What in the World Is a Dread List? (Continued)

The previous post finished up with a quotation worth repeating, about the innovative method known as BrainWeighve:

The app helps you deal with both immediate and ongoing difficult life situations and resulting eating urges.

One of the ways BrainWeighve works, the one we’re talking about right now, is by combining the powers of a Dread List with a set of corresponding Action Plans. In other words, the secret here is, it’s not only about making one big decision.

There are little decisions every day, scads of them, and this is where a lot of people get derailed. A conflict between two compelling drives might generate an overflow of nervous energy in the brain, but that brain energy is not being used in any helpful manner. It’s just a loose cannon, floundering around and firing off random blasts every which way.

However, the energy can be chained, curbed, nudged and persuaded into submission, by giving it something useful and relevant to do. That energy, like any decent superhero, can become convinced that using its powers for Good is by far the better course. But how? In explicit, moment-by-moment detail, how?

Glad you asked

BrainWeighve tells how to set up a Dread List, and here is an important tip:

Try to be open and honest, so that the app can help you.

It would be silly not to be honest here, because the only person fibbing could hurt would be yourself. You will be using this information in stressful situations, when competing drives make you feel crazy or out of control or unable to act at all.

Or maybe the scene is not even super horrible, just ordinary everyday frustration that builds up to the point where you don’t feel like trying to be reasonable about it anymore. All kinds of events can create in someone the false conviction that the only possible remedy for the case is to eat something ASAP.

So, make yourself a Dread List. Hit the setup icon and start to compile that inventory of sticky situations. Chances are, this will not be difficult. But if nothing spontaneously comes to mind, tap on “I need ideas on situations” to see typical life events that others have trouble with.

Where did they come from? Excellent question. They were contributed by other young people who participated in the studies that helped Dr. Pretlow and his team figure out what this app needed to cover. If you have ever felt freakishly alone, it might be pretty surprising to learn how widely shared some problems are.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!