Читать книгу When Food Is Comfort - Julie M. Simon - Страница 13
ОглавлениеThe Importance of Early Caregiving
Brain development in the uterus and during childhood is the single most important biological factor in determining whether or not a person will be predisposed to substance dependence and to addictive behaviors of any sort, whether drug-related or not.
— Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
Most of us have been taught that genetics determines everything about us, from our eye and hair color to our personality traits, temperament, athletic abilities, height, weight distribution, susceptibility to certain diseases, and even eating habits and preferences. And as any dieter will tell you, certain inherited patterns, like body weight distribution and a gnawing sweet tooth, can seem nearly impossible to alter. But recent brain science shows that our brain development is hugely influenced by our environment, perhaps even more than by genetic factors. This fact has profound implications for our ability, as both children and adults, to self-regulate: to manage our emotions and moods, regulate our nervous system, control or redirect disruptive impulses and behaviors, and think before we act.
Large-scale research studies have examined how early life experiences, in addition to hereditary predispositions, shape brain pathways and affect brain development. Studies in rats have shown that those who received more licking and other types of nurturing contact from their mothers during infancy had more efficient brain circuitry for reducing anxiety as adults. All mammalian mothers nurture their infants. Right after giving birth, a newborn rat, puppy, or kitten nuzzles into the mother, and the mother begins licking it. She continues to lick her baby throughout the rearing period. Humans touch, kiss, cuddle, caress, hug, and hold their babies. Parental nurturing is critical to the normal development of the infant’s brain.
A child’s self-regulation skills are nurtured by her caregiver’s ongoing, patient, tuned-in attention to the child’s internal world and her developing interest in the external world. Literally thousands of moment-to-moment interactions between a caregiver and a young child take place during childhood, and these interactions are involved in building the child’s emotional, cognitive, and social skills. Everything we experience in the womb, infancy, and early childhood — the kind of care we receive, the food we’re given, the people we’re surrounded by, the music we hear, the stories we’re told, the lessons we learn, the stressors we’re exposed to — has a significant effect on our brain development. If all goes well, we develop emotional and relational skills that allow us to live meaningful, well-balanced lives and enjoy healthy relationships with ourselves and others.
It Takes a Village to Raise Healthy, Well-Adjusted Children
In the past sixty to seventy years, parents in Western societies have faced new challenges in nurturing their children. The small nuclear family has become the norm, divorce and single parenting are common, and many parents are forced to cope with a lack of support — physical, emotional, and financial. Extended family members often live many miles, if not countries, apart. Families, couples, and singles living in close proximity barely know one another. A neighborhood is no longer automatically a community. When we lack the comfort and support of extended family, close friends, and neighborhood communities, it becomes more difficult to raise and nurture our children.
Parents who are raising many children and coping with stress or physical or mental illness may find it especially difficult to consistently meet their children’s emotional needs. Depressed, anxious, or ill parents inevitably find parenting more challenging, and infants and children of such parents may become uncooperative and aggressive. Poor maternal nutrition and prenatal alcohol and drug exposure produce infants whose brain functioning is impaired.
Infants and children exposed to neglect and abuse live in a constant state of high arousal that alters the normal functioning of their stress hormones. They are easily aroused and ready to fight or flee. These children often fail to develop the ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors and end up on a life path that involves attention difficulties, poor performance in school, aggressive social behavior, criminal activities, and substance abuse, including disordered eating patterns.
Even emotionally and physically healthy, well-intentioned parents can miss the mark if they themselves missed out on the right kind of emotional nurturance in infancy and childhood and failed to learn skills for caring for themselves and others. Milder forms of parental misattunement in early childhood, such as a regularly distracted or overwhelmed parent, can also affect a child’s brain development and result in behavioral challenges like eating disturbances.
Early in life, we may seek comfort, calming, and pleasure from external sources, like thumb sucking (I still have the bump on my thumb), favorite objects (I had a special doll that went everywhere with me), and favorite foods. Food is like medicine: it alters our brain chemistry and, like a thumb or favorite doll, it’s readily available, soothing, and predictable. But when we miss out on the right kind of emotional nurturance early in life, and routinely turn to external sources, we fail to develop optimal brain circuitry. And when our brains don’t develop properly, there is a high probability that our emotional life, thought processes, and behavioral patterns will be derailed. Rather than acquiring self-care skills that will last a lifetime, we end up with skill deficits that can have lifelong consequences.
Lacking appropriate self-soothing and comforting skills, we may have difficulty regulating our emotions, bodily sensations, impulses, thoughts, and behaviors. We are more prone to have difficulty focusing and concentrating and a limited tolerance for frustration. Perhaps we lack patience with ourselves and others. We may be hypersensitive, highly reactive, and lacking in emotional endurance and resilience. We may relate to others in immature ways. We may have trouble motivating ourselves. Basically, we grow up with an emotionally starved, very young inner child running our lives.
Stopping the Blame Game
This book is not about blaming parents and caregivers: parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Rather, it’s about understanding what you may have missed out on as an infant and small child and the effects this lack may have had on your brain development and ultimately on your eating behavior.
This is a sensitive subject, as parents, especially mothers, often feel blamed for not raising well-adjusted children. Parenting abilities, often passed down through generations, are limited by our own psychological issues, life circumstances, and challenges. In many cases, poor self-regulation is not necessarily the result of bad experiences in your childhood but rather of a lack of the sufficient nurturing, attuned experiences needed for optimal brain development. And if you had the misfortune of experiencing abuse, neglect, or loss at the hands of difficult and unkind caregivers, most likely they too were the victims of challenging early experiences. The blame game serves no purpose.
Growing and Strengthening Brain Circuits
When you understand how your brain works, you can learn to pay mindful attention, or become internally attuned, to your emotions, bodily sensations, needs, and thoughts. You can also learn to relate to yourself and others in ways that create and support healthy brain connections and facilitate learning and growth.
In this section of the book, you’ll discover
• why infants and small children need more than proper nutrition, safety, and secure shelter;
• why emotional nurturance is so critical when we are young;
• the importance of a secure attachment to one or more caregivers;
• how shame and criticism can lead to insecure attachments and chronic, lifelong states of shame;
• how early attuned experiences with our caregivers activate certain pathways in the brain, strengthen existing neural connections, and enable the forming of new connections;
• which parts of the brain are involved in self-regulation;
• why it’s never too late to strengthen connections and rewire the brain;
• which part of your brain is in charge when you have a strong urge to eat;
• why you often act before you think;
• how early relationships influence the development of the body’s system for regulating stress;
• how chronic high emotional arousal can tear down the body and result in a myriad of health challenges; and
• how even well-intentioned caregivers can fail to meet their children’s developmental needs.
Among the detailed cases that follow of clients struggling with overeating challenges, some may seem more relevant to your situation than others. It is, however, important to read them all carefully. Each case illustrates key concepts and principles that will facilitate your understanding of your own relationship with food as a source of comfort.
Even though your personal history is unique, you’ll find elements in these cases that you can relate to. Some of them may bring up unpleasant emotions and memories from your childhood. This is normal and to be expected. Be gentle and patient with yourself as you work through the book. Take it slowly; there is no rush. Hopefully, the path will be exciting and illuminating as you begin to see the pieces of your own emotional eating puzzle.
