[This is the second in a two-part series of posts on cravings. Please enjoy the series! To be in touch, drop me an email to [email protected]. To enjoy my latest book, Choose Your Life Purposes, please visit here.]
Do Your Cravings Come with Thoughts?
Many cravings come with no thoughts attached. We just crave. Other cravings seem to be thought-induced, as when we think “This has been such a long day, I deserve some ice cream” or “I can’t possibly get through this impending argument with my wife without at least a few Scotches.”
While it’s a little odd to try to designate one way or the other as better—is it “better” that a craving be impulse-driven or thought-driven—there’s some logic in supposing that thought-driven impulses might be easier to refute. Because they are “heard,” they can also be “talked back to.” If you hear yourself say, “I deserve some ice cream,” you could train yourself to talk back to that thought by responding, “Deserving has nothing to do with it—ice cream isn’t on my diet.”
It follows from this logic that it might be wise to start inquiring of a craving, “Hey, what’s the thought here?” If you could tease out the thought, you could then talk back to it and put it in its place. Say that you suddenly craved a cigarette. Instead of immediately lighting up, you might train yourself to say, “Where did that urge come from?”
In this way, you would both create some space between the craving and the action, space that might allow for the craving to pass, and maybe also come to know what stray thought or feeling provoked that craving, allowing for a useful response. For example, maybe you got suddenly anxious about the state of the world. Your inner dialogue might sound like the following:
“I want a cigarette. Wait! Where did that craving come from? I think … I think I suddenly got anxious about the upcoming election. I am anxious about the upcoming election. And I should be! But … a cigarette doesn’t get my preferred candidate elected. A donation to her campaign would be the wiser thing to do.”
Can this work? Yes. Will it work? That remains to be seen. You would need to hold the intention to get a grip on your cravings, the intention to override powerful chemical drivers like nicotine, caffeine or alcohol, the intention to be your “best” self even when no one is watching.
The headline is that teasing out the thought behind a craving, the thought driving or supporting that craving, gives you the chance to talk back to that thought and disrupt, reduce, and even eliminate the craving. The next time some craving pounces, give it a try!
Read: The Power of Cravings
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
