The Dueling Brain
By understanding the neurochemical processes that cause cravings, you can detour the self-sabotagery that has consistently been taking place. For the sake of this discussion, I will be referring to two parts of the human brain: the midbrain and the neocortex. These two parts of the brain compete with one another. The midbrain is basically the same brain that most animals, such as dogs, have, and it generates survival impulses that drive the rest of the body to live. You could not breath and eat without it. It signals your body to get what it demands: oxygen, food, sex, and fluids.
The midbrain contains neurons, which shoot off a chemical called dopamine; these neurons are located in the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus acumbens. When dopamine is released you feel a range of positive and pleasurable feelings: a rush of excitement, or “high”; relaxed; content; satisfied; happy. Certain kinds of foods trigger this part of your brain to release dopamine. Over time, food becomes intensely linked to one or many of these intense positive feelings. Wanting to feel these positive feelings is healthy—overindulging these feelings through overeating is not.
But there is another brain that sits on top of the midbrain—the neocortex (“neo” meaning new). This is the gift of our evolution and is what distinguishes you from your animal friends. This new brain allows you to be conscious, to think, to have language and to solve problems. Your neocortex is “you,” and you can override any appetite, even for oxygen or food. (Anyone can stop breathing until unconscious or stop eating until dead.)
For you, (and many people!), a maladaptive glitch develops, wherein your ability to inhibit the desire to eat food becomes impaired. Whether this is a disease, an inherited disposition, a psychological condition, an astrological outcome, or is the outcome resulting from years of pleasurable overeating that have created a hardwired, neurological mapping system in your brain, seems less important than to recognize that there is a pathological relationship between your midbrain and your neocortex. The result is that the midbrain, the same brain of a donkey, has commandeered the position of authority in deciding when, where, what and how much to eat.
The good news is that your neocortex is so much smarter than your donkey brain—it provides you with a lens of intellectual honesty by which you can view your behaviors. When you know you are overindulging, you may feel a range of negative emotions: guilt, shame, disappointment, anger and despair. These feelings represent the struggle going on inside your head between the neocortex and the midbrain.
IF THE UNDESIRABILITY OF OVEREATING IS CLEARLY AND FIRMLY GROUNDED IN YOUR MIND, you will use your neocortex, your human brain, your self, YOU, to override the destructive desires and appetites that you know are at the root of your eating problem. You don’t want to let this donkey run the show anymore, do you?