vipers. That’s flooding, and I don’t do it. The rule of thumb for exposure to anxiety-inducing triggers is to work at an anxiety level of around a 5. Challenging, but manageable.
But sometimes life intervenes, and we have to deal with real situations that are higher than the ideal 5. As when I took Freddie to the vet. I dreaded it, but was definitely willing to go; Freddie, not so much. Which is why I made sure to feed him yummy treats and put a muzzle on him for the examination. He doesn’t mind the muzzle, having learned that it magically brings squirts of CheezWhiz. And it helps give me some peace of mind, knowing he can’t bite anyone.
I wish Freddie could model himself after our Cockapoo Baxter, who has developed an excellent strategy for tolerating the dreaded vet visit. Baxter is just as fearful as Freddie, and with good reason. He underwent two surgeries last year to repair a torn ACL. Now every time we put him in the car, even if we’re just going for a hike in the woods, he shakes and pants so hard he fogs up the windows. But when he’s on the vet’s exam table, he rolls onto his back, lifts his rear leg with a sigh of resignation, and endures. He certainly doesn’t want to be there. But he’s willing. And because he isn’t fighting it, the ordeal goes much more smoothly for all concerned.
So the next time you’re tempted to avoid a situation that terrifies you, don’t fight it like Freddie does. Take a page from Baxter’s book instead. Better yet, don’t just submit to it. Meet it head on. If you’re willing, the way will be a lot less bumpy.
Tags: acceptance, anxiety
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Great Expectations
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 24th, 2011.
On my day off last week I spent eight hours up to my elbows in flour, confectioner’s sugar, and food coloring. I baked two hundred assorted cookies, including fifty shaped like Bevo, the University of Texas longhorn mascot, each iced and colored burnt orange. Bevo cookies are a baking challenge: the delicate horns have a tendency to break if the cutouts are rolled too thin. Penn State Nittany Lions, Michigan Wolverines, Wisconsin Badgers, or even Maryland Terrapins would have been much easier to create out of dough. But because the cookies are going to be served at a reception in Austin, where my music-major son will be performing a recital, Bevo was it.
I’m sharing this because despite my labors and the pleasing fruits of them, I had the vague feeling that I’d wasted the day. This is distorted thinking, to say the least. Fortunately, as a professional expert at spotting this type of cognitive error, I was quick to recognize it and nip it in the bud.
Why, after literally slaving all day in front of a hot stove, did the thought, “I didn’t accomplish anything,” pop into my head? The answer lies in my expectations.
I usually clean, shop for groceries, and run errands on my day off. So, despite the mounds of carefully shrink-wrapped Bevos, brownies, and biscotti crowding my freezer, I felt disappointed because the weekly chores were left undone. I clearly needed to do a little shrink rapping with myself to untwist my thinking.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson, our expectations are the cause of—and the solution to– many of life’s problems. (The original quote was about beer.) Expectations create conflicts in relationships. Think about the last time you felt angry at or let down by a spouse, partner, child, parent, or boss. I’m willing to bet it was because the person failed to live up to your expectations. Expectations can also lead to disappointment in ourselves, as my cookie story shows.
Now the solution. Take stock of your expectations. Are they realistic? Helpful? If not, then modify them or let them go altogether and focus on accepting what is rather than on stewing about what should be.
I realized right away that my expectations were making it hard to feel satisfied with my baking. So I tossed them aside along with the extra scraps of dough and gave myself permission to admire my handiwork instead of fretting about the dog hair on the living room rug.
To keep my thoughts about how the spread for the reception “should” look in check, I’m not expecting the Bevos make it to Austin this week in my suitcase without breaking. I’ll be really disappointed if they turn into crumbs en route. But I’m planning to bring some extra brownies, just in case. And I’ll focus on what’s truly important — my son and how proud I am of him.
Tags: acceptance, cognitive distortions
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
