The Power of the Pause

Have you ever wondered whether or not you would still binge if you paused before you started eating? If so, this episode is for you. Taking a pause is important because it allows for the logical brain to create an opportunity to respond versus react, which gives you a chance to consider your alternatives.

Some takeaways from this episode:

• We are not pausing so that we won't eat, we are pausing to give ourselves some time and space to consider what we want to do.
• It’s important to understand how change works. First, we catch ourselves after a binge, then towards the end, then in the middle, then before we go for the food.
• This journey is about coming back to yourself. Staying connected. Acknowledging that you can't fully disconnect - you will always come back to you and you will be dealing with the consequences, so let's stop pretending they don't exist.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakthrough, a podcast designed to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control about food. I'm Master Certified Coach Jane Hoker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling or what you've tried, food freedom is possible. I'm here to do that. After years of therapy, eating freedom, restrictive diet, and reading all the stuff in the audience cycle, a perspective thing, how I would be able to do it all from a new perspective at each other. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge eating. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener, and welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are listening to this episode, this podcast, for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today that is impactful and insightful on your journey with food. So today we're going to talk about the power of the pause. Now, the pause is such an important skill to learn. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I love to talk about and I love to understand the brain. When we can understand the brain, how it works, then we can we can take action from there. We can understand what the brain is doing, and then we can adjust. So the power of the pause, when we bring the pause into the equation, what we're doing is we are working with the brain. So to recap, there are a few uh previous episodes you can go back and listen to. Understanding the brain would be a great one, and also really understanding your nervous system. These are two concepts I'm just going to touch on briefly, but if you want to know more about them, there are previous episodes about this. So the brain, we want to remember the brain has three, well, number one, its number one goal in life is to stay alive, to survive. Beyond that, its next goal is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. Now, we also have the logical brain, our prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of our brain. But that motivational triad is always going to be involved. That part that is always looking to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. Now, it's also important the nervous system is a very important concept for us to understand also, because the nervous system is the way that our brain and our body communicate with each other. It's basically the command center between our brain and our body. So the nervous system will send signals to our the from the brain to the body and vice versa, depending on what it is sensing. So the pause is really important because the pause allows time for the logical brain to come on board. Now, the survival brain, when the survival brain senses some sort of threat, something is um threatening to the overall survival of the brain, which remember is its number one job. When the brain senses or the body senses some sort of threat, that survival brain is going to be the only thing that comes on board. Its job, its number one job is to keep us alive. So that survival brain, that primitive brain, that part that it that wants to survive is going to be the one in charge. Now, the logical brain, sometimes it takes some time for the logical brain to come on board. Because if the brain, if that survival brain is threatened in any way, that's all it cares about. So it that is going to be its focus. This happens to us sometimes when we have this desire to eat. We have these intense urges to eat. Sometimes it is because our nervous system is activated for some reason. So for some reason, our brain or our body has sensed a threat. And in this threat, we go into one of two survival responses. We go into the fight or flight response, or we can go into the freeze response. Either one of these, these are both survival responses of the brain, where the brain literally is trying to survive. Many of us have taught ourselves that in order that when we do this fight or flight, we actually eat. Maybe you're a little afraid of how whoever is on the receiving end of this email might react or might respond to your words. And so you're sitting there, you're working on your email, and all of a sudden you have this intense desire. I need to go eat. Like right now, right this minute, I need to go get something to eat. This is your survival brain working. It wants to remember, seek pleasure, avoid pain, use as little energy as possible. Ding, ding, ding. We've got the trifecta right there. Wants to seek pleasure in going to get a snack or a whole lot of food. It wants to avoid pain because it's perceiving there might be pain either in writing this email, if we're not really sure what words to use, or potentially the pain that might come later, depending on how this person might receive the response. And it wants to use as little energy as possible. Well, I know a way to not use very much energy sending an email. Don't send it. So all of those are in play. So it's important for us to understand that a lot of times when we do have this kind of urgent desire to go get the food, it is our nervous system, it is responding, it's reacting in some way, which means our survival brain that wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, use as little energy as possible, that's the brain that's kind of running the show. Now let's come back to the pause and why the pause is so important. When we can implement a pause, it allows time for that logical brain to come back on board. The survival brain is very fast. It is way faster than the logical brain. This is why we kind of have these like immediate responses, these immediate reactions. It's because what has fired together over years and years and years wires together. So it's just, it's almost like this immediate reaction where we go into either, we, you know, we either get triggered, we kind of get activated, all of a sudden we're like in the pantry or we're in the car driving to uh the bakery or the drive-thru or whatever it is before we even realize it. Because that survival brain, it is such a quick instinct, it acts so quickly because it needs to. This is its job, right? To survive. Now, the logical brain, it's a little slower to react. So the pause gives time for that logical brain to come back on board. The logical brain is the one who has the ability to think about what we're doing, to consider there might be alternatives, to consider what the consequences of our actions might be. When we can pause, we create the opportunity for ourselves to respond to the situation, to respond to the stimulus or to whatever is happening instead of reacting to it. Okay, so this is what's why it's so important. We bring the logical brain on board, we have an opportunity to respond versus react. And in that choice, we get to consider our alternatives, we get to consider what the consequences might be. Now, here's what's really cool to think about. When we do pause, here are some possibilities. Some various different things can happen when we pause. And now, and when I say pause, it's literally what it sounds like. It is taking a pause, adding some space, some time between the moment you get that urge to let's go to the pantry. I need a snack. I have to eat right now. I'm gonna get in the car and go to the store, go to the bakery, go to the drive-thru. It's creating some space between when you have that thought about eating some food and when you actually make the decision. So let's say you do pause. We're gonna talk a little bit about how to do it, what that might look like. But first, I want to just talk about some possibilities of what could happen if you do implement a pause here. So if you do implement a pause in the in the way that I'm gonna suggest to you, you could literally completely forget about your desire to eat. This has absolutely happened to me. I would have an urge, really want to eat, have this very nice conversation with myself and decide I'm just gonna wait just a few minutes and just see what happens. And then I get busy doing something else. And all of a sudden, it's gone. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna happen every time, but it is a possibility. You could completely forget about it. You also could just give your body, your mind, your nervous system a little bit of time and a little bit of space to settle down, to relax a little bit. I'm sure we've all had the situation where maybe you're out, you're walking on the trail, and you think you see a snake. And all of a sudden it's like, your nervous system freaks out, you get that kind of surge of adrenaline, you think you know, you might you might be in danger. And then a few seconds later, you look and you realize, oh, that was just a stick, or it was a string, or it was something else. It was not a snake. And all of a sudden, everything kind of calms and settles down. Sometimes we just need a little bit of space to realize that thing that we were reacting to initially really wasn't a snake. It wasn't that big of a threat to us, but we just need that space to allow ourselves to realize there really isn't the threat we think there is. Now, here's another possibility. You could spend your entire pause thinking about food, how you can't handle this feeling in your body, how it feels like you are going to come out of your skin. And it's like you can be so focused on it and so fixated that you actually end up eating all of the things. And you end up eating more than maybe you might have if you are just totally overfocused on the food. This could happen. The way I'm going to teach it to you though, hopefully we'll prevent that from happening. You could also use that pause to kind of like think through your choices, your options. Again, when that logical brain comes back on board, this is when we have the chance to think about our choices and our options. Now, the pause. The pause is not the magic. It's not an easy button. It's not like, okay, if I'm just able to press pause, then it will be gone. It will be easy. Everything will be fine. That's not always the case. There is still a decision to be made. But now, when you give it some space, it can be an active decision versus a compulsion or something that's just done without any thought or awareness. It's done from that straight reaction that comes straight from your survival brain. So again, we're bringing that logical brain on board. Okay, so now we understand why the pause is so important. We understand kind of what some of the possibilities are if we do pause. How do we pause? I love to think about this as it's a pause with permission. So you always, always have permission to eat. Sometimes when people come in and they try to kind of give themselves the pause, it's like they are doing it in order to not eat. So we're not pausing so that we don't eat. We're pausing to give ourselves time and space to consider what we want to do. Because we want to remember way back into one of the very first episodes where I talked about the the reasons why you binge, restriction is one of the key reasons why we binge. Restriction can look like don't eat that. You shouldn't eat that. Don't do that. So we want to give ourselves permission. You always have permission to eat. So it's this pause with permission. Okay. So what does it sound like? I love, I love the can I just? My girlfriend Corinne. This is her saying, and I love it. Can I just wait five minutes? 10 minutes? 15 minutes. Pick one of those. I personally love 15 minutes. 15 minutes gives me enough time to kind of do something else to maybe go walk around the block, to maybe go um uh respond to a few emails, to maybe whatever it is. Maybe I uh maybe I put away some laundry, maybe I text a friend, whatever it is. I like 15 minutes. For some people, though, 15 minutes might sound like a long time. If you hear the suggestion of 15 minutes and you think, uh no, that wouldn't work for me, then ask, can I just wait five minutes? Maybe 10 sounds more doable to you. Pick a time frame that sounds doable to you. So can I just, can I just wait 10 minutes? And when I do, after the 10 minutes, I will come back. I have permission. Remember, this is a pause with permission. I have permission to eat when I come back. I'm just gonna give it some time and some space. Now, here's what's really important during the pause, it's important that you don't think about food. You can totally distract yourself with something else. Like, for example, maybe it's a little, maybe you send a couple emails, maybe you um, whatever it is, you go for a walk, you uh go play with your dog, you call a friend or your partner, whatever it is. It's important though that you don't think about food. So if you I I would probably recommend not getting on social media because I don't know that any of us can get on social media and not have some sort of messages around food all over the place. Um, or maybe uh maybe people's bodies or posts in certain certain posts might be triggering to you. Social media, when you are in the midst of um, you know, kind of managing uh an urge or this desire to eat, social media probably is not the best place for you. But you can experiment with this and see what works for you. I really can't tell you exactly what a great answer is for you. Um, personally, I love meditation, but when you're in that kind of survival response, going towards a meditation may be a really challenging ask. But all that's really important is that you don't think about food. So it can be really good for you to just get away. So you might leave the kitchen, you might leave the pantry, you might just remove yourself from that. Okay. Then, because here's what we know. If you're thinking about food the whole time and like, oh, I want to eat, but I'm not gonna eat, but I'm pausing, but I'm waiting 10 minutes, it's like we're thinking about it. And the the phrase that I love is what you resist persists. So when we resist something, I'm not gonna eat, I'm not gonna eat, I'm not supposed to eat, right? It's like me just saying, Don't think about pink elephants, don't think about pink elephants, don't think about pink elephants. It's all you're gonna think about. So this is why it's important to just think about or do anything else. Then when you come back, you've come back after your pause, ask yourself, do I still want to eat? Now, if the answer is yes, then you give yourself the invitation. You can pause a little bit longer or you can decide to eat. If you eat, understand why. So ask yourself this question why do I want to eat right now? And ask what do I think the food will do for me? This answer gives you so much insight and it gives you a lot to learn from. Whether you eat or whether you don't, you have so much insight that you would not have had before. Okay, so a lot of people ask me, but how do I get myself to pause? Sometimes I don't even think I'm eating before I even know it. Or like I just don't even in that moment, I don't want to. I don't want to pause. So we need to understand how change works. First, we kind of catch ourselves after the fact. Then maybe we kind of catch it towards the end, then we catch ourselves more in the middle, and then it might be before we even start to go for the food. So change happens very slowly over time. So let's say you're in this category, in this process of change, where you are you've never paused, you're not really all that aware of what's going on. You really kind of are only looking at yourself and at situations like after you've eaten. Now, I don't want you to just magically expect yourself to hit pause because you listened to a podcast. Now, this totally could happen, but this right now is where you're gonna put some work in. Okay. I want you to think about the last time right now. Bring it to your mind. Think about the last time that you didn't pause, that you just went straight for the food in reaction to that, you know, kind of that survival brain that just wanted to eat like food right in that moment. Think about the last time. I want you to visualize that. Now, as you're picturing yourself in this situation, what would it look like for you to ask yourself to pause in the moment? What would it sound like? Picture yourself asking yourself, can I just wait for a few minutes? What would it sound like? How would you need to talk to yourself? Some people, the way they talk to themselves is mean, it's harsh, it's critical, but that's not likely going to give you the willingness to wait. If you are being harsh, mean, judgmental to yourself, the only thing you're gonna want to do is get away from yourself. Part of this is part of one of the eight reasons why we binge. It's our internal dialogue. So when we're having this conversation with ourselves, we have to remember that internal dialogue, it needs to sound warm, nice, open, curious. Okay. Now I want to take another example that is not food related. We've all had times where we got really upset or frustrated with somebody and we would love to just yell at them, tell them exactly what we think, but we don't. Maybe it's a coworker, a family member, or maybe it's somebody out in public, like at a concert or a rally, or who knows, somewhere else. I want you to think of a time that this happened to you where you got really angry, really frustrated with somebody, but you held Your tongue. When that happens, or when that did happen, if you have a specific example in mind, what helps you dissipate that anger so you don't blow up in the moment? So sometimes it's removing yourself from the situation. Sometimes it's taking a walk, maybe even calling a friend and letting it all out with them in a safe environment. Maybe it's yelling or screaming on your own. But if we think about this, why don't you want to blow up at them? It's because there are likely going to be consequences to your actions. And the same is true with those moments that you just want to eat a lot of food. Giving yourself space, finding ways to dissipate that excess energy and thinking through what the consequences might be if you do decide to eat. So some people in the moment, they just think like, I don't care, or you know, F it. I'm just gonna eat anyway. Or they fall prey to magical thinking, pretending it really doesn't matter, or that this time we'll be different. Sometimes we willingly don't want to think about the consequences because we just want what we want. I get it. I have been there, but the consequences are real. We can't pretend like they aren't. Sometimes we want to just bury our head in the sand and get away from it all. And over the years, we have taught ourselves to do that with food. This journey is about coming back to yourself, it's about staying connected. It's acknowledging you can't fully disconnect. You will always come back to you, and you will be dealing with the consequences. So let's stop pretending that they don't exist. Now, you coming back to you, this is where it's also so important to work on the relationship with yourself so that when you do come back to you, it is not a harsh and judgmental place. Now, I want to be clear, we don't always have access to our logical brain in every moment. And only the logical brain can understand and recognize the consequences. And this is why we pause to allow the logical brain to come on board. So, how do you get yourself to pause? You need to see why it would be amazing. Give yourself compelling reasons to do it, to give it a try. And picture yourself doing it while you are in a calm, grounded, connected place. Like now or before you are feeling antsy and triggered and amped up, because none of us will pick up or try a new skill in the height of a nervous system response. The brain does not know the difference between a visualization and the real thing. So, right now, I want you to go back to that last time that you reacted to that urge, that desire to eat, and you went straight for the food without thinking about it. Bring that image to your mind. Now, imagine asking yourself, can I just pause for a few minutes? Go do anything else. And I will come back and I will revisit this choice. Picture this happening, picture the conversation. Maybe now picture what you do for that time, that five, 10, 15 minutes. Maybe you set a timer. Maybe you just look at your watch and see what time it is. And picture what you do that will be away from the food or any other reminders about the food. And when that time passes or your alarm goes off, or you just start thinking about food again, imagine yourself asking yourself if you still want to eat. If the answer is yes, ask again. Can we pause a little bit longer? Or is it time to eat? And if it's time to eat, why do I want to eat in this moment? What do I think the food will do for me? And before you eat, write those answers down. Maybe it's in an app on your phone, or maybe it's in your journal, but you'll have it. And after your eating experience, whatever it looks like, maybe later on, when your logical brain is fully back on board, ask yourself, did the food give me what I was looking for? You will have so much information to learn from. Get curious about the pause. Get excited about the pause. There is so much power in the pause. Possibilities in the pause. As long as you give yourself permission, stay connected with yourself. Begin to understand what you think the food is doing for you. And the more you can bring your logical brain into your eating experiences, the more you can learn and shift them one day at a time. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. You can find the show notes and any resources mentioned at bingebreakthrough.com. If you like this episode, subscribe to have future episodes delivered to you each Wednesday. And remember, your five star rating and review will help others discover these life changing concepts. See you next week.