How to beat cravings
I’m not a huge one for cravings. I sometimes get an overwhelming urge to eat tinned mackerel, but I think that might be my body telling me it needs some essential fatty acids. I don’t think it’s quite the same as craving chocolate really.
Anyway, last night Paul McKenna was telling us how to beat cravings by conditioning our minds (a bit like Pavlov and his dogs, but much less drastic). It has two stages.
First off you have to set up a way of inducing revulsion at the object of your cravings. Press your thumb and middle finger together on your LEFT hand and then imagine a food that you hate (eg anchovies, sprouts) and imagine a plate of them and that you take a fork, put some in your mouth and start chewing. Then add something really gross to the mix like hair off a barber’s shop floor or worms or my personal favourite some random guy’s jizz. Then imagine your eating that - hopefully you should start feeling really disgusted and maybe even nauseous. Then mix in your craving food aswell. That should put you off the food you’ve been craving. All the time you should keep your thumb and middle finger pressed tightly together. Your subconcious should then associate the sense of disgust with pressing together your left thumb and middle finger.
Then you need to replace the lost good feeling you get from satisfying your craving. You do this by pressing your thumb and middle finger together on your RIGHT hand and then remembering a time when you felt really happy or pleased with yourself. Work through a really good memory, savouring the joy or enjoyment you felt, then select more good memories and do the same. All the time keep your right thumb and middle finger firmly pressed together. Your subconcious will then associate feeling good with pressing together your right thumb and middle finger.
Next time you have a craving press your left thumb and middle finger together. Your craving should disappear. However, because something bad has probably happened to cause the craving in the first place you need to make yourself feel better so press your right thumb and middle finger together. Hopefully whatever has upset you (stress usually) won’t seem so bad now.
I tried doing this, but I haven’t any foods I crave particularly (although cheese rolls are a problem thinking about it). Perhaps I should wait until I have a craving and then try it. Apparently it can also help with stress, which I do suffer from so I think it’s worth a go.