Occasional and intermittent fasting bring unexpected psychological benefits.
I noted in a Forbes article last year that many of the world’s great spiritual traditions incorporate periodic fasting as a discipline. Just as every major religion finds a place for music and dance as part of celebration, we find fasting as a strategy for withdrawing from the routines and physical pleasures of the world and connecting with deeper meanings. From this perspective, fasting is not simply about limiting food intake. We can declare periods of time as being free of cell phones, emails, television, or social contact. In a very important sense, meditation, prayer, and walks in nature are forms of fasting. We limit our intake, not of food, but of self-talk and chit-chat.
To use the terms from Radical Renewal, fasting is about stepping back from the preoccupations of the ego, breaking the power of habit and routine, and achieving soul-full moments.
Research from Watkins and Serpell finds that short-term fasting—refraining from food over an 18-hour period—yields feelings of hunger and irritability, but also positive experiences of achievement and mastery. The practice of intermittent fasting—refraining from eating for extended periods each day—has been tied to both physiological and psychological benefits and improved longevity. Similarly, we find significant psychological benefits from meditation, where our pursuit of mindfulness entails a “fasting” from self-talk and normal daily routine.
We are accustomed to thinking of fasting as doing without something, but what if—per the research findings of Watkins and Serpell—the key to fasting is exercising mastery over habit and routine? What if fasting, in all its variations, is actually a form of exercise of self-determination and willpower?
We commonly hear the assertion that the key to successful performance is “process”: the creation of robust routines that embrace evidence-based practices. There is much to be said for that, whether in trading financial markets, manufacturing automobiles, or conducting surgical procedures. But what if we go so far in the direction of “process” that life itself becomes a series of routines and habits? Over time, might that actually undermine our capacity for self-determination and willpower?
A marriage that consisted of best-practice routines might be a marriage free of conflict, but I suspect it would also be a relationship free of passion. Fasting, in all its forms—whether it involves getting away from the world and communing with nature, refraining from eating and snacking, or turning off our self-chat and devices—is a way of experiencing ourselves and the world afresh. It is also a way of ensuring that our willpower muscles don’t atrophy amidst life’s processes. Maybe, just maybe, the best process for cultivating self-determination and expanding free will is periodic freedom from process.
