Eating disorder recovery tip #2: Five mental health tools to fight an eating disorder
If you know me, you know I love to provide as many eating disorder recovery tips as I can. (A lot of my @growithtori community call me their eating disorder recovery big sis, and it makes my day, hehe!)
So for today’s eating disorder recovery tips, I want to discuss mental health tools I learned in therapy for fighting an eating disorder.
In therapy for my eating disorder, I’ve learned the importance of adding eating disorder recovery “tools” to your “toolbox.” The “toolbox” is all of the mental health techniques and resources you’ve learned. The more tools you have, the better equipped you are to fight your eating disorder and better cope with the stresses you face in your everyday life.
I want to make these mental health tools super easy for you to understand and apply to your eating disorder recovery. So, I’ll make it simple by providing 1) a definition of the mental health tool, 2) when to use it and 3) an example on how you can apply it.
1. Use Mental Reframing.
Definition: Turn every negative thought into a positive one.
When to use: Any time a negative thought pops up. This might feel uncomfortable at first, but the more you do it, the more your brain starts to re-wire, and focus on the positive!
Example: Your eating disorder makes you have the negative thought that, “I feel so disgusting that I just ate all of that.” You replace it with, “My body is smart and knows how to process any food that I eat. I am healing from my eating disorder, and eating past comfort sometimes is part of the healing process.”
2. Use the “STOP” Method.
Definition: Stands for Stop, Take a Breath, Observe, and Proceed.
When to use: Anytime, or specifically times of extreme stress or distress.
Example: You feel that you are about to spiral into a binge episode. You are in extreme distress. You use the STOP method to slow down the moment, observe your surroundings, and connect with the present. In doing so, you prevent a binge.
3. Self-soothe.
Definition: Use at least one of the five senses (smell, touch, taste, sound, sight) to soothe yourself.
When to use: Distressful situations
Example: You’re scrolling through social media and are triggered by something you see. You light a candle (smell), grab a soft blanket (touch), and turn on your favorite TV show (sound and sight) to soothe yourself.
4. Observe your thoughts without judging them.
Definition: When a thought comes up, let it just be a thought without placing any judgment on it. Instead, lead with curiosity.
When to use: When you’re being hard on yourself, or when you’re having a tough day.
Example: Your eating disorder thoughts are louder than usual. Instead of judging yourself for this and convincing yourself that you aren’t making enough progress, you allow the thoughts to just be thoughts. They do not define you. Instead, you get curious about what might be causing them to be louder. You realize that school has been more stressful recently. Surely this has an impact. You give yourself grace because you know this is just temporary, and you’re doing the best you can.
5. Fact-check your thoughts.
Definition: Respond to any emotions or thoughts with facts to give a full picture of the situation at hand.
When to use: When you’re experiencing anxiety, distress, or unwanted thoughts.
Example: You have an eating disorder relapse. You have the thought that you have completely failed yourself and things will never get better. You decide to fact-check the situation. The facts say that this is one slip-up. One slip-up doesn’t undo several days, weeks, or months of progress. One slip-up is one slip-up. The facts are that you are still making progress, you’ve still come so far, and this doesn’t mean you will relapse again.
All of these tools come from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which is a type of therapy used in eating disorder treatment that focuses on mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. I encourage you to talk to your therapist about incorporating DBT techniques in your eating disorder recovery journey. You can also do research online to learn more about these tools and how they can help you recover from an eating disorder.
Sending you so much love!
xx tori
Other blogs on eating disorder recovery tips: