Purely Nourished

We all have them — crav­ings that sneak up out of nowhere, con­sum­ing our thoughts. We indulge in the crav­ing as a means to calm our nerves only to find we’re just as dis­con­tent from the tem­po­rary relief. How do we resist those crav­ings and return to a state of balance?

Note: There is a dif­fer­ence between an neg­a­tive crav­ing and a basic sur­vival crav­ing. We will dis­cuss the unfavorable.

To reverse any crav­ing or dis­com­fort it is always ben­e­fi­cial to deter­mine the root of the prob­lem. What exter­nal or inter­nal fac­tor forced you into a state of  minor panic? Dis­com­fort comes in many forms. Any­thing from sleep-deprevation to and uncom­fort­able inter­ac­tion with a friend. Think back to when the crav­ing set in and try to con­nect it to a recent inter­ac­tion or sit­u­a­tion. Dis­cov­er­ing the root will help you ward off future crav­ings.

Whether you deter­mine the root or not, notice that you have a crav­ing and sit with it. What you resist will per­sist — There­fore, let your­self fully focus on the crav­ing. Try agin to deter­mine the cause and you should be able to come up with an idea of where it emerged. Switch the focus to where the crav­ing stemmed from and con­sciously exam­ine why it made you uncom­fort­able to build inner strength. Let your­self dwell on the sit­u­a­tion until you’ve made peace with it. Tell your­self that it’s com­pletely nat­ural that you would feel that way; Use your breath to slow your heart rate and find a state of calm. The crav­ing should slowly lose its strength.

If the crav­ing is inter­nal from sleep or diet depra­va­tion then you will have to work on sat­is­fy­ing your basic needs. Inter­nal crav­ings are usu­ally eas­ier to relive. They can be as sim­ple as get­ting to bed ear­lier or allow­ing your­self a less strin­gent diet. If you are hun­gry eat, if you are not don’t. Your body knows what its wants; Use a lit­tle intu­ition to observe which crav­ings serve you and which do not.  A crav­ing has a much harder time influ­enc­ing you if you under­stand it.