Kuchisabishii: A Strong Desire to Put Something in Your Mouth - Japanese
The hedonic treadmill concept and a potentially successful scenario of rebuilding a life with regard to eating psychology
The hedonic treadmill, which we talked about two weeks ago when we were thinking about emacity, is a very thought-provoking topic, so this week I'd like to think about it in a different dimension: the addiction of constantly eating to be happy or satisfied, even if you don't need it.
The Japanese language has a very useful word regarding this situation: kuchisabishii, which means "lonely mouth," which refers to the desire to put something in your mouth even when you are not hungry. It's not surprising, given that the Japanese have a word for everything.
Feeding is a physical survival need for all creatures in nature, not psychological. No animal eats only for the sake of eating; a lion will not attack someone if it is not hungry. Even what they eat is really specific to their existence. No animal eats everything it finds.
Humans, on the other hand, have long ceased to view food as merely a source of nourishment.
When we are bored, we turn to food for entertainment; when we are unhappy, we turn to food for comfort. Even if we don't have any problems, we don't just sit and talk with our friends outside or in our cozy homes; we need an accompaniment in the form of a meal or a drink. It's as if we need to eat something at every moment, and we can't be satisfied if we don't. This is one of those strange human states that is strange when you observe it but can only be understood when you experience it.
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For the past two weeks, I've been participating in a special nutrition program. Although I am not overly overweight, I had been longing to be more fit and study the laws of good eating for a long time and finally got started.
I trust it because it is a well-known and successful program, but when I saw my weekly dietary list, I was a little intimidated. In comparison to what I regularly eat, the amount of food was pretty limited. Most importantly, there was no bread. Aside from that, it required three meals per day and no snacking between meals, with the exception of a modest snack once in the afternoon. It was necessary not to put food into the body for at least 4 or 5 hours.
To tell you the truth, the part that I guessed as the most difficult was the lack of snacking, because I always had fruit or nuts at hand to eat all the time, but I was now forced to stop this habit.
For two weeks now, I've been eating three main meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no in-between except the afternoon snack. The interesting thing is that I don't get hungry; I don't feel hungry even when it's time to eat, and when I feel the urge to have a snack because I'm bored, I remind myself of my strict rules and find something else to satisfy my boredom, or better, generally sit with my boredom without any action to satisfy it. I don’t have to feel satisfied all the time; that is truly absurd. So, for two weeks, I've been living like any other creature in nature, and I'm happy beyond my expectations.
It doesn't mean that the hedonic treadmill is over for me, because I have a basically addictive character. I always have to be very careful with my habits, but eating addiction was a problem for me, and I'm very happy to have taken a big step towards solving it.
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The hedonic treadmill was first mentioned in the article "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" by Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell in 1971.
It describes a person’s tendency to maintain a relatively consistent baseline level of enjoyment in the face of outside events and changes in socioeconomic conditions. People undergo hedonic adaptation and grow hooked on a habit because they always want to be at a specific level of happiness and want to sustain it. This can mean living by the slogan "money makes you happy", assuming that wealth makes you happy. Or one may want to keep oneself happy by shopping and buying new things all the time. Another variant is trying to keep oneself happy by eating, as I just gave an example of myself.
This human being always has to pay attention to something. What a pathetic situation. This must be the price of being free and conscious.
Notes & Reads:
As with any other issue in life, increasing our awareness is the key to getting off the hedonic treadmill, so in my case, a good program is helping me a lot. I would recommend anyone join an appropriate program, but books, as usual, are great counselors in this case.
Satisfied: A 90-Day Spiritual Journey Toward Food Freedom by Dr. Nora Epstein, a certified addictions counselor, and Hedonic Eating: How the Pleasure of Food Affects Our Brains and Behavior by Dr. Nicole Avena are two books directly focused on eating caused by emotional disorders.
Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology by Daniel Kahneman, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwartz is also a psychological and scientific read to understand the general situation and details about hedonic psychology.
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Thank you for taking the time to accompany me in the story of a new word. Every word of the world’s languages is also ours, belonging to humanity while giving us an essence of the culture in which it was rooted.
We are made of stories—that is, of words.
In my dreams, I had replied to this word. This word stayed with me longer, as I was busy satiating my hormonal hunger. 😄 I am curious to know how your diet regime is right now. It is hard for me to stick with a plan that excludes snacks. For the past few weeks, I have been running purely and sanely on snacks.