Eating Disorders are a result of brain plasticity

What is brain plasticity? And how is it related to developing an eating disorder?

Brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, is the lifelong ability of the brain to change itself based on new experiences. When we say “the brains ability to change” we don’t mean something mystical or just “spiritual”.

What we are alluding to is the brains ability to reorganise or rewire its neuronal pathways that has lead to certain wanted or unwanted actions or behaviours. For example, in case of people suffering with eating disorders it is unwanted actions like negative thoughts about their body image that lead to the development of at ED. This could have manifested itself by starving, overexercising or binging and purging over a period of time.

When people start having bad thoughts and feelings about themselves their brain begins to develop certain new neuronal wiring (or connections) to produce certain behaviours. When people continue to acting on pathological behaviours like starving, binging-purging, over exercising etc: these neuronal pathways grow stronger and stronger. Basically it is what you think is what you get.

You see any behaviour we have or regular thoughts we think there are certain brain maps developed and pathways formed. These new brain maps can start to take up a huge amount of space in our brain until they become all powerful. Eating disorders take up a huge amount of space in the brain because they affect nearly all aspects of the sufferer’s life.

So, when it comes to eating disorder treatment if it does not work on changing the old neuronal pathways it is not going to work. What has to happen is for the sufferer to develop new neuronal pathways and build them around the old faulty pathological ones that is their ED. When you start using these new pathways (the healthy pathways) they become stronger and stronger and eventually they will replace the old pathological ones (the old pathological ones will fade).

You see, when you realise that it is your brain making you do things in a defective way, you will understand that to create behavioural change you only need to make your brain work differently. And you can do that by focusing your attention differently when the ED urge strikes you.

The capacity of the brain to change doesn’t diminish with age or with the duration of the problem you have. Many people think that it is easier to stop an eating disorder early on when the disorder first appears; and that if you have had the disorder for many years it is nearly impossible to stop it.

This is not true and is totally false. People can stop their eating problems at any stage of the process, because the human brain is plastic and changeable with any repetitive activity we do. Now it does take effort to change the way you think but it is not impossible.

The first thing is to come to the realization that what your brain is telling you to do may not be correct so there is no need to act on it every time. Your brain is not your mind and you can influence it with better thoughts and actions.

Your brain is only an organ sitting between your ears. But your mind is what you do, what decision you make, and what perception about yourself you give to others. Of course this does not mean you have an abnormal brain, it is only the abnormal thoughts and behaviours that have lead you to having an ED. It has been proven beyond doubt that your mind, your conscious behaviours and thoughts can change the structure of your brain.

To conclude, eating disorders are the result of brain’s ability to change its own structure in relation to false actions and thoughts over time. Because you have changed your brains wiring to fit a certain pathological behaviour in your brain map you have developed an ED. You have responded negatively to certain eating disorder triggers that you have built around you over time.

You probably would have never developed an eating disorder if you had responded differently to these triggers. For instance: if you did not get upset when someone at school called you “fat” or if you didn’t care when your ex-boyfriend dumped you for a skinnier girl, or a similar event. You would probably never have an eating disorder now. But because you did pay too much of attention to it, you have to suffer for a long time.

But it is not all bad news. The good news is that because your brain is plastic you can change your brain to the better: exactly the same way you changed it when you developed the faulty pathological behaviour in the first place. With focused attention, mindfulness and by building new neural pathways around the old ones, research has shown you can change you brain and hence your ED.

This is the only cure for eating disorders – to change your brain using your mind to reverse your old thought patterns that got you into this mess in the first place.

To read about eating disorders help go to http://www.eatingdisorder-institute.com

Male Eating Disorders on the Increase

Eating Disorder in Males.

Eating disorder in males is rapidly on the increase: why it is not sure but it just is.We can probably suggest that it is the pressure of social and work environment that is responsible.

In dealing with sufferers of both anorexia and bulimia I have found a growing tread in anorexia in males. I keep getting the same answer that it is social and work place pressures to perform at higher and higher levels that are starting to take its toll.

As reported by Professor Lacey in the Independent ( Monday, 22 September 2008) that revealed the number of men treated for anorexia – "manorexia" – has increased by 67 per cent in the past five years. Men now account for between 5 and 10 per cent of all eating disorder sufferers a worrying statistic.

But Bulimia in men is still the more prominent complaint we come across. Bulimia is more easily hidden that anorexia as the sufferer can be of normal weight and looks normal to family and friends. After all there is this perception that males must be these tough guys and keep their feelings to themselves.

Of course this is totally ridiculous and is another example of social pressure being applied to males. This is a hangover from the past where men had to be men regardless of how they felt inside, emotions were for women only.
But when people in high places start to come forward like ex deputy prime minister of the UK John Prescott and his battle with bulimia and says, hey I have a problem; then other men start to think it may be time to seek out help also.

Contrarily to popular held belief, anorexia and bulimia have their roots in the same place. Both stem from the impact of negative emotions and constantly added pressure on males to act in a manly way, even in the most trying of situations.

These negative emotions are absorbed by the subconscious mind of the sufferer and start a reaction in the mind that is then built upon as more negative is added. Eventually these negatives reach the point where they start to control the emotions and thoughts of the sufferer and an eating disorder is born.

Once the eating disorder is established it controls the victim wholly and solely. I use the word victim, and victim the sufferers are, because no matter what they tell themselves they are powerless to stop their destructive eating habits.

There is only one way to defeat an eating disorder, either anorexia or bulimia and that is to attack it where in lives, in the subconscious mind of the sufferer, in my option no other method will work, period.

To read more about Male eating disorders go to http://www.anorexia-cure.com/bulimia-cure/Male-Bulimia2.htm

Severe Anorexia: What is the Main Step to Cure it?

Treatment for severe anorexia should start from hospitalization to
restore the person's body weight. The duration of hospitalization can
be different and depends on how fast the anorexic gains their weight.

In average many experts believe that 10-12 weeks with full nutritional
support are required to restore weight in case of anorexia.

Weight gain goals should be set by a doctor according to person's BMI
(body mass index). But in average 1-2 pounds a week is a good goal to
strive for and it is what normally happens in hospitals.

Calorie consumption can vary but severely malnourished people need to
begin with as little as 1500 calories per day (to avoid stomach pain
and vomiting) and then progress to higher calorie consumption over time.

People who are unable to eat have to be fed through tube or intravenously.
Tube feeding has many disadvantages and some professionals believe that
this method discourages people from normal eating in the future.
Nevertheless for some patients it can be the only way to gain weight.

Intravenous feeding is when a tube gets inserted into a vein and
nutritional substances go into a blood stream. This way of feeding
can also create some biochemical imbalances for patients and is only
used in extremely severe cases of anorexia.

Severe anorexia patients also can have complications and organ failures
due to long starvation and malnourishment. This has to be corrected
while the person stays in the hospital. Kidney failure, heart failure,
electrolyte imbalances, early osteoporosis are common complaints for
severe anorexics.

The second stage of treatment begins after a person reached an acceptable
body weight. This stage is the longest and the most difficult one
because many anorexics relapse at this stage and go back to their old
habits (losing all the weight they have just gained).

This happens because they still continue to see themselves as overweight
in a mirror and feel that they need to lose weight instead of maintaining
it or gaining more. They still continue to focus on their body image
and forgetting about all other things in their life.

At this stage they do it subconsciously and their perception becomes
their reality. The main issue that has to be addressed here is changing
their perception by affecting their subconscious mind (the part of human
mind responsible for feelings, internal believes and perception).

Failing to change the subconscious mind of the sufferer causes the
symptoms of anorexia to come back all the time and doesn't matter how
long she/he stayed in hospital, they relapse. Our subconscious is formed
at a very young age and if any subconscious blockages that do occur
they are formed with “child logic” and continue to impact on the sufferer
in adulthood.

Anorexics have many subcounsious blockages about body image and food.
However because they exist at the subcounsious level they are neither
aware of them nor able to judge whether or not they are logical.

To conclude, the major step to curing severe anorexia lies not just in
reaching and maintaining a certain amount of weight. It lies in
identifying and eliminating the subcounsious blockages from the
anorexic mind and changing the person's focus from weight and food to
other useful things in life.

For more about how to change the subconscious mind of anorexics go to
Dr Irina Webster

eating disorders help go to http://www.womenhealthsite.com/eating_disorders.htm

Anorexia Side Effects

Anorexia is not just about weight loss and refusing to eat. Anorexia has major side effects on the mental, physical and emotional state of a person.

Contracting anorexia means getting a new life style, new coping strategies, new relationships, new thought pattern and a whole new way of living and none of it is good.

You can say that a new sufferer becomes like a completely new person, different from what she/he used to be.

One of the very distinctive side effects of anorexia is a distorted perception about themselves. It is related to their own body image, their self being and also how they perceive other people as well.

The main measurement of all becomes how skinny they are. Anorexics perceive that their worth is directly related to their weight. They feel and think the same way about other people also.

For example a 19 year old anorexic girl I was talking to said once:" I know that the more weight I lose the better and stronger person I become. I understand that all overweight people are lazy, fat and no good".

But the meaning of being overweight for her is far away from reality. She perceives even normal weight people as overweight, including herself. She was already only 49 kg (height 164cm) but she still saw herself like a fat and overweigh person.

She sees this picture because of the other major side effect of anorexia called "broken eye syndrome". And because anorexics see a wrong picture of themselves and others they want to loose more and more weight and can't stop starving themselves and over exercising.

Their relationships with other people change a lot since they contracted their anorexia because they need to spend all their time counting calories, exercising and thinking over a new strategy to lose more weight. Plus anorexics become very judgmental and picky and loose interest in others and everything they did before. All these prevent them from having a normal relationship with others.

And the other side effect of anorexia is their changing respond to everyday stress. This encompasses everything that happens to them, anorexics respond by increasing their exercising time, cutting down on calories and withdrawing further away from other people.

Ways to Cure Bulimia Nervosa.

By Dr Irina Webster

There are many ways to treat bulimia but not very many of them really cure bulimia.
Popular treatment is going to the doctors or clinics or a counselor. How helpful are these? Statistic shows that nearly 90% of suffers relapse after attending these kinds of treatment.

What happens to these people is they feel temporary better while they are in the clinic or in a doctor's room, but lose all sense of self-control around food when they come back home or while on their own and unprotected.

The next way of treatment is group therapy where sufferers are supposed to get ongoing support and help from other sufferers and a group leader. But this way has many flaws and is not helpful either: it can actually become harmful to many sufferers.

The reasons of this are that while in the group there is often a competition for attention. In the group patients often deliberately get worse or engage in more symptoms just to get extra attention from each other or the therapist. This kind of competition always exists in eating disorder help groups but on many different levels. Sometimes it can get out of control and cause a lot of harm to some members of the group, the most venerable ones.

Also, while in the group people learn from each other. And they learn not necessary only the good things. They learn a lot of bad stuff too. Like say if a young woman has never heard of drinking ipecac to induce vomiting and learns this technique in group therapy. She may try the technique out herself at home; instead of getting positive help she has just learned how to mask her disorder even more. This can also have a detrimental effect on the group leaving the group leader or member feeling responsible for teaching her.

Some doctors prescribe drugs to treat eating disorders but this also does not fix the problem and in the long run even makes things worse.

The only way to cure bulimia in my opinion is to eliminate the reason why people have it.
You see what happens is that people understand that their bulimia is slowly killing them and want to stop but they can't.

It seems like something inside the person is stronger than their own free will and controls their logical thinking.

What is this something?
It is basically another part of our brain called the subconscious mind that not only is responsible for people's feelings, emotions and non-conscious actions that keep them alive, but it can also work against your own free will.

It is the part of the mind that is responsible for our actions when we do something but we don't know why we did it.

The subconscious mind operates on feelings and senses. And very often people can't even describe it logically because it consists of thoughts and feelings. Sufferers just do what the subconscious mind wants them to do.

So, the main reason people have bulimia lies in the subconscious mind and to stop bulimia one needs to get rid off the subconscious blockages that always keep you being a bulimic against your will.
Subconscious blockages are described by many sufferers as being like voices or senses they have that make them binge and purge.

If someone has a subconscious emotional blockage preventing her/him from stopping their bulimia, they are unlikely to realize it. An example of this is a bulimic who doesn’t realize that they have "broken eye syndrome" - they see in a mirror a different picture from everyone else: basically their own mind is lying to them.

Subconscious blockages cannot be identified and changed at the rational thinking level; this is where most conventional treatments fail: simply because they think logical actions will fix it.
For example, the “broken eye syndrome" gets worse and worse the longer you have bulimia, because the bulimic brain is constantly working on false information and is reinforcing false beliefs. You can talk logic to a bulimia sufferer all day long and it will not help one bit: because bulimia is not logical.

To conclude, identifying and eliminating your subconscious blockages is the best and really the only way you will ever cure your bulimia. There are special programs that help bulimics to do this. One of the programs that works in this direction and has proved to be helpful is at http://www.bulimia-cure.com

How to spot Bulimia signs in Children

By Dr Irina Webster.

What can you do if you are a parent who suspects their child has Bulimia how do you know for sure?

I have been ask this question so many times by lots of worried parents who think their child may have bulimia but don’t know any of the warning signs.

If you are one of these parents then here is a list of things to look out for, I will start with simple things first:

1: Look for an excessive amount of food that is missing. Things like packets of biscuits you have just bought and they have disappeared overnight. Packets of sweets gone without you even having one yourself. Look for easy accessible foods that seem to be gone faster than what is normal for your family use.

2: The child is starting to act unusual around meal times. Being a bit anxious and not wanting to eat certain food groups, or may play with their food. They may say they have eaten at a friends place but then start to raid the food cupboard for easy food soon after dinner.

3: You notice that the child may have lots of food rappers in their bedroom hidden under the bed or in their trash basket. Half eaten candy bars or potato crisp packets hidden in places that are unusual.

4: The child may start to miss family gatherings or not want to go out to events where they normally would have, like picnics or parties preferring to stay home. Even making excuses they feel ill or have a headache.

5: The child may start to do more exercise that they use to do. Go for long runs or bike rides and start to really push themselves to the extreme.

These are all little things but point to a change in the Childs habits although you can’t come to the conclusion that your Child has Bulimia from these alone. You need more concrete evidence to go with these before you can be sure.

Bulimics normally become very good at hiding their condition from family and friends. Bulimia has been described as secretive and sneaky and it most certainly is.
So you as a parent have to become just as sneaky if you suspect your child of this disorder.

Here are some more concrete things to look out for.

1: The child after finishing their meal disappears to the bathroom for a long time. This starts to become a habit and is a surefire clue to the child being bulimic.

2: You notice the smell of toothpaste on their breath when they come from the bathroom, or a sour smell on their breath.

3: You start to find laxatives in their bedroom or empty packets in their trash bin.

4: They start to become really edgy and anxious for no apparent reason and may start telling you to mind your own business if you say anything to them. They act out of character towards you.

5: They start to look sickly and feel the cold more that was normal for them. They may start having problems with their teeth or complain of a sore throat all the time.

6: They start to become obsessed with there weight and are looking at the bathroom scales all the time, or asking you if they look fat or looking in the mirror more that they use to do.

If you noticed a number of these symptoms together then there is a good chance your child may have Bulimia. But do not simply confront them as this can drive the child away or warn them you are on to them, so they may become even sneakier.

You should educate yourself first from people who have faced what you are facing now. One of the best educational information site around on this subject is at
www.bulimia-cure.com

Bulimia in Men.

Most people, who know little about a disease like bulimia and this includes many journalists, say why can’t they just stop: I wish it was as simple as that but it is not. Like Mr. Prescott said he got some weird satisfaction from binging and then purging and all bulimics get the same thing.

When a bulimic purges they get a release of a pleasure hormone not unlike the endorphins an athlete gets after exercising. This feel good hormone is one of the reasons a bulimic continues on with his erratic eating behavior. The problem is the rush they get is very short lived, so they have to binge and purge even more. So asking a bulimic to simply stop is like asking a non-sufferer to give up breathing air: it is not going to happen.

Most non-sufferers and many others think that you can beat bulimia with logic and by pointing out the errors of their ways they will stop. But again this is an impossibility and simply cannot happen. Mr. Prescott and his wife knew for years it was wrong and that he was in danger of serious medical problems, but he could not stop. If bulimia was a logical disease then he should have been able to stop when he realized he was doing harm to himself, but he couldn’t.

This is because bulimia lives in the subconscious mind of the sufferer and the subconscious mind does not work on logic, it works on feelings and emotions and these are certainly not logical. The longer the bulimic has the disorder the more ingrained it becomes in the subconscious mind of the sufferer.

There is a way you can see how the subconscious mind works for yourself. The next time you explode at one of the kids or go off for no apparent reason, just ask yourself if it was logical. I bet you do not have the slightest idea why it happened; it is because it came from your subconscious mind and not your logical mind.

There is only one way you can really stop bulimia and that is through the subconscious mind where the bulimia lives. It lives there because it was programmed by the sufferer to be there over months or even years as was the case with Mr. Prescott.

If you are a bulimic or if you are a family member of a bulimic, the best place to find out more about how the subconscious mind works is at www.bulimia-cure.com where it explains all about the connection with the subconscious mind and bulimia. This site has a very big success rate in treating Bulimia and Anorexia all around the world and is run by Dr Irina Webster an expert in eating disorders.