Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP65] How to stop overeating before bed when fear is driving it (try a body scan)

Transcript

[EP65] How to stop overeating before bed when fear is driving it (try a body scan) · AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation

• 0:00
  So the action that you're taking is based on some fear, right?
• 0:08
  Like, and we can say the fear is basically some thoughts around, you know, well, the stuff around sleep and food, basically, right, that you explained.
• 0:19
  So there's some thoughts around that.
• 0:21
  And it's kind of like winding, you know, like a wind-up toy, like winding up the mind.
• 0:27
  It's winding up, winding up, winding up.
• 0:30
  and then like release, right?
• 0:31
  So then you try and go to sleep in that kind of tension
• 0:34
  that's there mentally, emotionally,
• 0:38
  and obviously physically,
• 0:39
  the body is gonna take that on as well.
• 0:41
  So what I'd say on a practical point of view,
• 0:44
  I know this is something that you've worked with before.
• 0:50
  So getting it back into your habits, right?
• 0:54
  Like whatever your habits that worked for you,
• 0:56
  the timings for your food so that on a practical level, you know that you're taken care of, right?
• 1:06
  Because you've taken care of yourself.
• 1:08
  And then more than that is what the mind says, what the mind brings into play.
• 1:17
  And I think what I would say with that is like it comes down to the core of what we do in our work, right?
• 1:27
  the thinking machine, the thought machine.
• 1:30
  And the thinking machine this time around is producing some thoughts around like,
• 1:34
  oh my God, if I don't eat, if I do eat, this is going to happen,
• 1:37
  that's not going to happen, and so on and so forth.
• 1:41
  So the thinking machine is producing thoughts,
• 1:46
  and therefore focusing on those thoughts produces certain kind of emotions,
• 1:50
  and those emotions obviously result in certain kind of, let's say, tension patterns in the body.
• 1:59
  And I'm also not a sleep expert, but I have had to sleep most night, all every night in my life.
• 2:06
  And it's been some years.
• 2:08
  And me personally, I find that when I can't sleep, I've noticed over the years,
• 2:15
  when I can't sleep, if I scan my body, there is tension patterns, like the body's holding tension
• 2:23
  in different areas. Sometimes it's my face, my neck, my shoulders, you know, and I might think
• 2:31
  that I'm actually really comfortable and relaxed in bed. So the head is kind of going, I don't
• 2:37
  understand why I'm not falling asleep. You know, I should be falling asleep, I'm relaxed. And but
• 2:43
  actually when I scan my body, I notice like, oh, okay, there is some tension in my neck.
• 2:48
  There is some tension in my shoulders.
• 2:51
  Or there is some tension in my, you know, my face or jaws or something.
• 2:56
  So I want to say systematically, but, you know, like just as I'm scanning, relaxing
• 3:02
  it, relaxing these areas, relaxing that area, relaxing that area, and just like, you know,
• 3:06
  doing the body scan.
• 3:08
  I find that, I mean, generally, I don't have problems sleeping.
• 3:13
  There have been times it doesn't take too many rounds of like full body scans and relaxing the body before I tend to fall asleep.
• 3:23
  Me personally, that has worked almost all the time, I would say.
• 3:29
  There are, of course, times when my mind's really busy and, you know, I'm going through, I don't know, like, you know, grieving for a couple of years.
• 3:38
  There's like, you know, stuff happens like life happens and you're dealing with stuff.
• 3:43
  And in those periods, there are times when it's hard to go to sleep because the mind is just constant and it's busy.
• 3:52
  And even in those times, I find it's almost like a meditation, like scanning the body, relaxing body parts, like areas in the body, the tension in the body.
• 4:03
  That has generally worked.
• 4:06
  And so it shifts it out of, okay, I'm trying to stop the mind thinking.
• 4:13
  something that's going on in the mind at the level of the mind and you know letting the mind
• 4:19
  just do its thing and switching to body instead it's kind of like the yoga practice you know if
• 4:27
  we are stressed out thinking about a lot of stuff feeling things because of the thoughts
• 4:33
  you start to move your body you know you shift from mind to body for example
• 4:39
  obviously it's very different when you're moving in a posture or postures but i think in bed
• 4:47
  the body scan is kind of as close as i could get to that and just like systematically just
• 4:53
  relaxing so i'm switching out of the thoughts in the head into scanning the body relaxing relaxing
• 4:58
  and then thoughts will come in just like okay but i'm scanning again and relaxing this area
• 5:02
  relaxing that area and just kind of going you know from head to toe or toe to head or whatever
• 5:08
  That generally seems to help.
• 5:11
  And then, you know, as I said before, you know, particularly whatever the thing is you need to do with the habits,
• 5:21
  as in like your timing with food that your body needs, that you know, because I think you've experimented over the years.
• 5:30
  It's putting those things in place, putting those practices in place.
• 5:35
  so I think you know now like zooming out you know not just talking about any kind of one area
• 5:42
  I think more holistically it's like over time just experimenting and experimenting as in not
• 5:50
  just doing crazy random things but I find you know the body's giving certain signals and then
• 5:58
  like okay what does that signal mean like what does that information mean and then how do I
• 6:05
  is it that something is changing in the body and I need to, you know,
• 6:11
  then align with that, adjust to that?
• 6:13
  Or is it as in like, I don't know, I want to say aging,
• 6:19
  but like, you know, just like the body's just going, you know, over time.
• 6:23
  Basically it's evolving. It's like a, it's not fixed.
• 6:26
  It's not like a, it's like a river, right? It's always moving.
• 6:29
  It's always changing. It's always shifting. So it's not fixed.
• 6:32
  but also so much of that is impacted by our external
• 6:36
  what we're going through, what's going on in our lives
• 6:39
  and how, you know, I want to say we're dealing with it
• 6:42
  but how we face it or not face it
• 6:45
  or how it impacts us as well internally
• 6:51
  so that might have a play into it
• 6:53
  but I find what I was going to say was
• 6:57
  you know, I find like it helps to make it easier on myself
• 7:03
  so putting things like laying the foundations basically you know so what are the things i know
• 7:09
  that if i almost like a you know minimum like if i just did the minimum what is like my minimum to
• 7:18
  have you know a good foundation and then what's like if i did you know above the minimum that
• 7:25
  gives me a more steady foundation and then if you know what else you know it's not about as in
• 7:32
  longer meditations or longer practices.
• 7:34
  It's not just that.
• 7:35
  It's like what needs to be in place
• 7:37
  so that I can basically have as solid a foundation.
• 7:42
  You know, it's like the ground that we're standing on
• 7:44
  is as steady as it can feel metaphorically.
• 7:48
  So if it is getting enough sleep, for example,
• 7:53
  that's something that I've been playing around with recently quite a bit
• 7:58
  because there was a time when I wasn't sleeping a huge amount,
• 8:02
  like every night for years.
• 8:05
  And it wasn't impacting me negatively.
• 8:07
  I was fine.
• 8:08
  You know, I did long meditations and I slept not, you know, many long hours.
• 8:13
  Not that I condone it.
• 8:14
  But I find that, I don't know, some months ago, I accidentally slept too long.
• 8:22
  So, you know, like many nights of not sleeping enough
• 8:24
  and then one kind of day of a reset, maybe a week or in a fortnight,
• 8:29
  but I'll just kind of sleep in and I might get, you know,
• 8:33
  I don't know, eight or 10 hours of sleep or something.
• 8:35
  And I found that, wow, I can actually have, it's a whole different reality.
• 8:41
  So my level of focus, you know, my ability to process and think
• 8:48
  and make decisions and also just deal with stuff
• 8:52
  that is happening through the day and how, I guess, you know, much resources I have internally
• 8:58
  to be able just to deal with it rather than I realized like, wow, okay, that's what sleeping,
• 9:06
  you know, less hours, which I just thought was normal, does to me, you know, and that's the price
• 9:13
  I pay for not sleeping enough. So, I started to not force myself, but, you know, I'm like,
• 9:22
  aiming to get these days like i'm aiming to get eight hours of sleep all the mind measure measurement
• 9:29
  devices don't think i'm hitting the eights but you know like it just feels much better is what i'm
• 9:35
  saying so long way of saying what are the things that you can put in place that creates the
• 9:42
  foundations you know and start small we always like to just go the full hog you know we want to
• 9:49
  run the full marathon when we've never run for 28 like you're not running for 20 years
• 9:54
  wait like little jog little walk you know run the block first then just build up from there so it's
• 9:59
  kind of like that what's the foundation you know what's your ideal and then how can you build that
• 10:05
  foundation so for you you're talking about food i talk about sleep you know what are the things
• 10:10
  that need to be in place so maybe you know food and like practical thing might be like timing
• 10:14
  right like making sure eating eating a certain amount at certain times or not you know certain
• 10:21
  things at certain times because it has certain kind of reactions to your body or mentally or
• 10:27
  emotionally you know or there's a certain result you find in your sleep like okay if i eat at this
• 10:33
  hour i'm digesting my body is digesting naturally so and i'm trying to sleep and it doesn't work so
• 10:41
  well you know and if i move it back you know an hour i eat earlier let's say extra hour or half
• 10:50
  an hour more like that's what i mean by experiment so what are in our busy modern day lives you know
• 11:01
  we're always looking for small wins right like so what are little tweaks that you can make so over
• 11:05
  time you can make little tweaks little tweaks little tweaks and they build up and the thing
• 11:11
  beings is that when we do a little thing and we get a result we go oh that felt good i'm gonna do
• 11:20
  a little bit more of that i want to do a bit more i want to do a bit more and that's a really good
• 11:25
  way i find of building up whatever the habit is you know whatever the thing is that you want to
• 11:32
  to build in so talking about building like you know steady solid foundation what are little
• 11:39
  tweaks like changes you can make so if this evening you know i don't know like we're in
• 11:45
  this session but you know maybe straight after you have your dinner so you have it earlier um
• 11:52
  and then or you hit a bit earlier or whatever the thing is that needs to be
• 11:56
  but some some like little things that you can switch around a little bit so it's hitting in
• 12:02
  the direction of what you would like to build and create for yourself.
• 12:07
  So if most of the time there is, you know, it feels like you're standing on solid ground,
• 12:13
  like the steady foundation, then most of the time, like most of your days, you're going
• 12:19
  to be feeling pretty good.
• 12:21
  So that means you're gearing your life as much as possible to generally be feeling pretty
• 12:27
  good.
• 12:29
  Obviously, life happens, right?
• 12:30
  Like, so stuff happens.
• 12:32
  And that's just how it is.
• 12:34
  But we're giving ourselves a better chance of being able to deal with those things and, you know, handle whatever needs to be handled, you know, in our adult lives.
• 12:45
  By putting these things in place, starting with taking care of yourself.
• 12:52
  And taking care of ourselves is a form of self-love.
• 12:56
  So, you know, what are the little things, you know?
• 13:00
  sometimes we don't even think about it because we are so in our thinking like you know we're so
• 13:05
  in our heads like for example when you're eating you know there's no devices let's say you know
• 13:12
  that you can actually just sit and eat and taste the food and take in the nourishment you know
• 13:20
  because maybe you're not like stimulated and or causing more stress in the other system while
• 13:25
  you're eating which i think goes back to some of the kind of older old school ways of doing things
• 13:30
  like actually sitting down around the dinner table having dinner together having a chat you know if
• 13:36
  you live with people or well it's summer it's actually hot today i don't know sitting in the
• 13:42
  garden and listening to the sounds and having your food and giving yourself a chance to actually
• 13:49
  digest the food to taste it you know and for energetically like to take the nourishment
• 13:56
  from the food, for example.
• 13:58
  So these are, you know, like I'm just giving some
• 14:00
  hopefully useful examples,
• 14:03
  little ways of making some shifts,
• 14:07
  you know, in the direction of
• 14:10
  what it is that you'd like to build for yourself,
• 14:14
  which is going to give you the result that you want,
• 14:16
  which is, you know, that,
• 14:18
  I just call it like a steady foundation.
• 14:21
  So if it feels like, okay, it's off right now,
• 14:25
  Right. So what is it that's off and what on a practical level can shift?
• 14:31
  And then also, you know, internally, what is it that you're learning or so much of the time?
• 14:41
  I think it's like also letting go, like we're learning stuff, but also we're letting go of stuff, you know, like we're learning to relax or we're learning to let go of a certain thought or worry in the mind.
• 14:55
  It's hard to fall asleep when you're stressed out, for example.
• 15:01
  It's hard to digest food when you're stressed out, for example.
• 15:06
  So it's all the basics, right?
• 15:08
  And there's nothing groundbreaking here, I'm sure.
• 15:11
  It's all stuff that we know.
• 15:14
  But sometimes it's useful to be reminded, right?
• 15:16
  It's like, oh, yeah, I do.
• 15:20
  When was the last time I gave myself a chance to sit down and enjoy my meal?
• 15:25
  You know, I'm always working when I'm eating or something.
• 15:29
  Maybe.
• 15:31
  Slight thing we can change that.
• 15:33
  I'm speaking for myself as well.
• 15:34
  Like I find myself doing these things and I'm like, hang on, what am I doing?
• 15:37
  Switch off the device and just sit and eat.
• 15:40
  You know.
• 15:43
  So when we go back to the simple things that the body needs.
• 15:49
  You know, we already know generally what the body needs.
• 15:53
  It's the basic stuff.
• 15:56
  and just going back to that and giving it that already starts to build some kind of a foundation
• 16:02
  and then we can deal with the in a better we're a better place to deal with the roller coasters
• 16:08
  of our day you know what if it is a roller coaster obviously not every day is so i hope that helps
• 16:14
  let me read the question again i think okay so i'll speak from like a not practical perspective
• 16:21
  but energetic perspective in a second.
• 16:24
  So if you'll need to start a new habit,
• 16:25
  aren't it difficult?
• 16:27
  Yeah.
• 16:28
  So food, you know,
• 16:29
  energetically I'll speak it, you know,
• 16:31
  as a healer.
• 16:32
  And from, yeah, like,
• 16:35
  well, I mean, science proves it these days, right?
• 16:38
  Our food has a certain energy to it.
• 16:41
  You know, so little practices,
• 16:43
  like you don't need to do this, obviously,
• 16:45
  but I do it.
• 16:48
  Because, I don't know,
• 16:49
  I have a belief that it works.
• 16:52
  And I say thank you for the foods.
• 16:54
  And, you know, I visualize like light going into the food and raising the frequency of the food.
• 16:58
  If that's too much for you, don't worry about it.
• 17:00
  You know, if that's too much, just sitting and eating and giving the body a moment to take in the goodness that you're eating.
• 17:11
  You know, so therefore it might help to eat some stuff that is actually good.
• 17:16
  you know these days we have things that we call food but it's actually
• 17:20
  where the hell did it come from it's you know
• 17:25
  some kind of a machine somewhere and then we try and get the body to digest
• 17:31
  that for example you know so where the food comes from
• 17:35
  putting energy into the preparation putting love into
• 17:39
  preparing the food and then receiving that love
• 17:45
  put in to you know to preparing it so taking time to sit to eat to digest um i don't know maybe going
• 17:55
  for a little walk after after dinner you know around the block um to digest or actually you
• 18:02
  live in you know where it's nice and green so some greenery you know what is it that you need
• 18:09
  that the body needs.
• 18:11
  I think sometimes just,
• 18:13
  it's not in the head going,
• 18:15
  what, you know,
• 18:15
  let me try and think about
• 18:16
  what the body needs.
• 18:18
  Like, okay, what do I feel
• 18:19
  the body needs right now?
• 18:20
  You know, there's tension in the body.
• 18:23
  I was in the park before
• 18:26
  and I, you know, like I'm,
• 18:28
  obviously I've got a back injury
• 18:29
  and it's been flaring up
• 18:30
  the last couple of days.
• 18:32
  I was sitting up and I was like,
• 18:34
  not comfortable.
• 18:36
  So I did some stretches
• 18:39
  And I was like, okay, I'm just going to lie on the ground.
• 18:41
  And just let myself ground and let the ground just kind of stretch out my back
• 18:45
  as I relax and let go into the ground.
• 18:47
  I'm like, yeah, cool, that feels good.
• 18:50
  And then I was looking out at the trees and the sky and the sunshine.
• 18:54
  It was a nice day.
• 18:56
  I'm like, okay.
• 18:58
  That was a good little moment.
• 19:01
  Right?
• 19:01
  And sometimes we don't give ourselves those little moments.
• 19:05
  Yeah.
• 19:06
  we're on this like go go go mode which i get into as well it's good to balance out both it's the
• 19:13
  stira and zukha that we learn in yoga you know the intense focus energy and then relaxed and
• 19:20
  softer energy both and we need that the body needs that so i think that's another cool thing i'll
• 19:29
  close off with this you know like you all practice yoga here um i think practicing yoga helps
• 19:38
  practicing yoga paying attention helps even more as in like bringing awareness you know paying
• 19:46
  attention to what the body is saying by sensation helps because the body is always speaking and
• 19:55
  the question is whether we're listening
• 19:57
  and how can we listen better
• 20:00
  and what do we do with that information
• 20:03
  what do you
• 20:03
  what does your body need right now
• 20:05
  like right now
• 20:07
  posture that you're in right now
• 20:10
  what signals
• 20:11
  what sensations are you getting
• 20:13
  without even you know having to jump into a posture
• 20:15
  you're doing posture right now
• 20:17
  what do you feel
• 20:19
  you know where is the tension
• 20:21
  where are there aches and pains
• 20:22
  where is there ease
• 20:24
  Where is there too much effort trying to hold the pose?
• 20:28
  Where you can relax a bit more or where you know needs a bit more integrity support all
• 20:35
  Maybe you're hungry
• 20:37
  You know and it's not ignoring it and actually responding to it
• 20:41
  So what does the body needs and how can we give it that so that we are taking care of ourselves?