Ah Yes…Spring

By Dr. Evelyn Schiff

When swimsuit ads appear, flowering plums burst into blossom and pets start shedding, spring lurks behind those snow covered hills. Next comes the scramble to unhinge any excess pounds we’ve gathered during the winter.

In striving for ideal measurements and perfect weight, we usually turn our attention to diet, exercise, a scale and the measuring tape. But what about the tools for success that lie within ourselves?

About 60 years ago, scientists started suggesting that mental and emotional factors could affect the human body. Freud and his contemporaries agreed that emotions produce physical change; and Freud, it is said, coined the word psychosomatic to describe it.

But consider that it took another twenty-five years and biofeedback machines to tell us how all of this relates to swimsuit ads. What emerged, not directly of course, is that thoughts and feelings may have as much to do with our size and shape as what goes into our mouths.

A lady told me several years ago that she was angry with her body. “I hate it!” she fumed, “and the more I restrict my diet, the tighter it holds onto the fat. Why won’t it just let go?”

I asked her to close her eyes, become quiet and see how her body felt. She found that her shoulders were braced, her arms and legs were “tight, like coiled springs,” and her whole pelvic cradle felt “bound.” 

“My gosh,” she exclaimed, “I think I always feel this way. If that’s so, then it’s no wonder I have problems with digestion and elimination. If I could relax, it might help get rid of the fat.” Bright lady, wouldn’t you say?

Few people acknowledge the power of emotion. However, anger and its companion feelings of irritability, hurt, resentment or rage all cause muscular tensions that interfere with circulation. Such blockages can build a veritable fortress of the human body.

Individuals react differently to emotion, of course. One person may eat fast and furiously, consume everything in sight and grind out anger or frustration with teeth and jaws. Others appear to swell up defensively, blowfish fashion, but eat very little.

In fact, eating disorders of all kinds can result when food is used to quiet the emotions.

Now that science has found the brain’s emotional system, we can examine feelings that keep us strapped to the roller coaster of gaining and losing weight. Shame, self-blame, guilt, unrealistic expectations, unflattering comparisons, sensitivity to criticism, irritability and defensiveness all cause enough stress to keep any hard-working body, and the mind as well, off balance.

When we link what we feel with what we do and exert some control, we can bring what we’re doing into conscious thought. We can give ourselves permission to just look at it with no guilt, no accusations, no having to change. It is simply a matter of being fair with ourselves.
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