Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Instructions When I'm at my worst, I can't feel my limbs. My skin goes to sleep; I only experience Your Body sensation if 1 really concentrate. I totally separate my mind from my body. When I'm in that place, 1 eat nothing but sugar, I never drink water, I seldom move, and I barely even notice?the lack of awareness just feeds itself So many people in our society live this way. The behavioral patterns of self-neglect and dissociation from our bodies that many of us are taught from birth are reinforced by depression, and vice versa. We have ^66 to break these patterns. Our bodies need us! We must come back to ourselves.

A reintegration of mind and body must be the first step in a healing process. Many of us envision methods of healing consisting of hours of introspective writing, intimate conversations with trusted friends, crying, screaming, laughing, dancing, exorcism through art and music?but we can't do any of these things if we don't eat. And often, no one ever taught us how.

There has been a lot of research done about how different diets regulate neural-chemical and hormonal activity, and there are books in which you can read about this. Learning how to nourish your body is a conscious process that demands full-time commitment. It can actually be fun to look inward and notice how each different kind of food makes you feel?it's a way to get to know yourself that most people never think of trying. Your body has likes and dislikes, just as your mind does.

It can be difficidt to meet all your nutritional needs through dumpster diving (see Dumpster Diving, pg. 219). One solution to this problem is government food assistance. Food stamps are issued and regulated by federal, state, and local governments; if you are in a low-income bracket, you are eligible for food assistance. If you live collectively, you can get most of your produce through dumpstering or from local farmers (see Unem-ployment, pg. 576), and have one person apply for food stamps to provide for the house's nutritional needs that can't be served by other means. If this person exceeds the income limit and gets cut off, another person can take this role, or more than one person can and you will live with great bounty and much rejoicing.

A few more tips on eating. Don't work for six hours, realize you haven't eaten, and then gorge yourself really fast. Don't get famished, fill your belly, and fill it up again as soon as there's a litde room in it. It really is true what they say: multiple small servings, eaten slowly and chewed thoroughly Extract every drop of nourishment from each bite. Mental Health Don't forget to make it taste good. 367

Another important way to re-inhabit your body is exercise. All you have to do is get your heart rate up, break a sweat, and sustain it for twenty minutes. It doesn't matter what you do. You could take a hard bike ride, get a good pair of shoes and try some combination of walking and running, dance alone in your room, go for a vigorous hike, play drums, whatever. You v^U have so much more physical, mental, and emotional energy you won't even know what's going on. For this reason, it's probably best to do it first thing in the morning: it wakes you up, switches your system on, and gives you a feeUng of vitality.

I can't write about health and wellness without mentioning yoga. As a practice of being present in your body yoga is indispensable. It retrains your entire system, corrects bad alignments, builds strength and flexibihty, even teaches you how to breathe. Yoga schools often have free introductory classes, so you can learn a few postures and practice at home. You can get books on yoga, but it's best to learn from someone with a little experience, because if you learn a posture wrong and do it a lot you can seriously injure yourself The principle of holism is a big part of yoga; it trains us to reintegrate body, mind, and spirit into one whole being.