How to Understand Your Brain

In this episode, I discuss how to understand your brain. My goal is to give you a basic understanding of how the brain works.

Understanding how your brain works will help you learn how to make real changes in your eating habits and all areas of your life.

Here are some takeaways from this episode:

One of the primary functions of the brain is survival, and if it senses a threat in any way (real or perceived), it will always focus on survival, constantly scanning for danger.

If you've been on a lot of diets in the past (as many of us have), your brain may sense that your attempts to change or limit your food may result in starvation and will see this as a threat, which is why it is hard for you to change your eating habits.

There’s also the thinking part of the brain that we can use to our advantage to grow and evolve.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Binge Breakfast. I can help you finally break through the bearing. Feeling out of control, I'm after Coach Jane Poker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, what you've tried, we don't need all of the cycle. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge being. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are listening to this podcast on this day for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today that's impactful for you on your journey with food. Whether you are hearing a concept for the first time, or whether you're hearing the same concept but through a different perspective, I trust that you are going to hear something today that is going to be an impactful part of your journey. So I've heard from many of you that you're really resonating with what you're hearing on this podcast. Some of you have shared that you feel seen, heard, and understood after listening to a certain episode or maybe multiple episodes. It can feel so validating to know that you aren't alone in your struggle. Some of you can see yourselves as I share my own stories, and you can see that perhaps you aren't as broken or as hopeless or hopeless as you might have once imagined. My goal is to help you understand that you are not broken, and there is a very good reason why you do what you do with food sometimes. So I'm here to provide you with tools, insights, and resources so that you can create a new relationship with yourself and with food. And if you have any suggestions for topics you would like to hear on a future podcast episode, please send them my way via email to hello at janepilger.com. All right, so today we're going to talk about the brain. And my goal is to give you a basic understanding of how the brain works. Now, I am not an expert in this field. What I know comes from my own personal research, understanding, and the self-development that I have done. Now, if you want to dive deeper into this topic after you've listened to this episode, there is no shortage of resources available to you. But today I'm going to keep things pretty simple and straightforward. I want to give you just enough information to understand how your brain works and to give you what you need to know to work with your brain rather than against it. Now, I'm not going to dive into technical terms because I want this episode to be accessible to everyone, no matter how much knowledge you have on the subject. So this is foundational information to understand human behavior in general, not only our eating behaviors. We're going to talk about it today through the lens of your eating, but just know that this topic applies to every area in life. Okay, so let's dive in. The brain's primary job is to survive. It literally has that as its number one job for you to stay alive. So if your brain senses a threat in any way, whether this threat is real or just perceived, the brain is always going to focus on survival. That is its number one job, to stay alive. So because of this, the brain is constantly scanning for danger. And this is where the nervous system comes in. The nervous system is the way that the brain communicates with the body. So the brain senses a threat. And via the nervous system, it sends signals and sensations to respond to that perceived threat. You've heard of the fight, flight, and freeze response. This is what happens when we are in a survival response. We go into either fight, flight, or freeze. So the brain, it also communicates its felt sense of safety through the nervous system. This is when we are in that regulated, that regulated response of our nervous system. And if you want more information on the nervous system, be sure to check out episode number six of this podcast. So when the brain is not in survival mode, it still operates with three basic goals. Those goals are to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. These three goals are always at play for the brain. This is part of the reason that change can seem so difficult. This is part of the reason why we want to sometimes just stay in bed, why we just want to keep eating. The brain wants to seek pleasure, to avoid pain, to use as little energy as possible. And when we start thinking about change, the brain sees change as something that will take energy. It might be painful, it does not want this. Remember, it's three goals: seek pleasure, avoid pain, use as little energy as possible. The brain wants consistency, homeostasis. It wants things to stay the same. So let's say you decide you're gonna stop binging. You don't really know why you binge, but you know you don't like it. You feel terrible when you do it, and you don't like the excess weight on your body that accumulates when you've been in an extended cycle of binging. So you decide you're gonna stop eating sugar and flour, you're gonna stop snacking, and you're either gonna count calories, points, or macros, so you'll have some guardrails for yourself. Your brain is not going to like this. Now, first of all, it's important to understand why you binge. If binging is a form of safety for you for any reason, the simple intention of taking it away can feel very threatening to the brain. Let's say that you didn't feel safe for whatever reason growing up and you learned how to create safety for yourself through food. If you decide to take that food away without creating safety and assurance for yourself in other ways, the brain will sense this as a threat. If you've been on a lot of diets in the past, as many of us have, your brain may sense that your attempts to change or to limit your food may result in starvation and will see this as a threat. This is why often just the idea of changing your food, losing weight, or going on a diet will lead you to eat a lot more food, sometimes in a way that feels out of control or like you can't get enough. The brain senses a threat. It's been through restrictive diets before and it's protecting itself from that happening again. So we've just covered the very first part of what the brain scans for threats. Remember, its first job is to survive. Now, let's say that the idea of making these shifts around food doesn't seem threatening to the overall survival of the brain. If the brain is not in survival mode, it will go then to the motivational triad, which we've discussed. Seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. So even if the brain isn't sensing a threat to its overall survival, it will definitely sense that these plant changes in eating will require energy, will involve some discomfort, and will likely provide less pleasure than it would prefer. This is why big changes are often much harder to make consistently. Big changes go against what the brain is designed for. There is a lot of research out there that shows that lasting, sustainable change is often best accomplished through small changes made consistently over time. These small changes don't feel as threatening to the brain. There's less of a perception that it takes a lot of energy or discomfort, and it allows us to make subtle shifts that can feel safer to the brain and therefore the nervous system. Okay, there is also a part of our brain that we haven't talked about yet. That is the prefrontal cortex. This is the thinking part of the brain. This is the part that allows us to set goals, to make plans, to work through discomfort, to remember why we want to make changes. This part allows us to become the observer and to witness what is happening in our minds and in our bodies so that we can make a different choice than the one we have repeated so many times before. The prefrontal cortex is what allows us to change, to learn, to grow and to evolve. In order to change, we need to be able to access the prefrontal cortex and to learn how to use it to our advantage. But here is the key. When it perceives a threat, all of its resources will go towards protecting itself. This can show up in different levels based upon the perceived level of threat. When the survival brain is activated, it takes up all of the energy. There is no room for the thinking brain, that prefrontal cortex, there's no room for it to be online. This is why sometimes it feels like you literally can't do what you know would be in alignment with your goals, or like you simply don't have a choice in the matter. Sometimes you really don't. So what do we do with this information? We understand that the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of our brain, is the key to change. Remember how I talk about the fact that you cannot change what you aren't aware of? Guess what allows you to create awareness? The prefrontal cortex. When we are in survival mode, there is no active thinking or awareness. The brain just takes over. How will I feel later? The prefrontal cortex allows us to have that space to consider what might happen a little bit later rather than just reacting in the current moment. Okay, so we clearly need our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex, to make changes. But how do we get more access to our thinking brain? We do that by creating safety, by showing our brain and our body that we are okay. Now, this topic is way bigger than I can go into on this podcast. But for now, it's so helpful to understand that the thinking part of our brain is essential to create change. And this part of our brain is only available when the brain and the body have a sense of safety. So, what do we do with this? We make sure that we aren't setting ourselves up for situations that don't feel safe to our brain and our body. But how do we know? How do we know what doesn't feel safe? Generally, it's a felt sense. So it might show up for you like an internal constriction or an internal no that your body gives you. You don't want to force yourself to do anything with change. Approach it from a place of something you are willing to explore, something you are curious about, but not something that you think you should do. You need to do, you must do. When I work with clients, I always tell them I am not going to take away their food or their rules. Many people have a lot of rules in place around food because they think the rules keep them safe. If we try to get rid of all of the rules right away, that can be seen as a perceived threat to the brain, which is likely to lead to the out-of-control moments with food because the brain is trying to protect itself. So what's the answer? The answer is slow, gradual change. The kind of change that sometimes feels like it's not enough. When small changes are done repeatedly over time, the brain can realize they don't take a lot of energy. And when you start to recognize the benefits, the brain gets pleasure from the small measures of success and progress. Now, we also want to engage the prefrontal cortex as much as possible. And this is where we bring in curiosity and awareness. Curiosity, awareness, and compassion are available when there is a felt sense of safety. So it makes sense that we also want to bring in practices to create safety for ourselves. To start, you can notice all of the times during the day that you are safe. It comes back to awareness. Create awareness for yourself of safety. Notice the times during the day when you do feel safe, even if it's just for a brief moment. Notice what's different for you in your mind and in your body when you are able to access the thinking brain versus when you feel at the effect of your survival brain. And always remember the brain's goal is always survival. After that, after that primary goal of survival, it's to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. When the brain feels safe, you have access to the thinking part of your brain. This part allows you to set goals, to make small changes, to think about how you might feel in a couple of hours if you eat a bunch of food right now, to think about what else you might be needing in this moment, and to know that the sentences floating through your mind are just words, that you don't have to believe everything you think. Now, sometimes creating safety on your own isn't available if you have had a long-standing sense of threat within your own body. This is where the power of support can come in. Working with a professional can help you cultivate a sense of safety for yourself. This is a lot of the work that I do with my clients, creating safety for them within our sessions and showing them how to create safety on their own. There is so much power available with the thinking brain. But we have to set up an environment to be able to access it. That means create safety, make small changes. And when it's available, utilize the thinking brain as much as possible. As you continue to access it more, you will be able to use it to your advantage. And when you just want to eat, when you are in the middle of a difficult project at work, or when you're experiencing a big emotion, know that this is just your brain doing what brains do. It wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. The types of food we seek out are often high in sugar, creating pleasure from the dopamine reward system. They also serve as a means to avoid the perceived pain of the emotion we don't want to feel. And doing a pattern that we've done so many times before takes a lot less energy than solving a work problem or having a difficult conversation. There is nothing wrong with you. Your brain is working beautifully. It will always want to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. But when you are in a regulated state of safety within your body, you will be able to access your thinking brain. This will allow you to consider new thoughts, to create new responses, to make a different choice when the desire to eat strikes, to understand the benefit of allowing the discomfort of whatever you are experiencing to be there and to fully embrace the growth that takes place. Place as a result. You will be able to recognize that you are wanting to eat because you aren't sure what to do with this work project. You will be able to gently guide yourself to a response that feels supportive to your brain, your body, and the ultimate goal of finishing your project. You will be able to discern whether or not you want to have the conversation and the best way to support yourself through it if you decide that is what you need for yourself. You are a human with a human brain. I hope this episode has allowed you to understand how it works a little bit better. Don't wish your brain was different. Get curious about how you can take this information and work with the incredible brain that you have. The more you learn to work with your brain and body rather than wishing they were different, the more you will be able to adapt and adjust so you can use it to your advantage. And also have a lot of compassion for yourself and others when you can see what is happening within your brain and within theirs. Now note this. When you are in the midst of a survival response, you won't be able to see it. Only after your thinking brain comes back online will you be able to reflect and understand what happened. This is totally normal. You may be able to see when it's happening for someone else in the moment. This awareness is powerful. A person who's in a survival response does not have access to their thinking brain. So don't expect them to behave in a rational way. The same goes for yourself. You will often experience times where your brain senses danger and that survival response gets activated. And this is okay. The goal isn't for this to never happen. The goal is to bring the thinking brain back online as quickly as possible. And guess what helps us do this? Curiosity and compassion. And guess what keeps our survival brain activated? Shame and judgment. So if you have that moment with food where you binge, you feel out of control, the best thing you can do is get curious right away. How does this make sense? This one question is magic. It helps activate your curiosity and the thinking part of your brain. If you notice you can't come up with an answer other than I screwed up, I'll never figure this out. I can't believe I did it again. It just means you're still in an activated state. You are still in that place of shame and judgment. Keeping curious. Eventually, you will get to the place where you can reflect on it with your thinking brain. As you practice, you will be able to bring your prefrontal cortex online sooner and sooner, even during the eating experience itself. Now, this all happens slowly over time. As it happens, the brain starts to understand this is the new normal. It doesn't perceive that it requires additional energy or discomfort. It's just what we do. It senses pleasure from the true nurturing and taking care of the body. As these shifts happen, the brain then does start to see the discomfort and the additional energy that come from a binge. The shift happens over time. When that future perceived discomfort does come along in any form, the brain is going to want to seek distraction or avoidance because that's just what the brain does. The motival motivational triad is always at play. But when we can keep that prefrontal cortex as an active part of the conversation, we can continue to work with our brains and our bodies in a way that is supportive and it allows us to grow and learn and transform. All right, that's what I have for you today. Get curious about your brain and how it might be working. Don't make your actions and behaviors a personal judgment. Think about what part of your brain might be at play, what it might be sensing, thinking, and feeling. Your brain is an amazing and powerful tool. It truly is a gift. This is the beauty of being human. Understand your brain and the brains around you, and you will truly start to see yourself and others through a completely new lens. All right, I'll see you next week for another episode that will give you actionable tools that you can use to work with your brain to help you create the results that you want for yourself. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you want to understand why you feel out of control with food sometimes, I've created just the thing for you. Discover the number one reason why and get three things you can do today. Visit binge breakthrough.com forward slash quiz, and you'll have your answer and your next step. That's bingebreakthrough.com forward slash quiz.