My highlights and annotations from:
This is on my mind a lot because THC helps a lot with the pain in my feet at night, but it’s also a real problem because it exacerbates my already problematic nighttime eating behaviors. I think there is something to the idea of approaching it in the same was a binge-eating, slightly reframing the typical (self-hating) narrative.
00:20:09 – Kathryn Hansen
OK, so the recommendations for marijuana users dealing with the munchies were things like distract yourself, keep better food in the house, realize one of the big ones that hit me was like realize that it’s all in your head, like realize that it’s not real type of thing. Realize it’s just, you know, a brain glitch. It’s something going on with your neurons and your appetite mechanisms, but it’s not real like you’re really not hungry and honestly, that’s kind of what I teach people.
00:20:43 – Kathryn Hansen
It’s a pattern that your neurons have gotten into that it’s firing, but it doesn’t mean that you’re actually hungry.
00:20:54 – Kathryn Hansen
That is what the recommendation was to the marijuana users, but then you go to binge-eating, and it’s like cope with your emotions.
And learn to deal with depression, and no one is telling that to someone who’s high.
But they’re telling that to a binge eater who’s having a brain glitch for a variety of reasons because of dieting or–
00:21:13 – Jeff
Can use this or don’t use.
But it sounds like one of those persons is a victim and the other person is just going through a momentary lapse and I think you would argue that you’re not. A victim, right?
This. Not a victim, no need to solve every problem.
You’re just going through the momentary lapse where you can overcome and I don’t know if it was just in your book or you and I talking, but it was and no one. No one tries to get spiritually whole to quit smoking.
00:21:36 – Kathryn Hansen
Yeah yeah, same thing with and you don’t get spiritually whole to overcome the munchies.
00:23:03 – Kathryn Hansen
It was real, but once you get an understanding of what’s happening in the brain, once you understand those mechanisms then you’re able to step back from.
00:23:11 – Jeff
Yeah, for whatever reason it reminds me of like when you’ve had too much alcohol, you know not to drive.
00:23:47 – Kathryn Hansen
So do you feel like now you learning what you’ve learned about the brain and kind of how this happens and how it’s a brain glitch? Do you feel like under the influence of marijuana, you still are able to access that self-control?
00:23:59 – Jeff
Yes, and and more, so I think it’s in heightened my enjoyment of it because I’m focusing on the benefits and not the detriments of it.
Because you can go through and enjoy it and realize OK, this is a part, but that’s not the whole part.
You choose foods that are not going to really stimulate those pleasure centers really stimulate the appetite, and that’s not a cure for binging because people can really binge on anything.
[…]
But it’s just developing that extra layer of consciousness, supporting yourself better or not getting yourself into a situation where you’re just surrounded by salty and sweet snacks where you feel like you can’t control yourself.