CategoriesKultured

Be stronger than your addiction

Healthy Habits
We all eat from habit and for the pleasure acquired from eating delicious recipes. However, from the physiological standpoint, only food, which is eaten with a certain sense of hunger, has value. Precisely, habit-forming foods and drinks are the greatest obstacles to attain our health goals. The key is to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings associated with food addiction, and quit them with full determination.

One such addiction causing beverage is “Coffee”. Coffee contains caffeine, which is a central nervous system stimulant. Therefore, when caffeine is consumed multiple times a day, it stimulates the adrenal glands, resulting in a fight-or-flight response, in which the body prepares for intense action by increasing heart rate, blood pressure, alertness, and temperature. Persistently, when caffeine is consumed in excess, one can exhaust the adrenal system and don’t even realize caffeine was the cause. It is interesting to note that for people who are addicted to caffeine, the absence of caffeine in the diet can cause agitation and absent-mindedness.

Often, my clients considering a strict detox regime, complain, if they are told to stop caffeine completely; because they think they cannot function without having coffee. The resistance to change is a classic sign of toxicity that refrain them from achieving their goals. Well, there is always a hope for improvement when one gets self-motivated. This understanding is the basis of an “Elimination Diet”- which is the first key step towards healing. In this diet, foods that are difficult to digest, and are known to cause food allergies and sensitivities should be avoided. Slowly, the body gets over the toxic cravings, and reliably body enters a detox mode. That’s the reason, before any ambitious detox program, it is mandatory to follow an elimination diet so that an individual can feel positive changes in his body. These minor improvements are quite inspiring, and then detox pathway doesn’t seem difficult at all.

Seemingly, a lot of habitual beliefs and behaviors can destroy our efforts to be successful. It means there is another common trigger for addiction – “Stress”. Stress finds many ways to manifest in the body, influencing eating patterns, addictions, and trust in our own potential to be healthy. Foggy and repetitive thinking weakens our mind, and we fall prey to addiction. Hippocrates claim that during detoxification, stress is released through the body in the form of negative emotions. Thus, don’t deviate, be kind to yourself, eat mind-calming food and practice stress-relief therapies to get over it.

In essence, every form of addiction is bad, but a food addiction can be serious. In my view, addiction means losing self-control and poor decisive power. Remember, toxic food cravings are rooted from in an unhealthy gut. The fact is that our mind and the gut are connected through the vagus nerve; thus, gut is the second brain of the body. Whether it’s wrong eating habits and mental issues, both encourage the growth of unfriendly microbes. This in turn destroys our immune system and life-threatening diseases take over. Be headstrong, and don’t let any food control you.

Attitude is a choice. Learn to say, ” I don’t want it” rather than saying “I can’t have it”.