Category Archives: Resources

Taking on Food and Festivities

Tis the season to be jolly, isn’t it? The lights, the revelry, the joyous air and the endless delicacies define the holiday season. The sheer excess is a welcoming bliss for most of us, to flag off yet another hectic year. Everything, from the bright advertisements to the sweet rom-coms to the upbeat music, tells us that this is the most magical time of the year and we should be extremely excited about it. But it is also an undeniable fact that this excess comes with plenty of baggage. It pressures one to look happy, put-together and be sociable- a fair trade-off for the average person. Unfortunately, many individuals, specifically those battling eating disorders cannot afford that luxury.

While food has always been a central aspect of social festivities, the consumerism of the holiday season has further accentuated this. One cannot waft past Diwali, Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years without stumbling upon some signature dishes. Thus, from the stress associated with the holiday season, to the food centrism of it, the whole thing is a terrifying affair for those with eating disorders. In an article by Deseret News, personal experiences of eating disorder patients during the holidays were chronicled (Click here to see the article). One patient summarized the troubles of the holiday season-

“I always hated it when the holiday season would roll around. It meant that I would have to face my two worst enemies – food and people – and a lot of them.”

There is a plethora of eating disorders, each characterized by very specific behaviours. The most well-known disorders are Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Let us explore them in greater detail. 

According to The National Eating Disorder Association , Anorexia Nervosa is “a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self starvation and excessive weight loss”

(https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/what-are-eating-disorders). These behaviors are guided by an intense fear of gaining weight, or of becoming fat, and an accompanying need to look thin. Similar goals steer the behaviors of those with Bulimia Nervosa, which is characterized by “a cycle of bingeing and compensatory behaviors, such as self-induced vomiting, designed to undo or compensate for the effects of binge eating” 

Besides the guiding principles, many symptoms are common to both disorders. They include continuous weight checking; regularly surveying how some clothes fit; comparison of one’s own body to that of others; having unrealistic and far-reaching benchmarks; body dysmorphia and so on. Such disorders are triggered by much more than the desire to look thin and feel empty. Emotional upheavals and downward spirals also contribute to eating disorders, since the adoption of such eating routines give one a sense of control over their body, as observed by Dr. Hilde Burch (Click here to learn more about her observations). Furthermore, disordered eating habits also sometimes make for routes of escape from a tumultuous reality. Such coping mechanisms, however, end up being counter-productive, as they intensify feelings of guilt and self-hatred (sci-hub.se/10.1037/h0079241).

How do the holidays pose a threat to those with eating disorders? The food centrism of holidays ensures that such occasions are filled with stressors and triggers. Having anorexia, on one hand, can make one feel cornered at the idea of consuming any food, especially in the presence of other people. Dr. Randy Hardman, a doctor at Center for Change, offered some perspective (https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/59255/58982, pp.8)-

“I have had patients describe that they would rather jump off a cliff without a parachute than to have somebody watch them eat food.”

Those with bulimia may have ample opportunity to indulge in binge sessions. One patient told Deseret News-

“So much food, so much love and so much joy, but I could not feel the love or joy, so I indulged in the food as a replacement.”

Thus, fear sets in- those with anorexia find themselves trying to avoid food without raising eyebrows; those with bulimia find themselves surrounded by opportunities to binge eat. Such scenarios end up emotionally wrecking one’s state of mind. Shame, guilt and self-loathe sets in.

While most of us casually speak of “packing on holiday weight”, this looms as a matter of life and death for someone with an eating disorder. Festivities may derail them from their usual routine of maintaining strict vigil on their food intake and weight. This in turn may lead compensatory behaviors such as over-exercising, purging and so on to take  a whole new significance in their lives. In this context, Dr. Timothy Walsh points out that “For people with eating disorders, guilt feelings become so distorted they lose all perspective” (https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/59255/58982, pp.8). To illustrate this point, Kaitlin Dannibale explains, “The destructive thoughts consume every inch of their brain and the meal becomes the only thing they can obsess over for a fixed period of time. This is when the compensatory behaviors will most likely begin. For those with anorexia, they may restrict dramatically over the next day, week or month. Those who over exercise will try to compensate by participating in vigorous physical activity. People with bulimia will attempt to purge their meals immediately after completion” (https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/59255/58982, pp.8)  

Another key trigger during the holidays can be resurfacing of negative emotions and trauma, particularly with respect to family. Oftentimes, unsupportive familial environments are where eating disorders begin. This is particularly significant in the Indian context, where weight shaming is common. In a blogpost, Gwen details into how the weight shaming culture proved to be detrimental for her body-image-

“I know calling someone “fat” in India is not the same as in the US. But it doesn’t change years of baggage I am carrying with me.” (read the full blog-post here)

Thus, the rehashing of past trauma may intensify the need to use disordered eating habits as a coping mechanism. This is further accentuated by the lack of understanding or awareness on part of the family about eating disorders.

Dr. Hardman explains, “most family members think it is about food and weight, but it is about self-rejection”(https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/59255/58982, pp.9).  Hence, the family environment isn’t conducive for one to feel secure in the midst of a stress-filled situation. Oftentimes, the family isn’t even aware of one’s eating disorder.

Unfortunately, such obstacles make even survivors of eating disorders stumble. As Ginean Crawford explains, eating disorders are different from other addictive disorders, in that one cannot completely abstain from food, as can be done in the case of alcohol (https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/59255/58982, pp. 8) . Thus, they encounter stressors and triggers on the daily, more so during the holidays.

How can one help someone cope with an eating disorder during the holidays?

  • Make sure that the person battling such a disorder has a support group. This ensures that they are able to communicate how they feel about the triggers around them, and can help alleviate feelings of guilt. A supportive family setting would be ideal. If the individual has even a single friend or family member to rely on during arduous festivities, it would make a huge difference.
  • Restrict the disruption of routine as much as possible. If meal times can be close to that of the individual’s schedule, it will be less stressful for them.
  • It is also worth noting that celebrations with few loved ones won’t be as overwhelming as large gatherings.

Overall, helping the sufferer of the eating disorder to plan ahead, encouraging them to voice their concerns, letting them indulge in the festivities at their own pace will help them tackle the holidays.

A pivotal concern specific to the Indian context, is the startling lack of discourse and awareness, which has further fuelled the ‘weight-shaming’ culture. Oftentimes, remarks about appearance and weight are hardly driven by malicious intent, given the lack of understanding about body image. There are very few studies documenting the prevalence of eating disorders in India, most of them confined to relatively small regions. The larger picture is unknown. Moreover, the scanty discourse that does exist, purports the notion that it is mainly a result of ‘western import’. In one study in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry, it is said that “The process of admixture of western attitudes and behaviour now occurring at a rapid rate in India may soon lead to emergence of severe eating disorders in the vulnerable populations” (sci-hub.se/10.1177/002076409804400305, pp. 196).

This brings to the forefront, the individual responsibility of each and every one of us, to educate ourselves as well as those around us. We can take it upon ourselves to contribute to the scanty discourse and mend the environment which enables eating disorders. Let us all strive to inspire such conversations and be more mindful of the not-so-jolly aspects of the holiday season.

Navigating Intense Emotions

Try as we might to always have a Zen state of mind, we fail miserably when emotions rise to the surface and sometimes boil over. We can feel overwhelmed by them if we do not learn how to manage them correctly. As a result, we might end up being plunged in sadness, anger, or even in the best of cases, intense euphoria that can leave us feeling as if something were missing after it subsides. It is important to learn to identify, process, and navigate through intense emotions.

Emotions are valid

Different people feel different emotions even when they are put in the exact same situation. Emotions stem from thoughts and sometimes, preconceived notions. For instance, the Holidays can make some people happy, while others feel sad, angry, or even afraid. These feelings cumulatively influence our thoughts, enabling us to form split-second opinions about various situations and guide our decision making through intuition. 

Even though emotions form the cornerstone of the eventual development of intuition and gut instinct, they get a bad rep and people who carry their emotions right on the surface are often viewed as somehow inferior. In men, this social conditioning can cause toxic masculinity, where men tend to project a stoic personality and suppress their emotions to meet the expectations from society. 

“…Teach him there is no shame in tears…” -Abraham Lincoln

We need to collectively realize that we mustn’t censor emotions within us or others. Instead, we must hone and develop this tool that evolution has bestowed upon us into a life skill.

Processing Intense Emotions

As we go through life, we might face situations which can stir emotions stronger than we are generally used to. The untrained response to such situations can be a complete shutdown or feeling overwhelmed. Though most of us recover quickly and completely after the situation passes, it might still leave a lasting adverse impact if it was improperly processed. These events can seed a negative connotation to the experience itself, which almost always never stops with the experience itself but goes on to chip away at our self-confidence.

In order to learn to navigate intense emotions, we must first practice identifying our emotions with focussed intention and mindfulness. Some experiences can leave us feeling a lot of mixed emotions and as a result can sometimes impair our critical thinking. A useful practice can be to maintain a journal and track the emotions that one goes through throughout the day. Each entry can contain an event and how this event inspired a specific emotion or a group of emotions. If you cannot find words to describe the emotion, you can even use emojis or caricatures to identify them. This exercise is to consciously connect the dots between thought, feeling, and back to thought as a result of the feelings. Identifying emotions as we go through a ‘normal’ day can sharpen our ability to swiftly discern specific emotions in case of a sudden outburst of intense emotions. 

Once we identify our emotions, the task is to mindfully allow it to run its course without hindering or intensifying it based on our snap judgement. A personal tip is to use breathing as a focal point from which we shift our attention to the emotion and back to the breathing, the moment we realize our interference. Some things that you can notice are physical manifestations (for example, sweating, flushing or tearing up) or change in mental state (maybe, memories and thoughts that surface and how this affects our current actions). Emotions often play a crucial role in helping us through an experience and it is our mind’s response which in turn triggers a wide variety of bodily functions. So, it is important that we don’t shirk away even as they build up to a hot white intensity.

Finally, as the emotions subside, take your time to retreat within yourself and sit with the thoughts and feelings and consciously bring them to a close. Some might feel that reacting quickly is of the essence, however, more often than not, actions taken when we aren’t thinking straight are regrettable when we look back at them. So, it is wiser to be patient when coming up with a decision or response, verbal, or otherwise. 

Shifting our Locus

It is important to reiterate again and again that we needn’t be rigid in our thoughts and must broaden our perspective to the possibilities. Our views regarding an experience can change and will change for the better, if we learn to process our emotions in a healthier way . We must make a sincere attempt to refrain from consciously or subconsciously passing blanket statements, such as, “I can never learn to socialize properly.”, “I will always have a short temper.” or “No one will ever love me for me.” This can always change. We only need to shift our locus. 

We might also consider talking about these experiences and feelings with close friends and family. They can offer a different perspective to the situation and can even help transform your thought process completely. It might be helpful to preface this conversation by communicating your expectations and that this is a serious discussion so that you can avoid judgement for opening up.

Emotions are a part of our minds and might even have provided an evolutionary advantage to building strong social bonds. They are vital to living a mentally healthy life and there are no good or bad emotions since each and every one of these complex feelings help us navigate life on a constant basis. So, instead of fearing or hiding them, we must embrace them. 

Establishing Boundaries and sticking to them

The Holidays can be a great opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends but what happens when this is forced on you? How do you navigate this tricky conversation with people who love you and genuinely care about you and let them know that you need your personal space and time, without hurting their feelings? I had the same questions and miserably failed at communicating my needs and having them respected for many years before learning to successfully establish boundaries and sticking to them. 

Knowing when you’ve hit your limit

The first problem was understanding my own limits. I am an introverted person and I tend to feel exhausted after spending time with a group of friends or family. But, for fear of offending loved ones, I have stifled my yawns and rubbed my eyes red to be ‘present’ through long conversations. Afterwards, I feel drained and need a nap to invigorate myself back into action. Not knowing when to say ‘No’ or ‘Enough’ is another way in which I have often over-committed myself and end up feeling overwhelmed. I cannot count the number of times I’ve got a stomach ache because of overeating at a relative’s place because I didn’t want to disappoint them. Mental health is no different. The impact, though less acutely pronounced, is on a long-term, chronic basis.

The key is to identify symptoms and patterns of exhaustion in yourself and over time become a better judge of your limits. People might try to make you feel guilty, saying that you’re too rigid and boxed in, but you should never feel bad about respecting yourself and your mental health. One way in which I have learnt to enforce this limit to myself, is through my smartphone. I have set it to automatically turn on sleep mode at bedtime. This silences notifications and provides a gentle nudge to wind down. Yes, I have spent time surfing YouTube and Instagram, after it is my bedtime, but providing this hard physical limit, means that you are now explicitly aware that you’ve crossed your own limits.

Communicating your boundaries

The view on being in your comfort zone is a two-faced one. On one hand, we need to respect ourselves enough to say, “Enough is enough”, but on the other, if we don’t force ourselves into unfamiliar territory, how will we ever grow? This is a slippery slope and only you can be a good judge and honest evaluator of when you are recognizing that the situation is beyond your ability and when you’re just being lazy. And, you only need to be honest with yourself and mindful about these mannerisms, because only through conscious recognition will you be able to even begin to communicate your limits effectively to others. That is because most people can tell when you lie, this might not even be conscious, but they might make this judgement about you and use this as a basis to subconsciously mark your words to be lies every other time.

Once this fact sinks in, next comes the more difficult part – being polite but firm. This is a skill that is so useful in life that there must be complete courses on this taught at school. But alas! Where our school curriculum falls short, the school of life must step in. I am not great at this skill but I have seen people who are particularly well versed in effective but courteous communication. One of my recollections takes me back to the Resident Services at my apartments. I was there only for the latter part of the conversation, so, I didn’t know what the resident’s issue was. This was part of what the agent said to the resident,

“I understand that the maintenance team had missed the appointment at your place. The email must’ve slipped through our notice. I am sorry about that. But, we cannot reschedule your appointment on the coming Thursday. It is a Holiday and we don’t work that day. I can always look into my calendar and see which time after the Holidays works for both of us, but that is the best I can do right now.”

Delivered without a pause, this effectively conveyed that the service agent was sincerely apologetic, was willing to work towards a solution while also firmly denying the resident’s demand to work during a holiday. It takes a little bit of knack and patience to convey our limits and personal boundaries to people who aren’t the most understanding but this saves us a lot of pain in the future if we’re being open right up front.

Respecting your boundaries – yourself!

This could be the most difficult and yet the most important step in your journey to set proper boundaries and enforce them – respecting your boundaries yourself. The reason why this is so important might not be what you’re thinking. It is the most crucial step, primarily because humans are generally narcissistic (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality disorder). Most people are so in their own heads that your own convictions and beliefs about yourself, might become the yardstick by which we measure how others perceive us. 

Simply put, you are either your biggest cheerleader or your harshest critic. Once we become aware of our limits, and have communicated them to others, we must learn to enforce them. This does not come naturally to us. Ironically, we are often left feeling guilty or sometimes too strict when we are on our own side. The trick (or not really) to moving through the guilt is to go back to the foundation, the reasons why you started this journey and reinforce the bitter memories of when you were a pushover and allowed people to walk all over you. While the current situation might not be as serious as your original foundational memories, you must always use them as a big red warning sign to what it might turn into. So, through this repeated process of reinforcement of ‘why’ and ‘what’ your limits are, you can begin to see a world of difference in how other people treat you.

Finally, sometimes, even after taking the necessary steps to communicate and enforce your boundaries to others, this could be a hard pill for them to swallow. For instance, a friend might be constantly dumping their troubles on you, while you are already enervated and are having a rough time. In this scenario, it feels wrong to ask them to stop complaining and even if we had previously communicated this to that person, we end up making excuses for them and do not respect the fact that trying to heal them is eating away at yourself. In my personal experience, this generally happens when there is an inherent imbalance in the dynamic of the relationship. One is always playing the role of the listener, the healer and the giver while the other always complains, is the only one with issues and constantly consumes. Due to non-verbal communication, this dynamic slowly crystallizes into permanency and becomes the norm. And the earlier you try to wean the other off this feeling, the better. But even after years of knowing someone, it is never too late to completely re-evaluate your relationship and communicate your boundaries to them.

Coming back to the most jolly time of the year – the Holidays, it can be particularly tricky to enforce these limits. This can be of greater significance to someone going through a serious mental health issue, like depression, anorexia or bulimia. Forcing yourself to conform to the society’s dictation of the “correct” way of spending your Holidays might mean that you might have to undergo some seriously stressful situations and for some, it might be the final straw that shoves them deeper into their crisis. For many of us, things might not be as serious but having this thought at the back of your mind might help you be on the watch for stress in your loved ones. You can be that person who would respect their boundaries and allow them to flourish without reservations in your company.