Ep. 3: The Lower and Higher Brain at Work in Binge Eating

If you ever feel out of control around food, you're not alone, and you're in the right place to learn practical, no nonsense information about why you binge and how to stop. Binge eating does not mean that something is wrong with you. It's a natural, but primitive brain response that you can correct. If you're ready for change, sign up for the Brain Over Binge self-paced online course for less than $20 per month. If you feel you need personalized support, we also offer one-on-one coaching and group coaching. To learn more, go to brainoverbinge.com/subscribe. And I hope you enjoy the show. Welcome to the Brain Over Binge podcast, where we share a simple brain-based approach to ending binge eating. This is Katherine Hansen. I'm the author of Brain Over Binge and the Brain Over Binge Recovery Guide. I'm so glad to be co-hosting this show with my friend and colleague, Cookie Rosenblum. Thank you, Katherine. I'm excited to be here. Cookie is a master coach and also an author herself. And we also teach a course together using this approach. And we want to welcome you today. And today we're excited to share the information we have for you. We're going to talk about the lower and the higher brain. This is a central part of the Brain Over Binge approach that we actually have two parts of our brain at work in binge eating. Last episode we talked about the urges to binge and how they are the direct cause of binge eating. And this episode, we want to tell you that these urges to binge come from a lower part of your brain from a more primitive part of your brain, which some people call the animal brain. And this part of your brain is in charge of your survival instincts, it's in charge of your habits. And as we talked about in our last show, these urges to binge arise because of survival instincts, which is caused a lot of times from dieting and calorie restriction, or these urges arise because of habit, a habit you've conditioned over time. So we want you to know that these processes that we're talking about, survival and habit, come from a lower part of your brain. It comes from deep inside your brain, really an older part of your brain if we're talking about evolutionary history. This part of our brain is similar to the brain of animals, and that's why some people call this part of the brain the animal brain. In my books, I call it the lower brain. And just knowing that these urges to binge develop in this lower, more instinctual part of your brain can really help you feel like you have power over them. Now we know that you may not be a big fan of brain science, and that's okay. But it's really important to know that the urges come from that lower part of your brain because if you know that, you know that it's not you, the real you that wants the best for yourself and wants to be happy and live a good life. And once you know that, it's empowering because you'll understand that those urges are the product of a primitive system, the part of your brain that's been around for a very long time. And those urges don't really signal what you truly want your need. We know that of course you want more from your life than the pain that the binge eating brings to you. We know that when the urge comes up, you may think that you have no choice, right? And you may feel helpless because you believe that the urges mean something. So if you understand where those urges come from and why you get them, that's what's going to allow you to understand and when they come up to be able to not act on them. It's empowering. Yes, that's right, cookie. The most important thing is to know that you have the ability to not act on binge urges because where your true self lies is in your higher brain. The higher brain is what we associate with our identity and with our goals. The higher brain is basically our more rational self. It's our more human self. And more specifically, our rational human self lies in a part of the brain, a part of the higher brain called the prefrontal cortex. This is the newer part of the brain if we're talking evolutionary history. This is a part of the brain that gives you the ability to have self control, to be able to veto impulses that come from the lower brain. The lower brain sends a lot of instinctual responses and habitual responses, but we always have a choice in our higher brain to say no to those impulses. The binge urge is an impulse. It's a primitive impulse. It's an animalistic impulse that is signaling you that you need to binge to survive because that's the way your lower brain is conditioned right now. But you, in your higher brain, you know better than this. You know that binge eating is causing pain in your life. You know that you want better for yourself. You know that you want to recover. And I want you to know that you have the ability in your higher brain to overcome these binge urges and to recover. The reason you have this ability to overcome binge urges is based on some more very simple brain science. The higher brain gives humans the ability to choose what to focus on and what actions to take based on the information coming from the lower brain. The higher brain contains our conscious awareness. And most importantly for the purposes of dismissing the urges, it contains our self-control functions. Your higher brain is ultimately in control of when and how you use your voluntary muscles. And this is very important because the lower brain cannot move voluntary muscles by itself. It needs the higher brain to act or to go along with it. If you have an impulse, your higher brain basically has to say yes in order for your voluntary muscles to move. So it's very important that you know that all the lower brain can do is send out urges. It's actually powerless to make you act. You can only decide to act with your higher brain. A lot of times in binge eating, you may feel out of control. You may feel like the urge leaves you no choice but to binge or that the urge is driving you to do something you just can't seem to control. But it's not a true loss of control. It's a perceived feeling of losing control. You still do retain the capacity to choose. And by understanding how and why you have this ability to choose, makes it possible to start putting your higher brain back in the driver's seat and start making choices that are in your best interest. If you can become more aware of where these urges come from and that you don't have to act on them because you ultimately have control of your voluntary muscles, it empowers you to take control back. You can start allowing this urge to be present but not acting on it. And by not acting, you start to rewire your brain and change this habit. As Catherine just explained, you really have to want to recover for this method to work. And when we say you, we mean you, the real you, your higher brain, the high version of you has to want to recover. And if you've ever listened to Catherine before in various interviews or read her books or have taken one of our courses, you should know that we have never met anyone who is bingeing who does not want to recover. We know that you do. And the reason that's so important is that your higher brain has to get the message to know that this is not what you want in your life. And focusing on why you want to recover can be really helpful to keep you on track. So we suggest that you begin to think about or even write down the ways why and how your life would be better, not perfect, but better if you no longer binge. If you know you want to recover and we know that you do, you'll be better able to recognize as the urges form that it's coming from your lower brain. You'll be able to see the urges and know that they hold no truth. They're going to become less difficult to see and not act on. But the important thing is that you focus on your desire to want to be totally done with binge eating. This message is brought to you by Avocado Matress. And if healthy, comfortable sleep matters to you, this is one organic brand worth knowing. That's because what you sleep on actually matters. Most mattresses rely on synthetic foams and chemical materials that trap heat, break down over time, or off gas. Avocado does it differently. Your mattresses are handcrafted with natural materials, organic latex, organic wool, and organic cotton designed to be naturally cooling, incredibly supportive and long-lasting. They're certified organic by gods and meet multiple non-talks that can save these certifications, made for people who care about their health and the environment without sacrificing comfort. 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This is not what you truly want. This is what, in the moments of the urge, the lower brain tries to convince you that you want, simply because that's its job. But if you can allow this feeling of wanting to pass, knowing that it's not what you truly want, but only what your lower brain has been conditioned to make you feel like you want, you will again reconnect with your higher brains desire to recover. An important thing to know is that the lower brain is only concerned with temporary pleasure and maintaining this habit, it thinks you need to survive. The lower brain is not concerned with your goals or your plans or what you want for yourself now or in the future. That's your higher brains job. It's not that your lower brain has any malice against you. It's simply that it's responsible for immediate reward, immediate pleasure. It's responsible for meeting survival needs in the moment and also maintaining habits. And those are vital brain functions that we do need. And when they're working properly, they serve as well. The problem simply comes in when the lower brain becomes conditioned to react as if a harmful substance or harmful behavior or habit is necessary for survival. The urge to binge in the moment will tell you that you do want this and that you don't want to recover, but this is just a glitch in your lower brain that you can learn to rise above. When cooking and I teach these concepts about the lower brain and the higher brain, some people are able to recognize the difference in their two brains right away and it just clicks. But others don't recognize the lower brain quite as quickly and they may continue believing that the lower brain is expressing their true wants and their true needs and they may keep following it. In this situation, I recommend taking a good look at what is leading up to the binge. I like people to write down what thoughts they're experiencing before a binge, what physical sensations they're experiencing, what feelings are making them feel like they want to binge, like those feelings of desire and false wanting that I talked about earlier. Writing all this down so you can see it and you can see what's happening and see what's actually encouraging you to binge helps you to become a lot more aware of what's going on. Otherwise it can seem like the lower brain just takes over and you don't have much of a choice. But if you can start becoming aware and looking at this process, you'll see that a binge doesn't just come out of nowhere. There's always a feeling of wanting or attempting thought or physical craving and likely all three of those prior to you starting to binge. When you write these things down, you will see that all of these thoughts and feelings encouraging binge eating actually don't make any sense. Your higher brain doesn't actually believe these thoughts at all. You only temporarily believe them when you're caught up in an urge. If you take a look at what you wrote down when you're not having that urge and you think about all the thoughts and feelings and sensations that are leading up to a binge, you can clearly see with your higher brain that those thoughts really aren't you. You don't actually believe them. When you do this, it's the beginning of seeing that you are not your lower brain and you don't actually want what it's been conditioned to drive you toward or make you think that you want. So, recognizing that lower brain when it starts to go into action is so crucial. As we just said, one of the ways of increasing your ability to recognize what's happening when it happens, so you don't just automatically go into what you've usually done, is really focusing on your desire to recover because the more you could feel that you truly don't want this in your life, the easier it will be for you to recognize that lower brain when it gives you the urges. And part of this is the ability to recognize the consequences of what happens when you do follow the urge. If you do binge, we do not want you to beat yourself up for it at all. But all the negative feelings that you create after you do it, they're helpful because they're going to help you see why you want to recover. All the regret you feel after a binge, the shame, we don't want to encourage you to feel bad about yourself at all. But those bad feelings are kind of a good reminder of why you do not want to keep doing this. So we want you to take an honest look at the cost of you doing the behavior, doing the binge so that you could see really clearly that it's not worth it to you. And your lower brain may tell you that the binge will feel good or taste good or be worth it. And that is a tiny, tiny little fraction of temporary pleasure. And that tiny temporary pleasure is actually ruining what could be an incredible life for you. We want you to compare that little temporary pleasure that you might get to all the positives that you would get if you stopped binge eating and focus on that. And that's what's really, really true. The temporary pleasure is not what you really want. And when you focus on stopping and what you will get from that, that just can open your life up to all kinds of possibilities. And Catherine and I have both seen the amazing things that happen to people when they are able to see their urges and understand that it's not really what they want just to have it and not give into them, not go into them. It is truly amazing. What we hope is that this episode will help you get in touch with your higher brain and connect with that and connect with your desire for recovery and then disconnect with the habit that's in the lower brain and disconnect with these urges that are giving you this false wanting and this false feeling of need. I also want to note here that you're not disconnecting with your lower brain altogether. You will still have pleasure in your life and you'll still have pleasure in eating, but it's not going to be a pleasure that harms you. Binge eating is not true pleasure. It's ruining your life. And even though it might temporarily give you some sort of pleasure in the moment, if that pleasure was worth it to you, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast and you wouldn't be trying to recover. Binge eating is ruining your plans and your goals and all the things that your higher brain wants. So we want you to see that more and more. We want you to see that the urges are not speaking truth for you. They're not telling you what you truly want or truly need. We know for sure that you can do this and we're here to help you do it. Exactly. That wraps up today's episode about the lower and the higher brain and next time we'll teach you more about the first goal of recovery, which is dismissing urges to binge. Remember in the brain over binge approach, there are two recovery goals. Dismitting urges and also eating adequately. When we talk about dismissing urges, there are five parts or what I call five components of dismissing urges to binge. And in the next episode we'll be talking about the first component and how to apply it. We want you to start letting these urges go and getting on with your life. If what we've talked about in this show makes sense to you and you haven't already done so, please go to the show notes and grab a copy of my free ebook called the Brain Over Binge Basics and also in the show notes you can learn more about cookie and receive her free ebook as well. We hope you'll join us again next time. For now this is Katherine and Cookie reminding you that you have the powers to rewire your brain and live a binge-free life. The Brain Over Binge podcast is produced and recorded by Brain Over Binge Recovery Coaching LLC. All work is copyrighted by Brain Over Binge Recovery Coaching LLC and all rights are reserved. As a disclaimer, the host of the Brain Over Binge podcast are not professional counselors or licensed healthcare providers and this podcast is not a substitute for medical advice or any form of professional therapy. Eating disorders can have serious health consequences and you are strongly advised to seek medical attention for matters relating to your health. Please get help when you need it and good luck on your journey. Need more help? You can find all of our current and upcoming options for support at brainoverbinge.com.