All of what is called a ‘craving’ is perceived by Awareness.

• Pause

Human beings often behave automatically to their benefit, such as in the case of catching an object that is pushed off a table, or breathing automatically. Human beings also behave automatically to their detriment, such as in the case of automatically acting on cravings for unhealthy things.

To increase our quality of health, we must increase the amount of health-promoting automatic behaviours, while decreasing the amount of health-negating automatic behaviours.

This means that it’s necessary for us to pause during moments of craving to interrupt the automatic flow of events that inevitably leads us to engage in unhealthy behaviour.

‘Events’ here means anything that contributes to going from craving to indulgence- subtle or obvious. For example, a rationalisation, (subtle) or buying the unhealthy food (obvious).

To clarify this, here are some unrealistic and extreme ways of interrupting the stream of events that lead to indulgence, regarding different addictions:

• Food addiction- purposefully get a disease so that one can go cold turkey

•

would be to cut off

- This could take the form of going into meditation, taking a bath, jumping into bed- anything to ensure that the process of taking an impulsive action is arrested, and you’re given time to relax and think.

• Ask yourself whether you could go without giving in. Know that the addiction grows stronger when you give in, and weaker when you let the craving pass.

If you feel like you absolutely must give in, then try consciously giving in. Do the unhealthy behaviour while aware of what’s happening each second. If you usually watch YouTube while you eat ice cream to give the mind something else to focus on, don‘t this time, and just be as you indulge.