Lurking beneath your consciousness is a stone age brain that can cause you to make self-destructive choices. But there are effective ways to reprogram it to achieve your goals without struggle.
When being tempted to eat junk I think "one minute in the mouth, one hour in the stomach and a life time on the hips, or of bad health". Actually one minute in the mouth is enough to stop me getting started. I know when I have indulged I will just want more. If I don't start the craving goes.
This is a really key piece of crafting a strategy for success. I've learned from my clients that people often succumb to craving, because they think to themselves 'I'm going to keep on craving this thing until I have some, and I can't stand the discomfort of the craving, so I might as well give in to it now.' But the reality, as you correctly identify, is that cravings pass. Usually, they only take a few minutes to pass, especially if you've learned how to 'surf' the craving. Even the ones that hang around for longer will eventually pass, and every time you successfully ride out a craving, you develop more self-respect.
Hi Robyn, just wanted to add something that you may find helpful. With a couple of patients who are suffering negative thinking patterns, have them raise their BOLT scores by 5 points. You will notice their thinking noticably changes. If I gave advice, it would be that every person who seeks to change their minds, behaviours or personalities using EFT, PDR or ABC must first raise their BOLT score to 25. BTW, HNY!
If a person displays a particular behaviour frequently, then it's a distinguishing characteristic, a trait. How Plomin Et al. categorise emotions, thoughts, feelings, behaviours may be something new, but holds little relevance. When using PDR, we let the participant use whatever labels they wish, 2 categories are used, emotions and thoughts, and actions. When a person never experiences a behaviour that was before frequent, then it can be considered removed, I have witnessed this many times, with follow up over more than 10 years. I cannot speak about other methods such as those Plomin may use, perhaps they are less effective.
I fear we are at cross purposes here because we're not using a common language. When I refer to personality, I'm using the definition used by personality psychologists: "The enduring characteristics and behaviour that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns." Our personalities are what make us easily distinguishable from others, by those who know us at least moderately well.
The Big 5, otherwise known as the Five Factor model, is not an invention of Plomin but the model of personality used by virtually all researchers in the field because it displays both reliability and validity (unlike other systems for classifying personality, such as MBTI). This is an excellent paper on the Big 5: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1002/neu.10160 and this is a good lay summary: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-big-five-personality-traits.
Plomin's work on thousands of sets of identical twins, separated at birth and reared apart, established the high heritability of personality. This work has subsequently been confirmed by other authors e.g. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8776880/. It's well worth reading Plomin's book Blueprint, or listening to the audiobook, to grasp the scope of his research.
While an individual's personality is remarkably stable over time (with a few caveats e.g. neuroticism and openness both decline as people age, while agreeableness increases), this does not mean that individual behaviours are stable. For example, a long-time smoker can quit (behaviour change) but that does not mean their personality has changed - they would still be easily distinguishable from others, at least to those who know them, through their characteristic behaviours and emotional expressions.
To be clear, Plomin is a behaviour geneticist, not a therapist. He does not use any method to try to change behaviour; his aim is to understand the roots of our characteristic behavioural repertoires.
The history that you mention is but a small snapshot, predominantly history was full of very advanced civilisations, of course this is not mainstream history which is mostly lies. Food shortages and malnutrition can cause stress for sure, but I have no experience living in such societies. Who said that life in the 21st century is more stressful than at other times in history? The point is being made that most people suffer from chronic sympathetic NS dominance, some to a small degree and others to a larger degree, very few have correct balance or dominance of the Parasympathetic system. The BOLT score can be used to determine liklihood of sympathetic NS dominance. No worries, every field has similar claims, I guess this always happens when society rests on a foundation of lies.
I cannot comment on lost advanced civilisations since, by definition, we do not have tangible evidence of the people who formed such civilisations. But we have abundant archaeological evidence that violence and food shortages quite literally left their marks on prehistoric humans; we have written evidence from ancient writers confirming the prevalence of famine and warfare; and we have evidence from geneticists that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that conferred adaptation to food shortage spread through human populations in ways that confirm the role that such adaptations played in shaping the genome of present-day humans.
My question regarding whether you believed that life in the 21st century was more stressful than in previous time was shaped by your statement that "The majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance causing some degree of stress". I presumed that you believe that this is a relatively modern phenomenon and that at some past time, people had a more 'ideal' balance. It seems I was in error in making this assumption.
However, I do have a question for you: How do you know what the ideal balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity is? To me, the notion that there is an ideal balance is not tenable. The whole point of having a central nervous system is to be able to adapt, moment by moment, to present circumstances. It's a homeodynamic system. Furthermore, the two arms (parasympathetic and sympathetic) are not antagonistic with each other, but are complementary. For example, sympathetic stimulation of endothelial cells within blood vessels causes vasoconstriction, but vasoconstriction prompts nitric oxide synthesis which ultimately results in vasodilation which is an outcome of parasympathetic stimulation of the vascular system. I find this an intriguing point of confluence between the discoveries of Western science and the notion of yin-yang expressed by the taijitu symbol - that each opposite force contains its opposite within it.
Some people take issue with the name, but it can be interchanged with 'Removal of unwanted personality traits'. People who use it mostly call it PDR to keep it short, no need to get caught up in the label. The essense is that anything that bothers a person or others around them can be removed, in fact should be removed, although there is no guidance as to what should be removed, it's left to each person to decide for themselves. Some people are very attached to their anger, sarcasm, judgementalism, etc. I have heard of Plomin's work but am not familiar with it.
Plomin would definitely take issue with this formulation, and would argue that it is not possible to 'remove' a personality trait. Bear in mind that by 'personality trait', he and others who work in this field are referring to the Big 5: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism/Negative emotionality. Anger is not a personality trait, but people who are low in agreeableness are liable to experience it more frequently and if they're also low in conscientiousness and emotional stability, would be inclined to take it out on others with greater frequency and ferocity.
It's a drawn conclusion from various scientific studies and observations. Breathing patterns give some clues and evidence. If a person chest breathes, consciously, unconsciously or while sleeping, they will likely be sympathetic NS dominant since chest breathing mimicks physiological stress. If a person often mouth breathes, they will likely also be a chest breather since it's difficult to use the diaphragm correctly while mouth breathing. Over-breathing, that is taking in too much air (based on breathing rate and volume) will also engage sympathetic response. Researchers estimate the average person breathes 200 to 300% more air than required. Most of us learn from an early age to take deep breaths, get more oxygen into the body, this is a deep and broad misconception. Oxygen saturation (SpO2) is the level of oxygen in the red blood cells. Most people have oxygen saturation between 95% and 99% at rest. Taking deep breaths will not further saturate the blood. Nor does it deliver more oxygen to the body tissues. Because we are already at near maximal oxygen carrying capacity in our body, the solution to getting more oxygen into our cells is not to get more oxygen into the blood by breathing deeper. This does not work. (increasing CO2 threshold is the key) Sympathetic predominance can be seen as a low level chronic stress to some degree on the arousal continuum, panic at one end and calm alertness at the other. To measure breathing effectiveness, the BOLT (Body oxygen level test) can be used, a score under 25 means problems, a young healthy person will usually be at 40. I've seen people under 10, they mostly pant and remain in a stressed condition, PDR or EFT will not help such people. Aside from breathing, EMR disrupts ion channels in the cell membranes and also can modulate the ANS directly, this has been known for decades. Often sympathatic NS predominance goes undetected, it can be from a small degree to acute, but always chronic. Aside from athletes and children, I think only those who have had specific breathing training will not suffer this type of stress. Yes, I do think stress and anxiety are off the charts these days. Some people do suffer witness to terrible events that induce stress which can be overcome with EFT or PDR. Lao Zhu - 'The perfect human breathes as if they are not breathing at all'.
There's no doubt that many people have various structural issues (for example poor craniofacial development, as identified by John Mew) that impact on their breathing and thereby generate chronic low-level physiological stress. My point, which perhaps I didn't make clearly enough, is that most people throughout human history (and a large chunk of the current human population) were chronically stressed by food shortages, high maternal and infant mortality and internecine warfare. The notion that life in affluent countries in the 21st century is more stressful than life at any other time in history seems preposterous to me. People are stressed about different things, but can you really argue that they are more stressed now than in the past, when life was far more tenuous?
I'm not sure whether you're suggesting the BOLT score can be used to assess sympathetic dominance - could you clarify?
Please forgive my nitpicking. The field in which I work is absolutely overloaded with vague and unproven claims, and I think all claims should be subjected to rigorous evaluation.
I am sure that many new 'therapys' or programs are based more on profit than positive results. PDR was first developed in the 1970's and has remained obscure and mostly used within India and Europe, nobody can pay to learn it, usually it's by invitation only.
I don't jibe with the notion of personality 'defects'. Who defines what a 'defect' is, and what is the supposed ideal standard for personality? Are you familiar with Robert Plomin's work on behavioural genetics? In essence, each of the Big 5 personality characteristics exists on a continuum, with a normal (i.e. bell curve) distribution. These characteristics are highly heritable and remarkably stable over the life course. Figuring out where one lies on the continuum of each characteristic, and how these characteristics interact to create what we call 'personality', is key to understanding oneself and the optimal niche for one's flourishing.
Thanks for that, yes there are many therapies. I've used EFT, also used PDR (personality defect removal) and trained others in this technique. It seems common for people to hop between therapies, perhaps enjoying a honeymoon period of change effects, only to return back to old habits, then onto a new therapy, helps to explain why there are so many of them. It's interesting that breathing gives a key into the subconscious mind since it can be consciously controlled also. As well, the breath modulates the ANS, inhale sympathetic, exhale parasympathetic, all very interesting!
Tbh, I blame the personal development industry for this therapy-hopping. There's always some new would-be guru touting their new 'breakthrough cure-for-everything', usually with the promise that it will turn your life around after just 5 sessions or some such bollocks. I'm not saying that there aren't genuine breakthroughs that really do make a difference in people's lives, and I count EFT as one of these breakthroughs. But mostly it's just rebranding of same-old same-old, with fancy marketing. Any method that you use to change something about yourself is going to require consistent work, but the constant proliferation of supposedly new therapies discourages people from working consistently because there's always some new bandwagon to hop onto.
Re-programming the subconscious mind, not such an easy task. Mindfulness helps to generate awareness of the problems but using the mind to re-program the mind is extremely difficult. EFT or PDR can help to some degree, but it's often a long process and most stop after a while. A problem that many overlook is found in the nervous system. The majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance causing some degree of stress, also very difficult to cure by working at the mind level, or through diet. It’s all very interesting!
I'm curious how you know that "the majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance". Is there a test for this? Do you think that people are more or less stressed now than in the past, when life was much more 'nasty, brutal and short'? I imagine that not having enough food to eat, watching your children starve to death, or losing your son or husband in battle or your wife in childbirth, could be rather stressful.
Research on mindfulness-based apps such as Eat Right Now and Craving to Quit show that this approach has a high success rate - see https://goeatrightnow.com/ and https://www.sharecare.com/digital-therapeutics/tobacco-cessation/; both sites have links to research. I use EFT as well, especially to help clients surf through cravings which is especially challenging at the start, when they have never experienced any kind of coping strategy besides eating (or smoking). On the anxiety front, the Unwinding Anxiety app similarly has exceptionally high success rates using a mindfulness-based approach to anxiety (https://unwindinganxiety.com/). It goes without saying that no single approach works for everyone, but there's a significant body of evidence showing that is indeed possible to reprogram one's habitual reactions.
When being tempted to eat junk I think "one minute in the mouth, one hour in the stomach and a life time on the hips, or of bad health". Actually one minute in the mouth is enough to stop me getting started. I know when I have indulged I will just want more. If I don't start the craving goes.
This is a really key piece of crafting a strategy for success. I've learned from my clients that people often succumb to craving, because they think to themselves 'I'm going to keep on craving this thing until I have some, and I can't stand the discomfort of the craving, so I might as well give in to it now.' But the reality, as you correctly identify, is that cravings pass. Usually, they only take a few minutes to pass, especially if you've learned how to 'surf' the craving. Even the ones that hang around for longer will eventually pass, and every time you successfully ride out a craving, you develop more self-respect.
Excellent advice, Robyn in your latest email. Thank you.
Kind regards,
Ted.
Especially important at this time of year, as many people are wondering whether they should set New Year's Resolutions ;-).
Hi Robyn, just wanted to add something that you may find helpful. With a couple of patients who are suffering negative thinking patterns, have them raise their BOLT scores by 5 points. You will notice their thinking noticably changes. If I gave advice, it would be that every person who seeks to change their minds, behaviours or personalities using EFT, PDR or ABC must first raise their BOLT score to 25. BTW, HNY!
If a person displays a particular behaviour frequently, then it's a distinguishing characteristic, a trait. How Plomin Et al. categorise emotions, thoughts, feelings, behaviours may be something new, but holds little relevance. When using PDR, we let the participant use whatever labels they wish, 2 categories are used, emotions and thoughts, and actions. When a person never experiences a behaviour that was before frequent, then it can be considered removed, I have witnessed this many times, with follow up over more than 10 years. I cannot speak about other methods such as those Plomin may use, perhaps they are less effective.
I fear we are at cross purposes here because we're not using a common language. When I refer to personality, I'm using the definition used by personality psychologists: "The enduring characteristics and behaviour that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns." Our personalities are what make us easily distinguishable from others, by those who know us at least moderately well.
The Big 5, otherwise known as the Five Factor model, is not an invention of Plomin but the model of personality used by virtually all researchers in the field because it displays both reliability and validity (unlike other systems for classifying personality, such as MBTI). This is an excellent paper on the Big 5: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1002/neu.10160 and this is a good lay summary: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-big-five-personality-traits.
Plomin's work on thousands of sets of identical twins, separated at birth and reared apart, established the high heritability of personality. This work has subsequently been confirmed by other authors e.g. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8776880/. It's well worth reading Plomin's book Blueprint, or listening to the audiobook, to grasp the scope of his research.
While an individual's personality is remarkably stable over time (with a few caveats e.g. neuroticism and openness both decline as people age, while agreeableness increases), this does not mean that individual behaviours are stable. For example, a long-time smoker can quit (behaviour change) but that does not mean their personality has changed - they would still be easily distinguishable from others, at least to those who know them, through their characteristic behaviours and emotional expressions.
To be clear, Plomin is a behaviour geneticist, not a therapist. He does not use any method to try to change behaviour; his aim is to understand the roots of our characteristic behavioural repertoires.
The history that you mention is but a small snapshot, predominantly history was full of very advanced civilisations, of course this is not mainstream history which is mostly lies. Food shortages and malnutrition can cause stress for sure, but I have no experience living in such societies. Who said that life in the 21st century is more stressful than at other times in history? The point is being made that most people suffer from chronic sympathetic NS dominance, some to a small degree and others to a larger degree, very few have correct balance or dominance of the Parasympathetic system. The BOLT score can be used to determine liklihood of sympathetic NS dominance. No worries, every field has similar claims, I guess this always happens when society rests on a foundation of lies.
I cannot comment on lost advanced civilisations since, by definition, we do not have tangible evidence of the people who formed such civilisations. But we have abundant archaeological evidence that violence and food shortages quite literally left their marks on prehistoric humans; we have written evidence from ancient writers confirming the prevalence of famine and warfare; and we have evidence from geneticists that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that conferred adaptation to food shortage spread through human populations in ways that confirm the role that such adaptations played in shaping the genome of present-day humans.
My question regarding whether you believed that life in the 21st century was more stressful than in previous time was shaped by your statement that "The majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance causing some degree of stress". I presumed that you believe that this is a relatively modern phenomenon and that at some past time, people had a more 'ideal' balance. It seems I was in error in making this assumption.
However, I do have a question for you: How do you know what the ideal balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity is? To me, the notion that there is an ideal balance is not tenable. The whole point of having a central nervous system is to be able to adapt, moment by moment, to present circumstances. It's a homeodynamic system. Furthermore, the two arms (parasympathetic and sympathetic) are not antagonistic with each other, but are complementary. For example, sympathetic stimulation of endothelial cells within blood vessels causes vasoconstriction, but vasoconstriction prompts nitric oxide synthesis which ultimately results in vasodilation which is an outcome of parasympathetic stimulation of the vascular system. I find this an intriguing point of confluence between the discoveries of Western science and the notion of yin-yang expressed by the taijitu symbol - that each opposite force contains its opposite within it.
Some people take issue with the name, but it can be interchanged with 'Removal of unwanted personality traits'. People who use it mostly call it PDR to keep it short, no need to get caught up in the label. The essense is that anything that bothers a person or others around them can be removed, in fact should be removed, although there is no guidance as to what should be removed, it's left to each person to decide for themselves. Some people are very attached to their anger, sarcasm, judgementalism, etc. I have heard of Plomin's work but am not familiar with it.
Plomin would definitely take issue with this formulation, and would argue that it is not possible to 'remove' a personality trait. Bear in mind that by 'personality trait', he and others who work in this field are referring to the Big 5: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism/Negative emotionality. Anger is not a personality trait, but people who are low in agreeableness are liable to experience it more frequently and if they're also low in conscientiousness and emotional stability, would be inclined to take it out on others with greater frequency and ferocity.
It's a drawn conclusion from various scientific studies and observations. Breathing patterns give some clues and evidence. If a person chest breathes, consciously, unconsciously or while sleeping, they will likely be sympathetic NS dominant since chest breathing mimicks physiological stress. If a person often mouth breathes, they will likely also be a chest breather since it's difficult to use the diaphragm correctly while mouth breathing. Over-breathing, that is taking in too much air (based on breathing rate and volume) will also engage sympathetic response. Researchers estimate the average person breathes 200 to 300% more air than required. Most of us learn from an early age to take deep breaths, get more oxygen into the body, this is a deep and broad misconception. Oxygen saturation (SpO2) is the level of oxygen in the red blood cells. Most people have oxygen saturation between 95% and 99% at rest. Taking deep breaths will not further saturate the blood. Nor does it deliver more oxygen to the body tissues. Because we are already at near maximal oxygen carrying capacity in our body, the solution to getting more oxygen into our cells is not to get more oxygen into the blood by breathing deeper. This does not work. (increasing CO2 threshold is the key) Sympathetic predominance can be seen as a low level chronic stress to some degree on the arousal continuum, panic at one end and calm alertness at the other. To measure breathing effectiveness, the BOLT (Body oxygen level test) can be used, a score under 25 means problems, a young healthy person will usually be at 40. I've seen people under 10, they mostly pant and remain in a stressed condition, PDR or EFT will not help such people. Aside from breathing, EMR disrupts ion channels in the cell membranes and also can modulate the ANS directly, this has been known for decades. Often sympathatic NS predominance goes undetected, it can be from a small degree to acute, but always chronic. Aside from athletes and children, I think only those who have had specific breathing training will not suffer this type of stress. Yes, I do think stress and anxiety are off the charts these days. Some people do suffer witness to terrible events that induce stress which can be overcome with EFT or PDR. Lao Zhu - 'The perfect human breathes as if they are not breathing at all'.
There's no doubt that many people have various structural issues (for example poor craniofacial development, as identified by John Mew) that impact on their breathing and thereby generate chronic low-level physiological stress. My point, which perhaps I didn't make clearly enough, is that most people throughout human history (and a large chunk of the current human population) were chronically stressed by food shortages, high maternal and infant mortality and internecine warfare. The notion that life in affluent countries in the 21st century is more stressful than life at any other time in history seems preposterous to me. People are stressed about different things, but can you really argue that they are more stressed now than in the past, when life was far more tenuous?
I'm not sure whether you're suggesting the BOLT score can be used to assess sympathetic dominance - could you clarify?
Please forgive my nitpicking. The field in which I work is absolutely overloaded with vague and unproven claims, and I think all claims should be subjected to rigorous evaluation.
I am sure that many new 'therapys' or programs are based more on profit than positive results. PDR was first developed in the 1970's and has remained obscure and mostly used within India and Europe, nobody can pay to learn it, usually it's by invitation only.
I don't jibe with the notion of personality 'defects'. Who defines what a 'defect' is, and what is the supposed ideal standard for personality? Are you familiar with Robert Plomin's work on behavioural genetics? In essence, each of the Big 5 personality characteristics exists on a continuum, with a normal (i.e. bell curve) distribution. These characteristics are highly heritable and remarkably stable over the life course. Figuring out where one lies on the continuum of each characteristic, and how these characteristics interact to create what we call 'personality', is key to understanding oneself and the optimal niche for one's flourishing.
Thanks for that, yes there are many therapies. I've used EFT, also used PDR (personality defect removal) and trained others in this technique. It seems common for people to hop between therapies, perhaps enjoying a honeymoon period of change effects, only to return back to old habits, then onto a new therapy, helps to explain why there are so many of them. It's interesting that breathing gives a key into the subconscious mind since it can be consciously controlled also. As well, the breath modulates the ANS, inhale sympathetic, exhale parasympathetic, all very interesting!
Tbh, I blame the personal development industry for this therapy-hopping. There's always some new would-be guru touting their new 'breakthrough cure-for-everything', usually with the promise that it will turn your life around after just 5 sessions or some such bollocks. I'm not saying that there aren't genuine breakthroughs that really do make a difference in people's lives, and I count EFT as one of these breakthroughs. But mostly it's just rebranding of same-old same-old, with fancy marketing. Any method that you use to change something about yourself is going to require consistent work, but the constant proliferation of supposedly new therapies discourages people from working consistently because there's always some new bandwagon to hop onto.
Re-programming the subconscious mind, not such an easy task. Mindfulness helps to generate awareness of the problems but using the mind to re-program the mind is extremely difficult. EFT or PDR can help to some degree, but it's often a long process and most stop after a while. A problem that many overlook is found in the nervous system. The majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance causing some degree of stress, also very difficult to cure by working at the mind level, or through diet. It’s all very interesting!
I'm curious how you know that "the majority of people have sympathetic nervous system predominance". Is there a test for this? Do you think that people are more or less stressed now than in the past, when life was much more 'nasty, brutal and short'? I imagine that not having enough food to eat, watching your children starve to death, or losing your son or husband in battle or your wife in childbirth, could be rather stressful.
Research on mindfulness-based apps such as Eat Right Now and Craving to Quit show that this approach has a high success rate - see https://goeatrightnow.com/ and https://www.sharecare.com/digital-therapeutics/tobacco-cessation/; both sites have links to research. I use EFT as well, especially to help clients surf through cravings which is especially challenging at the start, when they have never experienced any kind of coping strategy besides eating (or smoking). On the anxiety front, the Unwinding Anxiety app similarly has exceptionally high success rates using a mindfulness-based approach to anxiety (https://unwindinganxiety.com/). It goes without saying that no single approach works for everyone, but there's a significant body of evidence showing that is indeed possible to reprogram one's habitual reactions.