What to say to yourself when you starting asking, "What is the Point? Why Bother?"

I was driving home yesterday from a gig that was 2.5-hours away. That's always danger time for me. Since my work requires a lot of driving, I tend to get easily restless and bored when I have too much time in the car. Audio books and podcasts help, but only so much. Eventually my mind starts to work itself up.

And if it's been a few hours since a meal, my mind really starts winding itself up. Yesterday, at about the 1.5-hour mark, my brain went off on a fairly typical rant having to do with my healthy eating. It went something like this:

Why am I even bothering? What is the point? Why am I doing this? Why bother?

It's a familiar refrain. Really kind of funny, when you think about it because rationally, I know the answer (eating poorly robs me of a healthy brain, is the road to heart disease and stroke and diabetes, just increases the cravings). There are a gazillion reasons why I'm not eating crap anymore or eating in an unhealthy way.

But of course my brain isn't asking this questions because it needs a rational answer. No one's brain really wants the reasoned, scientific answer.

When those thoughts pop up in your brain, there is usually only one reason why:

You're bored. You don't know what to do with yourself. Your brain has slipped into a crack (as it is soooooo good at doing) and is trying to exploit it.

In my experience, your brain asking "why bother?" is virtually always a sign that you're bored or restless or tired.

What it is definitely is NOT a sign of:

that you need to eat something. It means there is a trigger there which you used to respond to with food, but don't anymore. Your brain has noticed the trigger and is asking for food to fill it, because that's what used to happen when you hit that trigger.

So instead, I recommend doing something. Pick up a satisfying hobby. Take out a coloring book. Clean out your closet. Exercise. Make out your food plan for the week. Start planning your holiday gift shopping. Take a nap. Whatever. Find something absorbing to do and see if that doesn't take your brain off the ruminating.

In my case, I turned on the radio, cranked up some high-energy tunes and sang along as loudly as I could. Might have looked a bit odd to my fellow drivers, but it worked for me.