The Gunas and Eating Disorder Recovery

Eating disorders are serious and complex mental health conditions. They are not simply

about food, weight or appearance, nor are they a lifestyle choice. They arise through a

complex interaction of biological, psychological, social and cultural factors and can affect

people of every age, gender, background and body size.

According to the Butterfly Foundation, more than 1.1 million Australians were living with

an eating disorder in 2023, around 4.45 per cent of the population, with prevalence

increasing significantly over the previous decade.

There is no single explanation for why eating disorders develop. But I believe we also need to

pay attention to the cultural environment in which they are occurring.

We are exposed to an unprecedented stream of messages about bodies, food, weight and

appearance.

Before-and-after photographs. Wellness influencers. Fitness challenges. Calorie and step

counts. What-I-eat-in-a-day videos. Biohacking. Anti-ageing. “Summer bodies.”

Transformation stories.

And increasingly, the normalisation of weight-loss medications within a culture that already

places enormous value on thinness.

Research increasingly suggests that social-media comparison is associated with body-image

concerns and eating-disorder symptoms. For those already vulnerable, these messages can

become part of the cultural backdrop against which a serious mental health condition

develops or is reinforced.

I lived with an eating disorder for many years and am in recovery. I now also mentor women

in recovery. My lived experience shapes how I understand this territory, and I now work with

and mentor women in recovery to help them learn to relate differently to their minds, bodies,

and thoughts.

One yogic framework I have found particularly useful is the teaching of the gunas.

The gunas — rajas, tamas and sattva — describe different qualities or states of nature and

mind. They have given me a language for understanding some of the states we can move

between in disordered eating.

I often use the pendulum metaphor to describe the oscillation between rajasic and tamasic

states. Between agitation and intensity at one end. and heaviness and withdrawal at the other.

At one end of the pendulum is the restless, driven, controlling energy of rajas, which can

show up in behaviours and thought patterns of striving, restriction, rumination, comparison,

and compulsive exercise.

At the other end is the heavy, hopeless, exhausted energy of tamas, which can present as

feelings of disconnection, numbness, bingeing, purging and shame.

And often the two feed each other.

Restriction can lead to depletion. Depletion can lead to bingeing or collapse. Shame follows,

and the response may be to tighten control again.

The pendulum keeps swinging.

Yoga has helped me understand recovery as a kind of middle way, moving towards the sattvic

qualities of balance, steadiness and clarity in both body and mind.

In the context of recovery, I think of sattva less as a constant state we have to achieve and

more as a place we lean to return to more often. Over time, we can build our capacity to

widen our window of tolerance, create more space between thought and action, develop

interoceptive awareness, and begin to recognise and listen to the body’s cues.

We also learn to discern what is genuinely caring from what belongs to the eating disorder,

old patterns of thinking, or the wider culture around us. The pendulum may still move

between rajasic and tamasic states, but perhaps recovery means we can reduce the

oscillation’s intensity and continue strengthening our capacity to return to a state of balance

and steadiness.

One of the gifts of yoga for me has been learning to experience my body from the inside. I

spent years evaluating, measuring and judging myself from the outside, so learning to turn

my attention inward, to notice sensation, hunger, fullness, fatigue, tension, and emotion as

they arise, has been a profound shift. Rather than continually asking how my body looks from

the outside, yoga has helped me become more curious about how it feels to live within it.

This broader understanding of recovery is also central to the work of yoga therapist and

author Sarahjoy Marsh, whose work has deeply informed both my own recovery and the

way I think about supporting others.

In Hunger, Hope & Healing: A Yoga Approach to Reclaiming Your Relationship with Your

Body and Food, Marsh brings together yoga philosophy, mindfulness, psychology, Ayurveda

and lived experience.

Rather than seeing recovery only as behaviour modification, she describes a much wider

process — sometimes referred to as 360-degree or full-spectrum recovery.

It invites us to look beyond food itself towards shame, relationships, boundaries, conditioned

patterns of mind, self-care, nervous system regulation, and the circumstances of our lives.

One idea from her work that particularly resonates with me is recognising when the

conditioned mind crowds out clear thinking.

The eating-disorder voice can become extraordinarily convincing.

Hunger is weakness. Rest is laziness. Weight gain is failure. Every one is judging my body

Yoga gives us the spaciousness to begin noticing these thoughts without automatically

believing them.

In eating-disorder recovery, I believe yoga needs to move away from narratives of

achievement, striving and self-improvement, and towards a more relational way of being with

ourselves and our bodies. Rather than approaching the body transactionally – as something to

control, change, perfect, or extract results from, yoga can invite us into a relationship with it:

to listen, to notice, to respond, and, over time, to rebuild trust.

That has certainly been one of yoga’s greatest gifts in my own recovery.

My eating disorder was never simply about eating. It was entangled with identity, control,

belonging, shame, safety, perfectionism, sensitivity, comparison, grief and self-expression.

Recovery became a gradual process of learning to live differently inside myself.

And this is where I believe yoga can make a meaningful contribution to the wider field of

mental health.

Yoga can offer practices that help us notice the mind, inhabit the body, develop discernment,

tolerate difficult internal states and cultivate a more compassionate relationship with

ourselves.

The language of the gunas has helped me understand recovery as moving away from the

relentless swing between extremes.

Not necessarily as a perfect and permanent state we finally arrive at, but as a middle ground

we learn to return to again and again. We forget, and we remember; we forget, and we

remember.

Perhaps this is one way yoga can support mental health more broadly.

Recovery is not about arriving somewhere. It can be a gentle, unfolding journey towards

greater balance, wholeness and a deeper connection with the true essence of who we are.

And yoga, when offered carefully and within its appropriate scope, is one of the many

pathways, alongside specialist treatment, that can support us on our recovery journey.

Yoga can be a supportive adjunct to eating-disorder recovery but is not a substitute for

specialised medical, psychological and nutritional treatment. Anyone experiencing an eating

disorder or concerned about their relationship with food, exercise or body image deserves

appropriate professional support. In Australia, Butterfly Foundations National Helpline

provides free and confidential support on 1800 33 4673.