Learning to Pause and H.A.L.T.
Mindfully working with the underlying drivers of addictive and self-destructive behaviours
The Dessert Trance
At around 10 p.m. on a weekday night, I found myself parked in front of the TV and struggling with my usual routine of going to bed.
I had just finished some rather intense work and was planning to take a short break before brushing my teeth, when thoughts of having cold, comforting ice-cream came to mind.
I immediately felt a physical reaction in my body - an impulse to get up from the couch and approach the kitchen.
I continued with the struggle for a while before relenting and fishing out a tub of coffee-flavoured ice-cream from the freezer.
The whole process of walking to the fridge, getting the ice-cream, opening the lid, and grabbing a spoon felt almost automatic.
As my hand mechanically dug into the dessert over and over again, the mind was silently disapproving the body’s actions. There was an obvious disconnect between body and mind.
It wasn’t until the tenth spoonful of sweet relief that I managed to ground my attention to my breath in the body. The sensations of cold at my throat and lungs jolted me out of the dessert trance.
I promptly shut the lid of the ice cream tub and put the sinful treat back in the freezer. Then I went to bed, tossing and turning as I suffered mild consequences of having sugar so late at night.
The Importance of Checking In
I have battled with addictive tendencies for as long as I can remember.
While my mindfulness practice has helped me tremendously in changing self-destructive behaviours like binge-eating and overconsumption of alcohol, from time to time I find myself slipping back into such unskillful ways of living.
In the journey of self-discovery, I learned that the first step in effective self-care is to pay attention to myself with curiosity and compassion.
And when it comes to cravings, it can feel really hard to set aside self-judgement and observe what is really going on. But when we do learn to pause and observe, we are able to connect more deeply with the reality of our experience.
The skill of observation has taught me that cravings are not just cravings.
There are underlying forces driving these behaviours of wanting, and I need to look inward and see that the object of desire I am going for is simply serving as a distraction and relief.
One question I ask myself, in the midst of observing my urges, is:
What do I really need right now?
Not ice-cream, for sure.
Nobody ever needs ice-cream. I just wanted ice-cream because I deemed it an easy way to fulfil what I needed.
I have been using the H.A.L.T. method as a framework for checking in with myself and recognising what I really need in the moment:
H - Am I HUNGRY?
Hunger can be a physical need, when our body is lacking nourishment.
We might have been eating rather mindlessly and not given enough attention to what we are eating and how we are consuming our food. This is where mindful eating can really help us regulate our behaviours and develop healthier eating habits.
Hunger can also be emotional - we may be hungry for love, affection, attention, recognition, etc. When we are not able to fulfil this emotional hunger, we turn to things that we feel can bring us the comfort and satisfaction we lack.
A - Am I Angry?
While anger is a normal emotion, it can feel terrible and unbearable, especially when we don’t have an avenue to express how we feel, or resolve an issue the way we want.
Suppressing or holding on to emotions such as anger, frustration, resentment, etc. can lead us to seek relief from these feelings, and the usual ways of release tend to be more destructive than constructive.
What we don’t realise is that engaging in destructive behaviours often bring feelings of shame and embarrassment, which in turn fuels more internal reactivity with us (such as negative thoughts or more intense negative emotions), thus driving us to seek further relief by relapsing into those same destructive behaviours once again.
L - Am I Lonely?
Feeling lonely can mean that we are alone and dislike being alone. We may find it difficult to be by ourselves, and even fear having to confront our own thoughts or emotions when there is nobody else around to distract us from our internal landscape.
Feeling lonely can also mean that we are surrounded by people and still feel isolated and disconnected. Despite being more connected online nowadays, the Internet and social media can actually make us feel more lonely by offering a false sense of connection and belonging.
Not all of us are blessed with a healthy support system. As we are indulging in comfort foods or downing another glass of wine, what we may be really craving for are authentic social connections and deep, meaningful relationships.
T - Am I Tired?
I find it rather interesting that when we are tired, we don’t always take rest as a remedy. Instead, we ignore how the body is feeling; we’d rather stay up and indulge ourselves in binge-watching media content or doomscrolling on our phone.
When life keeps us going with its never-ending list of tasks, errands, and responsibilities, the idea of resting or not doing anything makes us feel uncomfortable and guilty for not being productive enough.
Besides physical tiredness, mental exhaustion can summon the desire to detach ourselves through mind-numbing activities.
I recall going through phases of downing cups of espresso like they were pills, just so I could stay awake and keep working, even though what I really needed was rest and sleep. Eventually, the body gave way, and mental fatigue towards my life set in. I lost interest in my work and sunk into cycles of lull, which included spending days and weeks watching TV dramas instead.
With this recent late-night ice-cream gaffe, I realised that the underlying driver of the self-destructive behaviour was a combination of anger and tiredness. I was resentful about some aspects of work I had to manage, and feeling tired from having attended to certain matters for days at end without proper rest.
In gaining a deeper understanding towards my internal states, I can learn to hold space for my true needs and practice responding to them more skillfully than before.
How Mindfulness Makes A Difference
A mere cognitive understanding of H.A.L.T. is often not enough.
We may intellectually understand what is causing our cravings and perpetuating our self-destructive behaviours, but there is also a tendency to give in and repeat cycles of unhealthy patterns despite knowing what is going on.
The real work of changing addictive behaviours comes in the form of cultivating our skills of attention so that we respond more wisely instead of react mindlessly to our internal states.
A specific (and pretty clever) practice I learned from Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for addictive behaviours, is “urge surfing”.
Urge surfing involves intentionally pausing in the moment of craving and staying with the experience of craving.
With curiosity and compassion, we turn towards the underlying driving force and observe what the craving actually feels like in the body and mind.
Rather than giving in to the craving or trying to fix how we are feeling, we practice being present with the urge to reach for the object of desire.
This may sound rather counterintuitive, but it makes a lot of sense. Most importantly, it works.
The word “surfing” suggests that an urge is very much like a wave - the feeling rises, peaks, and eventually subsides. The urge will come, and as long as we don’t do anything, the urge will go after some time.
Coming and going, rising and falling, arising and ceasing… this is the fundamental nature of everything that is inside and outside of us.
A skillful person is able to witness wave after wave of urges without acting on them. And overtime, the intensity of the urge reduces as the reward circuit in our brain weakens.
Of course, this takes some (if not, a lot of) practice.
It helps to see that when we are able to successfully stay present with one wave of craving, we will more likely be successful with the next one that comes. As we become more skillful, urge surfing gets easier with time.
I recommend regular mindfulness practice for developing and strengthening these skills of present-moment attention - even when cravings are not here.
If you tend to struggle with addictive behaviours of any kind and would like to explore how practicing mindfulness can help, I invite you to reach out.
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