Diets fail you? Nutritionists or dieticians are playing with people’s emotions. Are we? Being a nutritionist, I started questioning my masters in food science and why I chose to study foods and nutrition. Any true professional would never guide a person to illness. So why diets are so bad? What is the connect between food and mind? Why do we have this love and hate relationship with food? Why changing habits is difficult? Can we change our behaviour by changing our perspective? All these questions led me to neurobiology and behaviour change. Our set behavior is mere strong neural pathways in our brain. When we repeat certain behaviors the connection between brain cells get strengthened and over period of time, they become automatic for example driving, reaching out for our phones or sweets when stressed. Changing my perspective about how I have become addicted to my phone and reading and listening about harmful effects of sugar does not ensure change in my behaviour. We all know and associate with memories we carry within us, some good memories and some not so good experiences. Any direct and indirect association between our memories and our surroundings triggers a response within us and we find ourselves responding in predictable manner. I will give you a few examples: Vinita had strong dislike for green leafy veggies. She knew the health benefits of eating them but every time she decided to cook them, muscles of neck would tighten up. She sincerely wanted to include them in her cooking for the sake of rest of the family but struggled with throbbing neck pain every time she tried. No amount of positive talk would sooth her tensed muscles. And she would find herself in the memory lane when as child she was forced and sometimes slapped to finish her veggies. Her childhood experiences were quite vivid not only in her mind but her body also had its own memory of same. Another example: My friend lost her job. Losing job is not only financially distressing experience but also heavily impact relationships and emotional health of a person. She gave many job interviews but found herself very nervous and with severe stomach ache every time she was to appear for interview. Her body relived the past upsetting experience and triggered stomach ache as defence mechanism. What is a memory? Memory is just the information we store in our mind. There are two types of memory long term memory and short-term memory. Long term memory is brain’s arrangement of storing, managing and recovering information. And short-term memory is operating memory, we may shelve it or transfer it to long term memory. Long term memory is multifaceted as we store different information using different systems. I am going to concentrate on two types of long-term memory: explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory requires deliberate effort to retrieve them but implicit memories require little or no effort. Some memories are easy to form, some difficult and some need step by step processes and they are not formed consciously. Example is brushing your teeth, driving, swimming and in Vinita’s case tightening of neck muscles. These memories are quite vivid even after gap of long periods. Most people never forget to swim even after years. These are implicit memories. If as child someone has often told you that you are not acceptable, you would always struggle to adjust. Research suggests stress may assist formation of implicit memory for adverse emotional information. A little stress can motivate us but lot of stress create obstacle especially true for health supporting behaviours, associations and memories. Many times, we suffer physically from our painful past experiences even in our present. Some people would say that it’s the tendency to stay in past and overlook positivity. This is something far from truth. When situations resemble our past experiences our fear-based memories often surface to trigger evading behaviours and we struggle to live freely. Our prefrontal cortex which is responsible for decision making, rational thinking and remembering important information does not work effectively during such times and we respond to survive in typical fight, flight or freeze response. Our brain has no time record for such memories. The big question is: Can we change the way we respond? Our bodies are very observant and pick up cues fast which resemble our past situations and trigger a defensive response. Stress or traumatic experiences not only change the function but also structure of brain. Neuroplasticity is the ability of brain which helps to form new connection and pathways and cause new behavioural response. When we learn something, new pathways are formed in our brain I am a nutritionist and from the experience of past 28 years I can tell you every time I start a new diet plan with new client I come across resistance, sometimes angry responses and often times blame. It may not have direct connection with me but a response triggered due to past experiences. This has led me to look deep and find link between past memories and our present behaviours. I became particularly interested in drama and its impact on behaviour through stories, sharing and future reflection. I started exploring various drama forms like theatre of oppressed, play back theatre and particularly psychodrama. Psychodrama is an action-based method which helps us to live freely in present without continually suffering from our past experiences. It is a tool with which we can explore fact. Psychodrama was founded by JL Moreno in an effort to explore and change behaviours through acting out our memories with the help of a group. It is a deep therapeutic method which concentrates on here and now using creativity. Enacting our feelings make us think differently and form new neural pathways. Instead of analysing the behaviours psychodrama gives opportunity to creatively act out the roles which are opposing and replace them with supporting roles. We do not learn to look at those experiences with different perspective instead create new experiences and initiate new behaviours. As in Vinita’s case making her enact her childhood memory and getting a hug from her mother and hearing I love you relaxed her tensed muscles. Her own suggestion that spinach soup is a better alternative to eat green veggies initiated a new thinking and thus a new behaviour. With more such repeated and supportive experiences new stronger neural pathways will emerge and Vinita would be able to live freely without painful memories. Similar way if we look at healthy eating as a tool to prolong health with agility of mind and body it will become a friend instead of foe. We may opt to eat healthy with willingness and with repeated actions turn it into an automatic behaviour. Diet may ultimately not fail us and healthy eating would emerge as winner.