When we think about food obsessively or behave destructively with it, we are showing addiction. This should not surprise us. Anxiety sits at the root of almost every addiction. Some of us can become addicted to nearly anything whether it is work, money, sex, relationships, our phones, gambling, alcohol, or dieting. Addiction is anxiety in disguise. We search for relief, and when we cannot find it, we fall asleep inside our own minds. We become unaware. We start living out unconscious patterns.
Food addiction is especially complex. We need food to live, so the relationship can never be total abstinence. We can be under eaters, over eaters, or what I call orthorexic, people obsessed with every detail of healthy eating. The first step in healing this is awareness.
We begin by studying the nature of anxiety itself. What is it? What triggers it? How does it move through the body? We do not need expensive supplements or miracle cures to understand it. Modern neuroscience has already explained how anxiety lives in the nervous system. We can learn what parts of the brain are involved, what hormones are released, and how our thoughts and chemistry feed each other. But the most practical form of study is personal. We look at our own behavior patterns. How have we historically reacted to stress? What habits do we repeat? The best way to become aware of this is to write. Journal honestly about your relationship with food. Begin the sentence: My relationship to food is... and let it flow without judgment.
Once we begin to get our basic patterns under control, the next step is to rebuild a relationship with food that supports health and emotional balance. Reflect on the fact that everything you put into your body affects your chemistry, and your chemistry affects your thinking. The very thoughts that pass through your mind are shaped by the chemical state of your body. It is not just food. It is air quality, water purity, and the natural world around us. We are also influenced by movement, exercise, light, sound, and what we consume through our eyes and ears. A society that lives in fear and anxiety will feed that energy to anyone who pays attention to it.
So how do we relax? If anxiety is the cause of addiction, then the first goal is not to conquer the addiction but to regulate the anxiety. The most reliable tools are breathing and mindfulness practiced every day. For some people, the benefits are immediate. For others, the mind feels blank or restless and they quit, calling it nonsense. It is not nonsense. Training the mind to relax is intelligent work.
Use the breath to study your own heartbeat, to signal the brain that you are safe. Keep practicing. Negative emotions, old thoughts, or even depression may rise first. Welcome them. This is part of the release. Keep breathing. Keep returning. Over time the mind begins to soften and we realize how deeply anxiety had shaped our decisions. As relaxation deepens, anything becomes possible.
Every creature with a brain experiences anxiety. For most animals, it is instinctive. They feel it during a threat and return to calm once the threat passes. Humans are different. We have enough intelligence to think about our thoughts, and that makes everything more complicated. We can amplify our anxiety with imagination until it becomes chronic and irrational. That chronic anxiety drives all forms of addiction, whether to food, alcohol, gambling, lying, work, or anger. It is all the same root.
This is not complicated science. It is simple and well known. The question is not what anxiety is but how to calm it. That is where practice comes in. Meditation, breath work, writing, and honest self reflection are how we train the nervous system to settle.
When it comes to diet, the first step toward mental and physical health is not eating more of the right foods, it is removing the wrong ones. Eliminate processed foods and drinks. Most of what we find in a supermarket has been processed even when it appears natural. This is difficult, but the reward is enormous. Clean food supports clean chemistry, and clean chemistry supports a clear mind.