IF YOU GET STUCK ON THE LITTLE THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT EVER WORK ON THE BIG THINGS

If you focus your attention on the positive, you can find the power to do things that matter. Gratitude is an action word: I have to "act" on it! If I am focusing on the positive, I am going to get more gratitude, more power, and more joy.

It takes time to decipher what we really need to fully recover. What works for others may or may not work for you. Be patient! Keep things simple and keep moving. Respect yourself and your efforts to find recovery. Keep taking small risks, building trust with yourself, and focusing on the bigger picture, you will walk free if you work at it.

Here are some ideas that might help you find balance and perspective to maintain recovery.

• Do first things first. (Take care of basics and prioritize by what matters in the long run.)

• Do one thing at a time. (A day at a time is often too much in recovery. Think "one moment, one step, one choice and one decision at a time, so you don't feel so overwhelmed.)

• Be true to yourself, be honest, and be kind. (Integrity builds recovery.)

• Be at peace. (Recovery is not a box that you fit your life into: it is open and free. That doesn't mean everything is grand in your life, it means you can live in peace no matter what. Get past the idea that things are happening "to you" or because of you-they are just happening.)

• Forget about counting days and years of recovery. (Recovery is not about days, or months, or years. You can have years of recovery and still be rigid and stuck. Recovery is an inside job: you know you are there when you are at peace with food and in balance in other areas of your life.)

• Do what is in front of you and keep it simple. (Remember we have to take care of basics before we can do much else: if hungry, eat; if angry, find a safe outlet; if lonely, reach out; if tired, sleep; if ashamed, talk about it.)

• Lighten up-don't take life so seriously. (In our eating disorders we spend so much time afraid and alone-lost in ourselves-that we lost the joy in life. Recovery means finding humor. Laughing at myself reduces shame and puts things back in perspective. It's not all about me, which is easier to see when I laugh and find joy. Everybody has insecurities. We get so busy looking at ourselves and our deficiencies we forget how good it feels to share our experience of life.)

• Do the work. (In the "doing" comes the understanding and the recover: we have to do the work. We take the steps to change the way we think. When we change the way we think, we get options to change what we do. When we take the right actions, we start getting the right results. Not feeling "up to it" today? Ask yourself what you would do if you felt better-and then do it.

• Focus on the positive, and seek balance in everything. (Balance to me means asking. Where am I focusing my energy? Then, I work on putting my energy where it matters. For instance, at work recently, I was using up way too much energy on the negative by arguing with people. It was draining! I had to remember that whatever I give out is what I get back. So I changed my attitude and perspective, which changed the dynamic completely - and I got my peace back.

• Keep taking stock of where you are and respond accordingly. (I sometimes forget to take care of the simple things. I have to recognize that when my food and sleep get sideways, I have to change what I am thinking and doing to make sure I take care of myself so I can focus on the positive: going to church, going to meetings, talking with my partner and support people, and just doing what's in front of me.

• Stay accountable for your thoughts and actions. (Once I got to a point where I did not want my disease to keep me stuck where I did not want my disease to keep me stuck any longer,  started keeping myself accountable for my eating disorder and support people. Anne and I used to call this "telling on ourselves," which can sound like self-shaming, but we laughed a lot. It is amazing how silly our responses to life can be. I mean there is humor in admitting that, somebody didn't respond like I thought they should when I said something completely stupid, so now I want to shove food in my face. That will totally make it all better! Come on, people: lighten up! We are only as sick as our secrets!

• Find gratitude for what you have. (Gratitude is what makes it possible for me to do the things I need to do with love and compassion. I used to pray for the willingness to be willing. Now that comes easily because I experience the promises; I experience joy every day. It's the simple things.)

• Get into service: it is an important aspect of balance! (When I am too absorbed with myself now, I usually catch myself and laugh. Sometimes it is easy to forget that there is a whole other existence out there! When it's all about me, life can get awfully miserable. When it's all about how I can do to help others, it's amazing. When I found recovery, I also found empathy. My eyes opened up. Now I can see where people are hurting, and usually there is something right in front of me that I can do to help.)

For anorexia nervosa, researchers implicate genetic locus on chromosome 12: Powerful genomic study of anorexia nervosa conducted to date to identify the common roots anorexia shares with psychiatric, metabolic traits

Summary:

A landmark study has identified the first genetic locus for anorexia nervosa and has revealed that there may also be metabolic underpinnings to this potentially deadly illness.

A landmark study led by UNC School of Medicine researchers has identified the first genetic locus for anorexia nervosa and has revealed that there may also be metabolic underpinnings to this potentially deadly illness.

The study, which is the most powerful genetic study of anorexia nervosa conducted to date, included genome-wide analysis of DNA from 3,495 individuals with anorexia nervosa and 10,982 unaffected individuals.

If particular genetic variations are significantly more frequent in people with a disorder compared to unaffected people, the variations are said to be "associated" with the disorder. Associated genetic variations can serve as powerful pointers to regions of the human genome where disorder-causing problems reside, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.

"We identified one genome-wide significant locus for anorexia nervosa on chromosome 12, in a region previously shown to be associated with type 1 diabetes and autoimmune disorders," said lead investigator, Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED, founding director of the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders and a professor at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

"We also calculated genetic correlations -- the extent to which various traits and disorders are caused by the same genes," said Bulik.

"Anorexia nervosa was significantly genetically correlated with neuroticism and schizophrenia, supporting the idea that anorexia is indeed a psychiatric illness."

"But, unexpectedly, we also found strong genetic correlations with various metabolic features including body composition (BMI) and insulin-glucose metabolism. This finding encourages us to look more deeply at how metabolic factors increase the risk for anorexia nervosa," Bulik said.

This study was conducted by the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium Eating Disorders Working Group -- an international collaboration of researchers at multiple institutions worldwide.

"In the era of team science, we brought over 220 scientists and clinicians together to achieve this large sample size. Without this collaboration we would never have been able to discover that anorexia has both psychiatric and metabolic roots," said Gerome Breen, PhD, of King's College London.

"Working with large data sets allows us to make discoveries that would never be possible in smaller studies," said Laramie Duncan, PhD, of Stanford University, who served as lead analyst on the project.

The researchers are continuing to increase sample sizes and see this as the beginning of genomic discovery in anorexia nervosa. Viewing anorexia nervosa as both a psychiatric and metabolic condition could ignite interest in developing or repurposing medications for its treatment where currently none exist.

May 12, 2017

Source: University of North Carolina Health Care

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Story Source:

Materials provided by University of North Carolina Health Care. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Cynthia M. Bulik et al. Significant Locus and Metabolic Genetic Correlations Revealed in Genome-Wide Association Study of Anorexia Nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2017; appi.ajp.2017.1 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16121402

ASSESSING SEVERITY OF EATING DISORDERS

All forms of eating disorders are dangerous. Electrolyte imbalances caused by over-exercise and other forms of purging can lead to heart failure. Health effects associated with binge eating obesity, sleep apnea, and diabetes. Anorexia is associated with the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Regardless of type, eating disorders exist along a spectrum of severity, which, for brevity's sake, we will divide into three categories:

INCONSISTENT (irregular or intermittent):

People with inconsistent symptoms of an eating disorder may occasionally became obsessed with weight or body image, and sometimes engage in one or more behaviors that are hallmarks of a classic eating disorder: restriction of intake, bingeing, use of laxatives, enemas, exercise, or other forms of purging. Such people may or may not develop a full-blown eating disorder or be aware that their behavior is dangerous. People with occasional symptoms are usually able to maintain something that looks like a normal life and may be relatively unconcerned about changing.

CONSISTENT (regular and persistent):

People who routinely engage in eating- disordered thoughts and behaviors may be very ill, but may respond favorably to one or more treatment options such as nutritional counseling, individual therapy, intensive outpatient therapy, or inpatient treatment.

RESISTANT (obsessive and intractable):

People who become obsessed in their engagement with eating-disordered thoughts and behaviors often report feeling hopeless about their condition; many get to a point where a normal life seems impossible. Most have tried one or more forms of treatment, yet despite progress toward recovery, patterns of negative thinking (thoughts that lead to anger, resentment, fear, self-piety, shame, guilt, confusion, frustration and despair) seem impossible to escape. When such thoughts occur, people with more severe eating disorders revert to restricting, binging, and/or purging no matter how dire the consequences. People thus situated have lost faith in the idea they can walk away from their eating disorders; they have fundamentally lost trust in themselves.

8 Topics to Explore

What has been causing our emotional disturbance? We must use our new frame of reference to define a sane response or resolution to life's inevitable challenges.

8 Topics to Explore

1. Resentment:

people and institutions with which we have an old anger that was never fully resolved

2. Fear:

things that frightened or still frighten us

3. Self-pity:

reasons we felt or feel sorry for ourselves

4. Shame:

things about which we felt or feel ashamed, despite not being responsible for them

5. Guilt or "harms done":

wrongs we had done or are doing to others

6. Confusion:

situations where we felt or still feel abandoned or bewildered

7. Frustration:

things that made or make us angry, even if we have no resentment in connection to them

8. Despair:

reasons for hopelessness, past and present