TheBrainChangingDiet

In light of our previous article on mirrors neurons, let us take a glimpse of how these brain cells affect you in your life. First, we discovered that simply watching somebody doing an activity stimulates your brain as if you were actually doing that activity. Next, we found that we can often feel the same emotions that another person is feeling, simply by watching their facial expressions. Finally we learned that through this interpretation, your brain anticipates what it would be like if you performed the activity that you are observing. Now lets relate it to diet and weight loss…

Simply watching another person perform any activity stimulates specific brain cells – ones that we previously believed were activated only by DOING the activity. Lets say you are minding your own business, going about your daily activities, and you decide to drop in to see one of your friends. You go into your friends house and she just happens to be having some chocolate chip cookies. You both sit down and begin to chat, but your attention keeps being drawn to the chocolate cookies. Why? Because as your friend goes through the process of eating the cookies your brain activates as you were eating them yourself. These are you mirror neurons. There is a problem however…you’re not actually eating any cookies. So as one area of your brain says, “Hey I’m eating cookies”, another area says “Nope, not getting any cookies here”. The common theme here is “cookies”, so all of a sudden you want cookies!

As your friend enjoys the cookies your brain tries to interpret how your friend feels about the cookies. “Are the cookies nice?”, “Does she like the cookies”, “How are the cookies making her feel?”. These processes all occur below your conscious awareness. Your friend doesn’t even need to tell you the cookies are great.  Your brain automatically monitors and interprets her body language. If she talks about how yummy the cookies taste your conscious awareness kicks in.  So you have your unconscious mind receiving information that the cookies must be really good and you have your conscious mind reinforcing this information.

Finally your brain begins to create an experience where it anticipates how wonderful the cookie would taste. Your brain knows that you have had cookies before and it uses your past experiences to gauge how enjoyable this cookie will be if you eat it. Finally, your friend asks “Would you like a cookie”. Somehow despite this intense activation in your brain you muster up the willpower to refuse your friends invitation of a delightful treat. After all you are “on a diet”.

The above example is called and ENVIRONMENTAL CUE. We experience these at multiple intervals during the day, like when you pass your favorite bakery on the way to work, or when you see an ad for burger king in-between watching a T.V show. In fact, studies show that we make over 200 conscious decisions and countless unconscious decisions about food every single day.  Environmental cues are everywhere, but the most powerful ones can come in the form of your social interactions.

Human beings have especially active mirror neurons. Many researchers believe that one of their primary functions is to facilitate social behavior.  These brain cells allow us to learn from each other subconsciously and they are responsible for many of the amazing feats we can accomplish. Unfortunately mirror neurons take in all the information around you and don’t make judgements.  They can help you learn useful social behaviors but they also indiscriminately respond to those less desirable actions that we encounter every day.

Lets take the above example of our friend and her cookies. Although you may have just eaten lunch and have absolutely no desire for a cookie, simply watching your friend eating one will ramp up your desire to do to same. In step 1, the motor areas of your brain that are required to eat a cookie are basically saying – “eat that cookie”. In step 2, the emotional areas of your brain that interpret your friends feelings are saying – “eat that cookie”. In step 3 the pleasure centers in your brain are determining how delicious it will be and are saying – “eat that cookie”. But guess what, not one of these structures work independently, so in one fell swoop you have the movement areas of your brian, the emotional areas of your brain and the pleasure areas of your brain all simultaneously telling you to “EAT THAT COOKIE”. All because you are watching your friend eat one. 

So can your friends make you fat? The answer is of course, yes. So many people are totally unaware of how their friends and social environment affect their behaviors. But here is the good news. If your friends can make you fat, then they can also make you thin. You just have to tell them how they can help you to do that. Here are some quick tips to get you started:

MAKE IT PUBLIC – Most people when trying to lose weight and change their eating behavior never tell anybody what they are trying to do. This can be a huge mistake. They are often embarrassed what people may think of them, especially if they fail to lose weight. By going public you can advise your family, friends, and others, how they can be the most helpful to you. Remember, it is very hard for people to help you if they do not know that you are trying to change.

CONTROL YOUR ENVIRONMENT – It is a lot easier to control your environment than it is to control your behavior. Read that again, it is critical to your success. When you are constantly exposed to food, you have to constantly resist temptation. One can only resist for so long. Start with your family. Ask them to get rid of foods that are problematic for you or at least make sure they are not storing them in plain view and eating them in front of you. Eliminating this environmental cue alone can make a big difference.

ELICIT HELPING RELATIONSHIPS – Seek the support of somebody that can help you with your behavior change. This can be anybody, a friend, a family member, a colleague, somebody who has already achieved the change that you want. It should be somebody who you think can understand and support you as you go through your behavior change.

FIND SOCIAL GROUPS – It can be very difficult to change your eating behavior if you feel like you are doing it all on your own. Seek out groups of people who are going through the same process that you are. You can learn from them, ask questions, find support and learn new strategies to help you along.

Changing your eating behavior to lose weight can be a long road for some people, and keeping it off is often more difficult. In order to create real change, you must understand to use your family, close friends and others to help you along. They do not have to change they just have to HELP YOU CHANGE. Make mirror neurons work for you and you will find that losing weight becomes a whole lot easier.

Seeing isn’t just believing, as far your brain is concerned seeing is also doing.  And the players in this little game are the recently discovered “mirror neurons”.  What does this have to do with eating.  Well it appears that merely observing other people eating food has some very interesting effects in your neurons.  These amazing brain cells are giving scientists a lot of insight into human learning and behavior, and a lot of this is critical to our understanding of the psychology of eating.

The discovery of mirror neurons in 1995 by Iaccomo Rizzolati of the University of Parma was a very happy accident. This breakthrough has had a profound effect on our understanding of how the human brain functions. But to do so requires a little background information.  There are a hundred billion neurons in the human brain with hundreds of TRILLIONS of connections.  Neurons, or nerve cells, differ from other kinds of cells in that over the course of an animals life these cells generally do not divide or regenerate, so  basically the neurons you have now are the ones that you were born with. This is why damage to the nervous system like head traumas, spinal cord injuries and strokes can have such devastating consequences.  Because nerve cells live so long individual neurons are very specialized  – they act in a very consistent way.  For example, a motor neuron will turn on to signal a particular muscle so that we are able to move voluntarily.  That way an intention you have in your brain can result in a specific action, such as picking up a cup.  On the other hand a particular mirror neuron will not only turn on when you make a specific action, it will also turn on or “fire” when you observe someone else making that action.   

So how did this amazing breakthrough occur?  Well, as the story goes, one day a researcher went into the lab to check up on the monkeys. These monkeys were wearing measuring devices on their heads that recorded individual neuronal activity associated with behavior and movement. While going about his routine tasks the researcher helped himself to some peanuts that were placed a few meters away from a monkey cage. As he picked up some nuts he was startled by the sound of the monitor buzzing wildly. Why was he so surprised? Well, because the monkey was not moving! 

An enormous amount of research has been initiated to understand what happened. It was then confirmed that area’s of your brain that were thought to be specifically associated with movement will “fire” or activate when you watch somebody do something, JUST AS IF YOU HAD DONE IT YOURSELF. Thus the term mirror neurons was born. At this time it looks as if monkey’s and primates have mirror neurons  (giving a new twist to the old saying “monkey see, monkey do”) but human mirror neurons appear to fire more readily and in a more sophisticated manner.  For example, in humans, mirror neurons will not only fire when you watch another person performing a certain action, they will also fire at a photograph or video of another person performing that action.  

Have you ever heard that you are the average of the five people that you spend most time with?

Mirror neurons allow us to learn and be influenced by others. Some scientists, such as world renowned neurologist  V.S. Ramachandran, believe it is mirror neurons which are responsible for the extraordinary advancements of the human species. For example if you are a bear, and suddenly your environment gets cold, you would need a few million years of evolution to build up polar bear type layers of fat and fur. If you are human, you watch your father killing a bear, skinning it and using the fur as a coat, and as you watch it your mirror neurons start firing and you learn. So instead of going through millions of years of evolution you have learned to adapt to your environment in ONE generation.

We have mirror neurons because we are extremely social beings. They would not have much use if you did not interact with other humans. Mirror neurons are what allow us to feel what other people are feeling. If you have you ever watched a football game where somebody got a terrible injury and you grimaced in anguish, then you know what I am talking about….you had this response because at some level you felt like it was you getting injured. Or maybe you a watching a sad movie and you begin to feel a bit sad yourself. These are just some examples of your mirror neurons at work.

We are not aware of mirror neuron activity. They function in the background firing automatically in response to our environmental observations. We are constantly and involuntarily reacting to the actions of everyone around us. When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight the eating behavior of the people around you can have profound effects on your dieting success. You see, mirror neurons can be your best friend or your worst enemy. In our brains they reproduce the activities that we are observing. So if you see somebody eating a chocolate brownie, “chocolate brownie eating” parts of your brain get activated. Additionally the emotional part of your brain remembers how nice it was to eat a chocolate brownie and so it increases your desire to eat one. Even just looking at photos, particularly of people who appear to be enjoying the food, can activate these areas of our brains and motivate us to eat. The more our mirror neurons are exposed to eating, the more powerful the brain activation and the more intense the craving.

But there is even more to the story. As you watch your friends eating the chocolate brownies your mirror neurons are telling your brain about brownie eating, but because you are not ACTUALLY eating the brownie your pleasure centers are not getting any stimulation. This amps up your cravings even more, because now your brain begins to ANTICIPATE what eating the brownie would be like. You start to think how delicious it would taste. You think how the texture would feel in your mouth and how you would feel if you just took a bite. This is all the workings of your brain, as it goes through your past experiences of eating foods similar to the chocolate brownie.

You are doing well if you have still managed to hold out, but next comes the biggest craving. The greatest brain activation is achieved when anticipation is paired with a degree of uncertainty. So you have your limbic system telling you how delicious it will be, your mirror neurons are activating the movement patterns that are associated with eating the chocolate brownie, and your pre-frontal cortex is saying “No please, I have to stick to my diet!”. Under these conditions of “it might happen, it might not happen”, humans are extremely motivated to seek pleasure because we get an intense reward when it does occur. This is what you constantly face when you see people eating foods that you desire but cannot have. It’s not long before the intense cravings finally overpower your willpower and you give in to temptation.  

The food industry knows about mirror neurons all too well. That’s why they place their food everywhere for you to see. They know that the more you are exposed to their advertisements the more you are likely to consume what they are selling. They are also extremely clever in how they present their product. Have you ever noticed that food manufacturers advertise their products by showing images of people consuming their products in a very fun and positive way. Manufacturers know that when you observe these scenarios the areas of your brain related to happiness and fun and pleasure get associated with their particular food or drink. Check it out the next time you watch an advertisement. Oh and isn’t it ironic that the actors are usually physically fit and very attractive? Its almost like consuming their product can help you with that too…..