A human brain can only concentrate and pay attention to one thing at a time. This fact is a reality for us all… that even with the most accomplished or expert brain, focusing on more than one thing at a time is just not possible. Multi tasking is a myth…. I know all you female […]
Category: Rewiring / Neuroplasticity
Posts related to the rewiring (neuroplasticity) process in eating disorder recovery.
The fear is real in eating disorder recovery, but what if we can turn that fear into excitement? With an eating disorder, we develop very intense and real fear responses whenever we try to eat and rest more or change other hard wired disordered behaviours that have developed over the course of the illness. Although […]
In eating disorder recovery, we frequently refer to the concept of brain rewiring as a fundamental part of the process. Unless we use the plasticity our brains have to change our habits and make recovery focused behaviours, thoughts and ultimately beliefs our norm, we won’t attain a lasting recovery. Frequently though when people talk about […]
In the past, whenever people have suggested I might like to practice daily ‘gratitude’ – perhaps in a nice journal or using some other method, externally I might have smiled and nodded, while inside I was thinking, ‘f**k off’. ‘Practicing gratitude’ to me sounded hippy, woo woo and quite frankly, when you are miserable living […]
In traditional treatment for eating disorders, meal plans are the ‘prescription’ every patient who walks through the door is given. They are the basis that treatment has been built upon for years. Wherever you live in the world and whether it is eating disorder treatment as an inpatient, out-patient, day patient or something in-between, meal […]
This post is a sharp reality hit about eating disorder recovery. I write this post because recognising how real and unavoidable this truth is, if full recovery is ever to actually be realised, took me far too many years in my recovery but it need not be so for others. And the truth I want […]
This post is called, ‘Words Matter In Eating Disorder Recovery’ but actually the words we use in day to day life matter in everything, all the time! So, although in this post, I will be relating how we use words and language to talk or think about ourselves or our lives in respect to eating […]
Is the dreaded ‘quasi-recovery’ an inevitability in the recovery process from an eating disorder? This is a question that occurred to me recently. Before I continue though, for those who are not aware of this term, ‘quasi recovery’ refers to the half-way (or maybe a bit more than half-way) recovery state that many people hit […]
Many of us with an eating disorder are told (probably because it is true) that we have very black and white thinking. I do not believe that the black and white mindset is a pre-existing ‘personality trait’ of a person with an eating disorder, which some ‘professionals’ might try to persuade us is the case, […]
When it comes to eating disorder recovery today, we frequently refer to the concept of ‘rewiring our brains‘ into healthy recovery focused pathways in terms of our automatic behaviours relating to food, weight manipulation and other such things. I am currently doing a course in neuroscience and I have been learning about what we actually […]
This is a slightly different post today. I don’t usually share things like this but I am currently studying neuroscience and part of the course is about brain plasticity which of course is very relevant to eating disorder recovery. With an eating disorder, we have a brain that is hard wired to perform disordered behaviours, […]
If you are here now, reading recovery blogs online and you have an eating disorder then you are already a superhero because whether you have taken any other positive steps into recovery yet or not, you are obviously not just accepting life in the illness and at the very least, you are contemplating the terrifying […]
As humans, our brains are hardwired to dislike uncertainty in any aspect of our lives and I find this an interesting topic and particularly relevant here as the ability to tolerate uncertainty is key in eating disorder recovery. Every human brain loves certainty. Our basic survival brain perceives uncertainty as a danger and so it […]
A couple of days ago I wrote a post about the Covid-19 pandemic that is sweeping the globe and the impact it might be having on those with eating disorders. That post included my more general thoughts about how difficult this period of time can be for someone with an eating disorder but that it […]
I have recently made a really tough decision – perhaps idiotic, perhaps wise, maybe brave, possibly cowardly…. whatever it is, it was very very hard to make and then to put the necessary wheels into motion. And I want to share my current decision and situation, to be real and to show that recovery is […]
RECOVERING NOMAD 