The Food Medic - S5 E1 Making + Breaking habits

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Welcome back to season 5 of The Food Medic podcast. On this episode Dr Hazel is joined by Joe O Brien. Joe is currently completing a doctorate in Health Psychology and runs the Instagram page @headfirst0. In this episode they talk about new years resolutions, breaking and making habits, emotional eating and binge eating disorders, and the psychology of online dating.Make sure to check out @thefoodmedic on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for more informative posts on health and nutrition.Enjoy this podcast? Please leave us a review and 5 star rating! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and a very big welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Hazel Wallace. I'm a medical doctor, registered associate nutritionist and bestselling author of The Food Medic. For more about me and the work that I do, head over to thefoodmedic.co.uk and make sure to check us out on social media under The Food Medic. If you are new around here, first of all, welcome. On this podcast, we hear from experts in the field of health and nutrition who share with us ways that we can live healthier, more fulfilling lives whilst cutting through the confusing information that we find online. On this season of the podcast, we will be discussing topics in women's health, including

how the menstrual cycle affects sport and performance, sexual health and wellness, health behaviour, including making and breaking habits, mental health, and of course, lots of nutrition. Today, I am delighted to be joined by Joe O'Brien, a fellow Irishman. Joe is currently completing a doctorate in health psychology and runs the Instagram page, Head First Zero. His special interests are in the psychology of behavior change and the relationship between physical, psychological health. He works privately delivering one-on-one interventions and group sessions. He also runs a training course for health professionals titled Health Psychology in Practice. So on this episode, we talk about

New Year's resolutions, breaking and making habits, emotional eating and binge eating disorders, and even the psychology of online dating and whether you can find the perfect relationship online. Now, Jo does signpost to further resources if you require support with any of the topics we discuss in this podcast episode but you can also find some helpful advice over on mind.org.uk, the NHS website and also beat eating disorders.org.uk. I hope you guys really enjoyed today's podcast because I really enjoyed speaking to Jo and really just diving deep into the psychology behind behavior change from nutrition to exercise to dating. It's a really, really interesting podcast. So I think it's like the perfect time to get you on the podcast because

it's the start of a new year and people are naturally thinking about their goals for the year, resolutions for the year and I'm sure for many people that might be centered around improving their health or changing health behaviors and I actually did have a google about this to see what was last year's most kind of cited new year's resolutions and the top one was improving fitness slash more exercise and And then it was losing weight, improving diet, saving more money and taking up a new hobby. So the top three were really fitness, weight and diet related. So I guess we can assume quite a few people are thinking about this. What advice do you have for someone who wants to make a change and stick to it? Yeah, I think some of the really common

advice that we hear is actually pretty important from a psychological perspective. I think collectively we underestimate how hard change is. And I think by doing that, we really set ourselves up to fail simply by setting a really high target. Now, that's probably what most people don't want to hear, but we hear a lot about, you know, make change slowly and take the small steps. But there are still a pretty significant body of people who are going to wake up on New Year's and think, you know, from this day forward, I'll wake up at six, I'll do my meditation and my run and I'll come back and I'll cook from scratch and I'll walk at lunchtime and put my phone away before bed and all these like new behaviors.

And that person might have never done any of those things before. So firstly, they're going from, you know, zero to 100. And that's going to make things difficult. There's obviously no problem having ambition. But I think often what happens is people try and fix everything and end up changing nothing in the long term, because, you know, changes is pretty hard. So I think step one is assessing where you're at like asking yourself what is actually reasonable and achievable to change for example you want to exercise more the start goal for you if you don't exercise might be two sessions a week and when you've proven you can do two sessions it might be three sessions the next week or four we hear a lot about habits right the buzzword around New Year's is like, how do you

form new habits? And all these like coaches and people putting out, you know, this is the science of habits. If there's one thing that I've learned from reading some of the habit research, it's that forming habits is particularly hard. It's not as simple as, you know, we read in the books. People might've seen stats like, you know, it takes 21 days to form a habit. There's a piece of research by Philippa Lally and people, I think, use that quite a bit out of context. And that stat, I guess they state it very factually. They state it takes 66 days to form a habit. But I guess what people might not see behind that very appealing statistic is that in that study, there were 82 people analyzed, and the range of days it took people

to form a habit took up to 254 days. So that's just over eight months. 66 was the median, but the range is massive. And when we look at the behaviors that they were measuring as a habit, I think one example off the top of my head was something like drinking a glass of water after breakfast. So this research, like it's taken some people eight months to develop the habit of drinking a glass of water after breakfast. But we have these people out there trying to overhaul their life overnight, right? So I guess when we think about like habits, it takes a lot of kind of brain capacity to overhaul your life. And I think completing one small change for a whole year is a lot better

than having a massive change for like three weeks that would be how I look at it so I think step one in terms of advice is if you're going to change something remember the change is hard but just change one thing at a time yeah absolutely and I guess that um kind of timeline that's often cited on how long it takes to build a habit it really depends on what what kind of timeline that's often cited on how long it takes to build a habit it really depends on what what kind of habit we're talking about you know whether you're quitting smoking or you are trying to drink some more water it can be very different for different people yeah totally i think yeah the strength of the habit obviously matters if you think about something like smoking has quite a biological and physiological impact on the body and the brain, something like that is going to

be far maybe more difficult to crack than something like drinking a glass of water or, you know, doing something, I guess, more low intensity. So yeah, it depends obviously on the individual, on the type of habit itself. And obviously, like all these other different factors that I'm sure we'll get into along the way. Yeah, absolutely. And what about breaking bad habits or breaking habits that are leading to behaviors that may not be conducive to health? So for example, for me, I know that sometimes, especially during lockdown, I've gotten into the habit of spending a lot more time on my phone and not necessarily doing anything productive with that. Yeah, it's a really difficult one. There are a few ways of approaching this, but I guess

the way I would understand it is that we engage in behavior for a reason. So like it's doing something for us. Now that thing might not be particularly obvious to us. The behavior itself might be harmful, or like you said, kind of unhelpful, unproductive. I think smoking is a really useful example because I'm sure there's plenty of people out there. Maybe if they are smokers or they know a smoker, well, they think, well, smoking is killing me. That's no use at all. That's not doing anything. When you look at smoking, people often smoke after something stressful as a social thing, or they'll say, I smoke when I drink. So in that case, it's an example that smoking is doing something for them. It might come with a lot of consequences, but it's still doing something to help alleviate stress or potentially facilitate something social. If you maybe take your example of a phone use,

some people might turn up to my clinic and they'll say, I use my phone way too much. I'm on it all the time. And you do some digging and lots of their screen time is when they're alone. And if you pitch the question to them, if you weren't on your phone, what would it be like? And they might say, well, I'd feel bored or I'd feel lonely. And then we might conclude, obviously, this is a very simplistic version of what might go on in a session, but you might conclude from the end of doing some digging that, you know, phone use is a distraction from feeling bored or feeling lonely. And again, it's that distraction from something unpleasant. And the reason I'm saying all of this in terms of breaking bad behaviors or kind of bad habits that you want to get out of is because in order to change that

unhealthful behavior, it's important to try and understand the function of the behavior. So what is the behavior doing for us? And what is it kind of telling us? Because we know that if we start to try and meet that need in a new way, it might be more helpful. Again, going back to phone use, let's say it's six, seven, eight hours a day, it's interrupting your sleep. Maybe that's working as a way of helping someone not to feel bored or feel lonely. What I would think is how else can we manage that feeling? How else can we replace what the phone is doing for us in a different way? Well, human connection might be a good way of alleviating loneliness. So that would be meeting the need in a new way. And I think it's important to remember that the behavior itself might not be helpful, but it might be like a learned response from years ago. I think that's one that comes up an awful lot. And I think eating

is a really good example of this. Let's say hypothetically, someone has a difficult experience growing up, maybe they lived in a house where there's lots of fighting and arguing. And they manage those feelings through food, they ate a lot when they were alone in their room to kind of help manage that feeling. Now, a person grows up and they're an adult, and they move away from that home, the eating might still be associated with being alone in your room, or a difficult experience, because that's what your brain has learned it's maybe learned to respond that way so I guess the main thing to understand is to replace the unhelpful habit with something more helpful so looking after your

your needs in a new way or in a different way yeah and I'm interested to know what you think of James Clear's method and the author of Atomic Habits. And he, I think he says, make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying if you want to build a habit. And then if you want to break a bad habit, kind of flip it on its head. So, you know, make it unattractive, make it hard and kind of take away the satisfaction element of it. Yeah, I think so. I think when you remove something that is doing something for you, you'll need to replace it with something else. And to make that as appealing as possible is obviously the best way to do that. So if you think about the loneliness example and phone use,

if you try and replace your phone use with, let's say TV, for example, it still doesn't meet that need for connection or it doesn't meet the need of loneliness. So I think if you are kind of breaking the bad habit, you will need to figure out what it's doing for you in order to kind of replace it. But I think that ties into maybe that example. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And just kind of moving on from that, naturally, some people may want to change their diet during this time. And that might come in the form of various different resolutions. naturally some people may want to change their diet during this time and that might come in the form of various different resolutions and some people may want to pursue weight loss how can we change eating patterns without damaging our mental health and do you think the pursuit of weight loss

can occur without sacrificing mental health I know this is a big question and a big topic and can be quite polarizing, but I think it's important that we try pick this apart. Yeah, definitely. It is a huge topic. You're right. But my inkling would say that it's possible some people lose weight or change their bodies without a mental health issue, right? But there's a lot to consider there because there are very big risks when actively pursuing weight loss dieting and restriction and focusing on i guess weight and appearance as like a goal or a value can be a risk factor for people so if you think about the message that that sends us it's telling us you know your value your happiness in life is your appearance or your weight. And firstly, that's not true,

but it's also not really helpful for our mental wellbeing. There's a really good paper by a researcher called Colin Greaves. And in it, he found a few psychological predictors of weight loss maintenance. So the people who were successful at maintaining weight loss, the things that they had in common were that they were more flexible, which is the opposite of restriction or being rigid, a change in mindset from the short-term goals to the long-term. So that was important in terms of people viewed it as a lifestyle change. This is the way I'm living my life now and not just like this four or six-week plan to get in shape. Another predictor was unmet psychological

needs, which is kind of what I spoke about just before, like meeting your psychological needs in a new way. So with that, I think the things that help people maintain weight loss are often the polar opposite of what they've been trying or what we traditionally focus on. If you think about the traditional weight loss interventions, they're restrictive, there's the focus on weight and size, and they're quite rigid, they're generally short term. And judging by the research, on average, none of these things are helpful when it comes to long term changes. So I think that's really important to consider. There's also the part to consider that lots of this is out of our control, right? We buy into this illusion that our behavior is just something we can change and everything is entirely within our ability. But we forget about like

genetics and environment and psychology and society and someone's financial restrictions. There's 101 things why these things are kind of out of our control. And it makes me quite angry seeing some of the, you know, big Instagrammers, famous personal trainers or nutritionists kind of sprouting the same, eat less, move more when there are so many of these factors that are just bigger than that. Like if you even think back your own mother's nutrition, when you were a developing fetus matters, your nutrition, when you're a child and you're developing matters, Your genetics matter. So I think that's where the focus for a lot of people needs to shift. So you asked if we can change our eating patterns without damaging mental health.

The answer to that is yes. But to protect our mental health, we need to move away from the focus on weight and appearance. I think a move away from the idea that weight is value and being smaller is something that brings happiness. We need to come to terms with the idea that food and eating can occur independently of weight loss. So eating well can be for other purposes other than losing weight. And I guess that would maybe follow up to the advice

that I was giving earlier about what people need to do to change. Intrinsic motivators are huge, like the things that really matter to you. And I think you'll probably like this example. I talk about this a lot about the reasons that CrossFit didn't reinvent the wheel in terms of exercises, right? Those exercises were out there. But what they did is they packaged it in a way that is intrinsically motivating for people. So it's more than just exercise. It's community, it's inclusion, it's healthy competition. For some people, it's identity, it's supportive. And people are far more likely to engage in health behaviors when it's intrinsically motivating. So for the long term, if it's intrinsically motivating, you're more likely to succeed. When it's all extrinsic, like appearance and weight, those things are kind of firstly whether intention, if intention changes how much it affects someone's mental health. So someone's intention for weight loss, whether it's an intention to improve health or whether it's an intention to improve aesthetics and appearance.

Does that impact their mental health differently or has that not been kind of unpicked in the research yet? I think what I see in my clinic is like, like you said, when I kind of pitched the idea that you can eat well without having to lose weight, people are like, okay, yeah, let's focus on the eating behavior. And then you focus on that for a while and they're like, okay, but I haven't lost weight. And, you know, it's that idea that, you know,

that wasn't or isn't kind of the focus. Again, it's that balance between extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. If you are focusing on appearance and weight and it does come with the risks for for mental health so i think the intention matters because the intention is the focus if you are someone who is focusing on the weight side of things you're sending yourself the message even if you're maybe not consciously aware of it or you are you're sending yourself the message, even if you're maybe not consciously aware of it, or you are, you're sending yourself the message that my weight is important. And why is it important? My aesthetics are important. Why are they important? And for some people, when they say, I want to lose weight, it means something else. Like maybe for someone to lose weight, what they really mean is

I want to be fitter. I want to be able to live my life a little better. Maybe it's like, I want to be able to go on a hike with my family, which I'm not able to do right now. People have been kind of conditioned to associate weight loss with health, like you said. So when people say, I want to lose weight, sometimes they mean those other things that are intrinsically motivating. And if that's the case, I think they can be successful in that by shifting their focus to those intrinsically motivating things. But when it is about weight, and it is about appearance and aesthetics, I think it's just not conducive to long term change, as well as coming with those psychological risks, I guess, of reiterating that your weight is your value. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also looping

back on what you said that it's never as simple as, you know, eat less, move more, because there's so many enablers and barriers when it comes to healthy eating or weight loss that we need to consider. And like you said, there's kind of these intrinsic factors, but also there's external factors and there's different physical and mental things going on that we need to factor in. And so it's a really complex topic. But the research is fascinating. I've kind of stepped into it a little bit with my supplement research. So I'm swimming in psychology.

That actually came up the other day when I messaged you about the behavior change wheel, like the factors that are even included in that, right? And that's obviously a model that a lot of people use at the moment for kind of gauging what is successful behavior change intervention or not. There are so many factors in there. Like, I guess I focus my clinic work on the psychological capacity to change, but there are some factors in that

that explain or can contribute to somebody's ability to to change or not and I think kind of move more eat less or whatever it is that idea just totally oversimplifies and it's kind of dismissive of people's struggles and I think that's really unfair on people to be honest absolutely and what's annoying is that you know for a long time public health campaigns have focused purely on the kind of psychological capability and the knowledge side of things and the education side of things. And so policy has been shifted towards, oh, well, if we just tell people that vegetables are good for them, they'll eat more vegetables. see in the research is that you now have like all these behavior change theories being kind of weaved into it and we're understanding more why people do the things that they do because there's

so many different factors pulling us each way and we're not aware of them and it's up to researchers to be able to tease that apart so it's good it is it's like i i think for the first time ever we're finally moving towards something that's more evidence-based but yeah the idea that education alone is going to predict behavior change is is nonsense and that's what public health campaigns have focused on for a long time uh you obviously grew up in ireland and i know when i was growing up in ireland we had that food pyramid yeah i mean i think like the idea that if you knew the food pyramid. I mean, I think like the idea that if you knew the food pyramid, you could just carry it out. It's just so wrong. You know, people generally know what a balanced diet looks like. And people like smokers know that smoking

is bad for them. People know that excessive alcohol consumption is not great for them, but that doesn't mean that they can just change. It's so much bigger than that. And like I said, it's so dismissive of those difficulties. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I don't want to go too far off tangent, but just thinking about that conversation, one campaign that comes to mind, and I really respect the research that they do,

but it was Cancer Research UK and they put out a campaign maybe two years ago around obesity. You know, listed out all the cancers that have caused and they put it on like you know bus stops and things like that and I remember walking into work one day into the hospital and I was working on a breast cancer rotation and like it was on the bus stop outside the breast cancer kind of center or whole cancer center i just found it so jarring and unhelpful and i couldn't help but think you know for families going out who have just had a loved one diagnosed with cancer how is that helpful and i just felt like they completely missed the mark

yeah yeah it was really frustrating to see that i remember when that when that came out again it's this idea that like oh if you scare people enough or like you know you're motivating them by scaring them that's not the case i have people in my clinic like literally all day who are concerned about their health and their well-being and all they want to do is change but they don't know how and they and they find it really difficult because there are lots of things working against them like their environment and their financial situation and all these different factors. It's not a matter of want, you know, it's not a matter of that they didn't know the risks of eating a certain way or having a nutrient poor diet. The issue is that they're not being supported in the wider context. And trying to

scare someone into change just doesn't work no but anyway moving on from that because i know that we can go down a rabbit hole um obviously we've been in and out of lockdown the last year i can't believe we've come this far and we're still in this situation but as a result many people have struggled with their eating habits and have definitely confided in me about that i'm sure you've heard a lot of this as well. And mainly from a comfort point of view. And while I think we need to be compassionate with ourselves, this is a completely weird situation that we found ourselves in. Is emotional eating OK?

And if so, does it become a problem at a certain point? Yeah, I think I think you're right. And like people are struggling right now. I think generally it become a problem at a certain point yeah i think i think you're right and like people are struggling right now i think generally it is a comfort and what i was saying to people who were kind of struggling is that like you mentioned being compassionate towards yourself is really important here it's that idea that like if you get through a global pandemic when all of your other coping strategies have been taken away things like your gym and your connection and your family and things like that if you can get through a global pandemic by eating a little more, eating a little differently or comfort eating, that's fine. And emotional eating is a typical

thing to do. We see a lot in the conversation on social media that like emotional eating is fine, right? Food can help us manage, but I think the line of when it's an issue is different for everyone. I think it can be an issue. I think it's, it's again, kind of reductionist. Maybe it's a bit simplistic to think that all emotional eating is absolutely fine because people do struggle with it. And I see those people in my clinic. The way I see it is that it might be an issue if it's impacting your health, like you've had negative health issues associated, or I guess that could be improved through your food. I think if it causes emotional distress after eating, feelings of things like guilt or shame or embarrassment,

I'd say any kind of physical symptoms, like feeling unwell, IBS symptoms would be a pretty big one. But I guess the biggest thing for me, or the biggest kind of flag for me, is that if emotional eating is your only way that you have of making yourself feel better, that could be a significant issue. Because it comes back to that idea of meeting our psychological needs in helpful ways or in the appropriate ways. And I think if you turn to food when you're lonely, but also when you're stressed or tired or angry, then those emotions might not be processed.

They might not be addressed at all. And I think if there's one thing about emotions, it's that they have a habit of sticking around. They don't just go away. So I guess it's important to have a range of strategies depending on what you need. So food isn't going to cure grief or loneliness or anger and processing those feelings without relying on food is probably going to be more helpful in the

long term. Yeah, absolutely. And I think let's chat a little bit about binge eating because, you know, that's closely linked to emotional eating for some people. First of all, let's just kind of distinguish between binge eating and binge eating disorder or BED. So what are some of the signs and symptoms there? Yeah, I think in terms of differentiating between them, I think it's important that we see these things on a continuum. So what I mean by that is it's not just this black and white, this is a mental health issue, this is not. I think sometimes we think that with binge eating disorder versus just binge eating, just because you don't meet the exact criteria for binge eating disorder, as an example, that doesn't mean that psychology and mental health isn't important. I don't mean to, I don't mean to diss the medical model to a

medic. But there's this idea that binge eating is only a problem and only requires psychological intervention if you meet the criteria. And that's just not the case. Psychological factors are important to consider at every stage of eating issues, not just when you meet the criteria for a diagnosis. So as part of the criteria, as an example, it says binge eating must occur once a week for three months. If someone manages to spend two weeks of that time avoiding binging for whatever reason, then apparently it's not a mental health issue. You don't, you know, it's that black and white in terms of criteria. And it's why diagnostics aren't always helpful with this type of issue. I think if you treat the person in front of you and

they feel emotionally distressed by their eating habits, then psychology is important to consider. If you remember that diagnostic criteria, all it tells you is that these are common symptoms emotionally distressed by their eating habits, then psychology is important to consider. If you remember that diagnostic criteria, all it tells you is that these are common symptoms, right? It doesn't tell you about the person's experience. It doesn't tell you about the causes. It doesn't tell you about even what the best approach is to take. So I think some of those labels can be taken with a pinch of salt sometimes because binge eating itself is a behavior and it's maybe a symptom of distress and I think whether you meet the criteria or not it's important to consider psychology in terms of what the symptoms are of that and emotional eating and binging they're quite similar in lots of ways

I guess binge eating is in the diagnostic manual so it's easier to define it's reoccurring binging eating beyond fullness or when you're not hungry a loss of control is the big one and feeling emotionally distressed afterwards so that idea of regret guilt shame embarrassment that'd be the criteria in terms of the diagnostics but again if you don't meet that criteria exactly it doesn't mean that psychology isn't important to you or like you're looking after your mental health isn't important. The idea of emotional eating by definition is that it's a response to an emotion. Binging can also be in a response to an emotion or a feeling, but binging can also be preempted by restriction. So long periods between meals, severe restriction or under eating, there can be

a physiological reason for binging as well it's not just emotional I think that's maybe one of the differences and the other one is is loss of control and if there are people listening who feel like in their head they are ticking those boxes where's the best place to start when you're looking for support I think the best place to start even if you meet the criteria or not is with a mental health professional if you're concerned about that. Food is very emotional. Food has like an emotional aspect to it on all levels. So I think looking at or proving out some of those things with a mental health professional would be best, ideally with a trained dietitian in that field as well.

But I guess accessibility is a big issue with this I think if you're concerned about binging or emotional eating remember that it is psychological by nature and there are things that a nutritionist and dietitian can do within that scope but again if the core underlying issue is emotions or psychological then important to tease out with a with a mental health professional yeah Yeah, agree. And obviously, there are lots of ways that nutrition professionals can work with psychologists. It doesn't always happen as much as it should. And I know that you're very passionate about healthcare professionals working in nutrition, having psychology training, and you do a bit of that as well. Can you explain a little bit more about the role of psychology and nutrition why nutrition professionals should have that yeah definitely

like I said psychology is important regardless of where people are at with their eating I think it's important to consider as part of any behavior change intervention I think as a nutrition professional taking like a I guess the wrong approach on day one with a client can actually cause harm depending on who the client is. I'll give you an example. I work with health professionals, like I said, I do training, but I also do one to one work in terms of like consultancy. So people will talk to me about difficult clients, or if they have like ideas, or they want to learn about something. And one coach came to me and they said they had a client who sticks to their step goals and their calorie goals pretty much exactly to what what it was like they would hit their 10000 and one steps

every day and they would like hit their calorie goal within like one percent and i'd imagine lots of people maybe listening to this would think well wow that's amazing work you know or as a coach you might think my client is so disciplined but that client could be the person who's quite entrenched in their eating disorder, the person who's like really deep in that eating disorder. That client could be the person who won't go to sleep until they hit their step goal, or the person who won't meet their friends for food anymore because of their calorie goal. They're the ones who are so preoccupied with the weight loss and the numbers or the health, inverted commas,

that it's actually negatively impacting their lives. And that's the problem with health professionals not being trained adequately in psychology. And it's through no fault of their own, because I've talked to nutrition professionals about this and that they feel the same. It's the lack of training that they receive. And like that level of precision in terms of hitting a step goal or a calorie goal, to me would be something that needs investigation, right? I would think, you know, is this person diligent? Or are they preoccupied to the point where it's impacting their lives? Is this intervention actually improving their quality of life or not? Is setting the person these goals? Is that reinforcing or contributing to a mental health

issue? But on the surface, it looks like they're doing great, right? Because they're doing all the things that they're told to do. And I think it's a real shame that health professionals aren't trained enough on this, right? I probably am going on a rant, but I could just go on forever. As an example, the BDA, for example, the British Dietetics Association, their curriculum for 2013 was the most recent one I could get my hands on. It mentioned psychology nine times in a 59 page document in terms of accrediting their courses. The AFN, the Association for Nutrition curriculum for their courses, they don't mention psychology at all in a 28 page document. And these are some of the people who are going to be working with clients who might have a risk of developing an eating issue or might already have one. So when we consider that, I think it's so important for something so emotional that we have to consider psychology for all nutrition professionals,

because it's something that comes up quite a bit, even if they don't fall into the diagnostic category, especially for weight loss. It's almost like default. People are just put on the highly restrictive, you know, 1200 calories, you know, calorie counting self weighing. And that comes with a risk for some people. Now, I'm sure that there's lots of people who will listen to this and think, well, I see on social media, all my dietitians are very aware of this. And I think on social media, maybe it's a little bit of an echo chamber in terms of I follow a lot of people like that. And they're quite, I guess they're quite woke in terms of like what they know. There's more knowledge around it definitely circulating on social media. But I work with people who are still coming back from nutritionists, dietitians, personal trainers, coaches, all across the board, right, no matter what their qualifications,

saying, you know, I was put on a meal plan, or like my calories were 1200 and i was having to count and i was you know weighing myself every day and to me the fact that there's no pre-screen um to see what's going on for someone is just really unhelpful i think we should be screening people at baseline before they ever do a nutrition intervention and that is one of the big reasons why i would like to see more um trained trained in psychology because people aren't just a maths equation they're not just calories in calories out. Yeah absolutely I think it's super important and just even thinking from my own practice as in medicine I mean we do obviously do psychiatry as part of our training and then some people will specialize in that but it's it's such a huge

field and obviously we're looking at I guess more extreme mental health disorders and not necessarily picking up some red flags that might come in to say the GP practice um say if someone for example for toxic isn't exactly meeting the criteria for an eating disorder i.e um they may not tick the boxes that a doctor might be looking for except they are really suffering and and then that might mean that they're not getting the treatment that they need because they don't meet the criteria if that makes sense but if there was you know some psychology input there it may change things i guess it just comes back to the fact that you know we all have our own specialties and it works best when it's a

multi-disciplinary approach in in every situation really yeah again i think funding yeah yeah i know and i like this for for people to go through a whole you know dietetics or nutrition program and then have to do further education to like make sure that they're you know preventing risk is it's a lot to ask of people um and that's i guess like you said if they don't meet the criteria but they're really suffering with the psychological input if you had the i guess the understanding or had the extra training you might think oh this person feels like they might be at risk for developing an eating issue or other type of issue it might be more helpful to use this

approach which is like let's say safer from a mental health perspective but without that insight they could be pushing people down i guess the wrong path and again through no fault of their own so it's it's a difficult one it's it's obviously battles and funding is massive yeah god we really are going off on one today but But I'm just going to turn to a slightly different topic. And you spoke about recently on your Instagram, and I flagged it in my head to ask you on this podcast. And that is the science and psychology of online dating. I mean, I think that's the only way people are dating at the moment because of lockdown. But is it true that that's the best way you can find the perfect

relationship um yeah you say it's a different topic i actually wouldn't consider it a different topic because really yeah i genuinely because we think health behaviors are like food and exercise and like sometimes sleep but we rarely consider relationships as a health behavior right we would never associate being healthier with like looking after your your relationship or looking after like your friend's relationship the reason i say it's not a separate topic is is because there's evidence to suggest that people who have really good relationships and that's all relationships not just romantic relationships live about 15 to 20 years longer than those who have poor relationships and that's that's just to me was an amazing statistic because yeah so true and we know that like social isolation and

loneliness is also like an independent risk factor for lots of even physical conditions so i get where you're coming from but it is it's a it's a health behavior and i think when it when it comes to like finding someone online you mentioned like the perfect relationship i think there's a few things to consider when dating online. Firstly, the issue of unlimited choice or saturated choice. When we make decisions on anything, the more choice we have, the more difficult the decision. Think about how long it takes to try and find something good to watch on Netflix by yourself or choosing the right book in the bookshop. Like it's so difficult. It takes so much time. And it's the same with online dating. This perception that the person who is kind of

still out there is more appealing than the person that I'm talking to. And because of this, it's so easy to just like delete somebody or unmatch somebody at the first sign of like imperfection, again, inverted commas, like deleting someone or like blocking someone because they just said, hey, in their first message and nothing else. That's me. They must be boring, right? Because they just said, hey, or like, you know, they're not powerful enough or they like pineapple on pizza. I think the reality is like people have flaws and like ask yourself, if you're listening

to this, ask yourself if you'd like someone to block you or dismiss you because you didn't meet their perfect standard you probably wouldn't so i think part of finding a meaningful or fulfilling relationship is understanding that people have flaws and understanding that like your boundaries and needs when you're looking for relationships what are the important things to you genuinely like it's not that they say hey or it's not that they like pineapple and pizza it's like can i talk to them can i be vulnerable with them do they make me feel safe the core part of connection in terms of romantic relationships is actually in your core values i think it seems illogical to me to rule out someone who you know doesn't meet the surface level stuff because they might be the person who makes you happier than you've ever been but any relationship

even really good ones take work and communication but it's it's not just work and communication it's working together not independently it's about it's about being on the same team and working towards the same goal which is like your relationship and yeah like i said relationships are our health behavior if you if you really want good health work on your relationships no it's very true and I think you put it into perspective but come on lads like if you do want to grab someone's attention don't just say hey a little bit more because like you said there's so much choice out there but it's so hard i i personally think that because online relationships are very 2d it's hard to see a kind of future with this person that you've just met so i do agree that it's it's worth giving someone the benefit of the doubt yeah totally i think even

with social media there's a lot of research that says and i'm sure that's translated to online dating and things like that but um there's a lot of research that says social media in itself and just interacting with someone online like dehumanizes them to some extent so like you know it's easier to be cut throat it's easier to delete someone whereas like if you met them in person if they said something a little bit off or a little bit strange like you'd maybe hear them out or you'd like ask them a little bit more whereas we can just we can just delete them on a dating app or you can just remove them on instagram or whatever that looks like so i think aware of these biases in ourselves is is really important because just firstly think about like would you want someone to do that to you and also would i do

this in in real life because i think the dehumanizing element is the bit that you're you're talking about there like it's very difficult in that kind of you're you're talking to a screen essentially and there's all the evidence in the world to suggest that real world relationships fulfill people better than online so I think it's important like you said give people the benefit of the doubt in these scenarios. That's really interesting that you say that because I guess it really like feeds back into kind of how trolling happens and and not just trolling but I mean I get a lot of it because I guess it really like feeds back into kind of how trolling happens and, and not just trolling. But I mean, I get a lot of it, because I think sometimes people think that the platform is run by like, huge team or something. And I think people are a bit more comfortable at being rude.

And I'm like, Hey, it's just me. I had an experience like that recently. And it triggered me to write a post on how to be nice to people online because I got a message right I did emotional inhibition and eating and I did part one and part two and a day after I'd written part one someone wrote to me and I'd never spoken to them before I didn't know them they just said when's part two and I was like okay this person doesn't know me. Imagine me walking down the street and someone coming over to me and just shouting, when's part two? If they did see me and they wanted to ask me, they might walk up to me and say, hey, I follow you on Instagram. I loved

your part one. When are you releasing part two? But the fact that that preparation came on social media, they just felt like that was an appropriate thing to say without ever having spoken to me before or even introducing themselves so I think that is a really good example of how is it like that separation just gives people the opportunity not to be human anymore it really is like interacting with your phone rather than another person yeah it's so true and there's no please or thank you I had something similar yesterday where someone I actually went to uni with I'm like does she know that I know who she is um sent me a really blunt message and you know I replied as nice as I could be and but I was just

like it's so interesting how like if we bumped into each other you know after all these years I'm sure she would have been like oh hey how are you like but yeah once you have this kind of interface people just naturally become more blunt and they don't you know they're not empathetic at all yeah I think it's really sad actually because those people probably like they don't realize maybe that they're doing it yeah but they're probably like lovely people in real life but I think I like I definitely search or I see like them as something different because of that bluntness. Like someone might write,

write me a question or write a really long response. And at the end, like, it's just like seen and like, they never, never again, like you've given them your time and like your insight or like, like something effective or whatever.

And again, it's that idea that it's, it's just, it's not the same as real life. Is it? No, no, it's not. same as real life is it no no it's not okay i think like oh god i could actually chat all day about all of this but um we should probably wrap up because we've like touched on some really sensitive topics and there might be some people out there who are really struggling for anyone who may be interested in seeking therapy

what are some avenues uh they should go down to find the right therapist? Yeah, so I made a pretty significant guide myself on this. If anyone wants to get it through my Instagram, you can. The short version of that guide is the three, I guess, main things to focus on is, is the person qualified and accredited? Does the person have experience working with the difficulties you're working with or that you're experiencing? And do you click with the person or do you have a good relationship? Because the therapeutic relationship is one of the best predictors of outcomes. If you feel like you can't trust them, you don't feel safe with them,

they're not consistent with you, then that's just not ideal. A GP is a really good place to go for advice on kind of the services in your area or the ones that are accessible not ideal. A GP is a really good place to go for advice on kind of the services in your area or the ones that are accessible to you. Then resources like government health websites, HSE or NHS in the UK, they should kind of normally have a list of services that are available. In most countries, the kind of governing bodies or the regulators should have a list of counsellors that are accredited with them. There's too many to go into now, but for example, the BPS, the British Psychological Society in the UK, the HCPC in the UK, finding those lists would be a good way of finding someone. Or if you're using Google, like everybody does, you can just check if your therapist, the person that you find is chartered or registered using those lists. So

that's kind of the short snappy version. If you're confused where to go, the GP is kind of a gateway to services. So I suggest GP first to recommend kind of services in your area. But if you are going privately or like looking them up independently, make sure you kind of stick to those few things. That's really good advice. Is it normal if you kind of wanted to do

like a one-off session to see if you clicked with the person and then invest in kind of a block of sessions is that something that's done yeah definitely i think most good therapists will say at the end of session one um you know it's up to you now to go and decide if you want to continue with me if we're the right kind of fit and that would be something that i would go through at the end of session one and then if they want to they can go back reflect and come back to you it's like anything right there are you know doctors

that are good and bad and ones that you will and won't click with and i think it's really important you click with the right one so like yeah shopping around is definitely something that's that's done a lot but a good therapist will reflect on if this is right for you or not amazing and so i guess also to wrap up where can people find more about you so my instagram is at headfirst zero my email for any kind of professional inquiries or one-to-one work is joeobryan at mentalhealth.ie also have my own podcast which is the headfirst podcast but yeah i guess the best place to reach me is instagram if you use instagram otherwise email is best yeah and joe puts up lots of informative posts including basically all of

the topics we covered today um if you want to read a bit more amazing well thank you so much for coming on the podcast today it's been a really great discussion thank you hazel for having me i really really appreciate it okay guys that's all from me I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Next week, we are diving into the relationship between menstrual cycles and performance and exercise, which I know lots of you are going to be fascinated by. Until then, I'll see you again next time.