WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
I wrote this book because I was puzzled by the behavior of many of my patients and my own behavior as well. In the early years of practicing as a psychologist, my patients sought my help primarily for marital and family problems. I observed that a number of these patients also had health problems associated with their behaviors-quite a few were obese, had problems with alcohol or tobacco and often worked too many hours. Of course these were not their presenting reasons for seeing me.
Still, I was aware that these patients were not very satisfied with their lives and that their unhappiness was not limited to the area of marriage and family relationships. Very often they would tell me that work was not gratifying, they didn't have much of a social life, or they didn't vacation successfully or often. I began to sense that they were living a lifestyle that was out of kilter. But I focused on the presenting problem in keeping to my agreement with them.
After I was diagnosed with coronary artery disease, my interest and practice shifted to treating patients with chronic health issues. Then the primary presenting problem was not marital or family issues. Rather people came to see me with heart disease and other conditions highly affected by lifestyles. Once again I observed that my patients were not living very full or satisfying lives. At first, I attributed this to their presenting symptoms. " After all, I reasoned, anyone who had to inject themselves with insulin or gasp for breath when they were walking could not be very happy." It took me 10 years before I understood that it was not their symptoms that made my patients so unhappy. Rather it was their lifestyle-a life being lived as if on automatic-that was causing so much grief. Not coincidently, it took that long to get my own health under control.
I had been struggling with weight issues my entire life, having lost and gained more weight than I care to remember. I was particularly embarrassed because I was unable to control my eating despite 35 years experience as a psychologist. In other words, I felt like I should have known better.
Even worse, my habits didn't change after being diagnosed with coronary artery disease. Nor did they change after quadruple by-pass surgery a few years later. The dozens of diets that I tried were ineffective long term. Having more information about heart disease, food choices, stress or other related topics did not make a lasting impression on me. My wife's concerns, my children's needs for a healthy father, my awareness that I was hiding out and not living a full life-none of this made a lasting difference. My problem, I found out, was not a lack of motivation. It was a lack of capacity. My energy stores were depleted by the kind of lifestyle I was leading.
It's no surprise that the human body is a system that ingests energy and then uses it to fuel its activities-including complex psychological processes. What is a surprise is the fact that the human brain consumes 20% of the body's calories even though it constitutes only 2% of the body's mass. Why is this? Because controlled, effortful processes like self control burn quite a bit of fuel.
Research conducted by Roy Baumeister of Florida State University demonstrated that exercising self control consumes relatively large amount glucose in the brain, in comparison to cognitive tasks that do not require self control. Furthermore, he found that a person is less able to resist temptations once self control is exercised in another area. "The brain has a limited capacity for self regulation so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others" according to a recent article about his work that appeared in the New York Times.
What if you are living a lifestyle in which you are constantly suppressing anxiety and fear, continuously worried about how other's perceive you, ever watchful that your emotions stay in check? Self control in these areas depletes the energy available for other areas. It leaves the brain craving glucose and lowers resistance to unhealthy behaviors such as overeating and alcohol abuse, according to the implications of this research.
Your lifestyle can drain you or empower you. It can literally deplete your glucose reserves (and your willpower) and make you more vulnerable to unhealthy behaviors. Of course the reverse is also true. You can increase your energy reserves by confronting your demons and living a full life. You will have more self control once you are no longer constricting your life.
It finally dawned on me that my diet was not the real problem. My diet was a symptom of the problem. My lifelong focus on gaining and losing weight was not the real issue. In fact, by focusing on my diet and weight, I was distracting myself from the real issue. Efforts to control my weight depleted energy that could have been available for a more balanced and satisfying life. The reverse was also true. My efforts to micromanage my life depleted energy that could have been available to control my weight.
The real issue was broader than the issue of my diet. The real issue was how I was living-my lifestyle. I was living an AVOIDANT LIFESTYLE that was depleting energy and starving my brain of glucose. That lifestyle was killing me. When I looked at my life across the 10 domains that make up a lifestyle, I didn't like what I saw. I saw that I was constantly on the defensive, protecting myself from hurts by constricting my life.
The Avoidant lifestyle originates in the painful experiences of the past. Constricting your life to avoid pain means that your past is running your life. But joy and satisfaction can only exist in the present. Can we modify our lifestyles so that avoidance of anxiety and fear are not the major determinants of what we do? This would leave open the possibility of living a life that is fulfilling in the here and now. Living in the present moment offers the best chance for health and well being. By exorcizing the painful experiences of the past we have more self control in the present. I wrote this book so that we can find the willpower necessary to resist unhealthy behaviors-- the behaviors that make us sick.
CARDIAC WELLNESS:
Nine Steps to a Healthy Heart
By Dr. Lawrence Decker