Meditation For Eating Disorders

Meditation for eating disorders is an important part of the healing process. Whether you have anorexia, bulimia or binge eating meditation will bring you enormous benefits if practiced regularly on daily basis.

People who meditate regularly are able to re-focus their mind which is important to recovery. Although it sounds easy to do it is not simple to learn especially for beginners and this is why some people say that they tried to meditate but gave up because it didn't help them.

The point is that they didn't do it correctly. They didn't focus while meditating and allowed their brain to wonder and allowed other thoughts to come into their mind while they were meditating. This was their biggest mistake.

There is no point in doing meditation if your head is full of other thoughts during the meditation exercise. When you meditate (especially for stopping an ED) you should concentrate completely on the meditation and not on anything else. You must learn to let any stray thoughts flow through your mind and not get stuck in there.

Ideally, meditation should reach your subconscious mind (where eating disorders live). The subconscious mind can only be reached if the conscious mind (thoughtful, logical mind) is silent. If your mind is constantly processing thoughts, that means your subconscious is shut and is dominated by conscious mind at that time.

Healing from an eating disorder occurs when your brain works on the subconscious level and let me state here: only the subconscious level not the logical level. Why is that? - You may ask. It is because your subconscious mind is responsible for all your feelings and emotions.

It does not work on logic or rationalizing, you can not rationalise your way out of an eating disorder: if you could no one would have an ED. Eating disorders are a problem of your feelings and emotions and these are the domain of the subconscious mind.

ED sufferers normally don't have problems with their logical part of the brain. Many of them are very intelligent and even high achievers. They understand that what they do in terms of eating does not make sense and is harmful to the body: but they still continue to abuse it because of their problem with the subconscious part of the mind.

The subconscious part of the brain works on pictures, senses and emotions. People have a certain picture of themselves in their mind and that's why they are driven so much to achieve this image, whether it is factual image or not.

When people starve themselves or binge and purge they do it not because of logic, they do it because of the strange internal sensations they have which leads them to perform these abnormal behaviours based on food abuse.

The subconscious mind also holds your belief system, your memories, your automatic responses and your programming. Eating disorders live there and that's why they become automatic - people start their abusive food behaviour automatically although they may not necessary want to do it.

So, how will meditation help recover from eating disorders?

1. Meditation will improve confidence and self-control.
2. Reduce stress which provokes ED symptoms.
3. Improve concentration on positive things and stop focusing on the ED.
4. Bring inner certainty which is important for the sufferer.
5. Improve people's relationships with others and themselves.
6. Improve immune system response and health overall.
7. Bring joy into their life.
8. Give their ability to let go negative emotions when they arrive.
9. Improve their ability to work and study.

To conclude, regular meditation should be the number 1 strategy used to get better for people with eating disorders. If you haven't mastered meditation yet - you still remain a slave of your own mind. Master meditation and you will become a master of your mind. You have a choice of who you want to be: a slave or a master. I would certainly go for a master.

Autor: Irina Webster

Dr Irina Webster MD is the Director of Women Health Issues Program. She is a recognised authority in the eating disorders area. She is the author of the published book "Cure Your Eating Disorder: 5 Step Program to Cure Your Brain". To learn more about meditation for Eating Disorders go to http://meditation-sensation.com

Added: December 8, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/