Nutrition
January 7, 2024
TLDR: Embracing Cognitive Evolution - Moving from Food Rules to Principles
This article explores the transition from rigid thinking to flexible approaches in eating. Key points include:
Understanding cognitive rigidity and its impact on eating behaviors
The contrast between rules and principles in food choices
Practical applications of flexible thinking in real-world scenarios
Key takeaways:
Cognitive rigidity often manifests as black-and-white thinking about food
Personal history, trauma, and genetics can influence thinking patterns
Rules are pass/fail while principles offer room for interpretation
Being fluid like water rather than rigid like rock promotes better outcomes
Real-world scenarios require balanced decision-making rather than strict rules
Wise Mind Nutrition's stance:
Promotes guiding principles over rigid rules
Encourages development of personal nutritional identity
Supports balanced approach between discipline and flexibility
Recognizes individual differences in needs and approaches
Emphasizes thoughtful responses over rigid compliance
The article concludes by encouraging readers to embrace their individual nutritional identity while rejecting false dichotomies, highlighting the importance of nuance in developing a healthy relationship with food.
[Read the full article for detailed examples, scenarios, and guidance on developing flexible thinking patterns around food]
Introduction: Embracing Cognitive Evolution
Each of us experiences varying degrees of cognitive rigidity. Cognitive rigidity can look like leaning towards black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking patterns, which can play out in one’s relationship with food. Some people are more susceptible to these mental and emotional extremes, and this may have roots in brain chemistry, genetics, and one’s upbringing, including trauma exposure during childhood and adolescence.
Furthermore, we live in an era marked by civil unrest and polarized thinking, and the quest for group identity has sometimes overshadowed individuality, leading to the demise of nuance and the rise of false dichotomies. Yet, it's crucial to recognize that our minds can be trained to think in new patterns, allowing us to move from cognitive rigidity towards cognitive flexibility. As our brains and bodies heal, so do our minds.
Fluidity vs. Rigidity: The Water and Rock Analogy
People differ in their adaptability to life's changes. Some flow like water, effortlessly adapting, while others stand firm like rocks. Striking a balance between both attributes is key to mental well-being. Sometimes, it's essential to drop the rigid rock and embrace the fluidity of life. For example, someone can be rigid about food and nutrition at one point in life’s journey, only to find themselves more fluid and easygoing later. Someone may have developed a list of foods their mind categorized as “bad” but eventually realized that assigning the food with this moral label only heightened their emotional charge around it. Fluidity is generally an outcome we strive for.
Principles Over Rules: A Paradigm Shift
Distinguishing between rules and principles is pivotal in understanding cognitive rigidity. Rules appear to be very much pass/fail and thus can foster cognitive rigidity and anxiety, particularly around food. In contrast, principles offer nuance and interpretation, allowing for growth and evolution over time.
The Wise Mind Nutrition program encourages the development of Guiding Principles. Guiding principles learned throughout the program offer a gentler, sustainable approach to eating. This transition from rigid rules to guiding principles aims to set the stage for long-term success in eating for mood and brain health as you are empowered to develop and establish your own principles, strengthening your sense of agency as an eater.
Within these principles, striking a balance between discipline and flexibility is crucial. Embrace the level of discipline that suits you. For example, if you haven't had much structure around your food and eating, leaning into discipline may be helpful, particularly at the beginning. Crucially, we should maintain flexibility, not becoming excessively attached to any specific guiding principle and allowing these principles to adapt to the unpredictability of life.
Navigating Guiding Principles in Everyday Choices
Whether navigating unexpected restaurant meals or making dietary choices, here are some examples of applying guiding principles to daily decision-making.
Scenario 1: You aimed to have your meals include around 50% fruits and vegetables, but while eating at a restaurant, you received a much smaller vegetable portion than you anticipated.
Decision: Given that you noticed fresh berries somewhere on the dessert menu, you could order a fruit-based dessert with extra berries to ensure that you had a proportionate volume of fruits and vegetables at this meal. On the other hand, you could order a different dessert or skip dessert altogether. There’s no right or wrong answer.
Scenario 2: You set an intention to eat more plant-based meals and have been enjoying this. However, you are at a social event and find that only beef patties are available.
Decision: Perhaps you should eat the available food and not internalize any guilt or shame about it. On the other hand, perhaps you would rather not eat food that doesn't feel great afterward or does not align with your values. You have every right to act in accordance with your emerging nutritional identity. There are no right or wrongs here, either.
Scenario 3: You set an intention to eat pumpkin seeds every day. One day, you forgot your lunch with a salad with many pumpkin seeds. On this day, you purchased lunch from a restaurant with no pumpkin seeds on the menu. You also had dinner at a Japanese restaurant where you suspected pumpkin seeds would be unavailable.
Decision: Perhaps you should purchase the salted pumpkin seeds from the convenience store and have them as your afternoon snack. On the other hand, perhaps you should have the day off from eating pumpkin seeds. It could absolutely depend on the day.
You can see from the examples above that there is an emphasis on responding to the different scenarios using your internal compass (guiding principles). Responding thoughtfully while considering the nuance steers us from rigid rules that lead to feelings of failure and heighten anxiety around food.
Embrace Your Nutritional Identity
As we navigate the complexities of our relationship with food, you are welcome to join the collective healing where nuance prevails. Reject false dichotomies and reclaim individual agency and your nutritional identity. We’re all individuals embedded into the context of a larger ecology we call society. But remember who you are; we don’t just live in nature; we are nature. Embrace it.
