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With research now showing that delaying the introduction of allergens to infants may increase the risk of developing allergies, there's been a purposeful focus on "letting the babies eat" - which is a catchy phrase to help remind parents of this important data (links to useful data at the end of this article). But what happens when fear enters the equation (which it likely will, because fear is a normal emotional response to a perceived and/or actual threat, such as an allergic reaction). When fear gets in the way of introducing new foods?  Maybe you're the parent/caregiver of an infant and want to introduce allergens, but are scared to. Or perhaps you have a toddler and while you haven't been diligent about introducing new foods along the way, you now want to, but find that your nerves are getting in the way of actually following through. While it's outside of The FAC's professional scope to provide any medical guidance, it's within its scope to offer tips to help navigate the fear and anxiety impacting your ability to follow through with introducing new foods. With that said, this important disclaimer needs to be made before moving on to helpful tips: Guidance given here is for educational purposes; please consult with your own allergist and/or physician for guidance specific to your situation, including determining which foods are safe to introduce and when. Now, let's get to 3 practical tips to help you introduce foods even with fear present! Tip #1: Make "Bite-Sized" Goals: Especially if you're feeling that you're "behind" on the goal of introducing new foods, you may set such high expectations that you'll get derailed before you even start. Maybe you're pressuring yourself to introduce as many foods as possible, as quickly as possible! But if you find that approach only leads to more avoidance of food introductions, then it's not a workable approach for you. Here's what may help if this is how you're feeling, whether you're working on infant food introduction or introductions with an older child:
We tend to be judgmental of ourselves when we are unable to follow through with tasks we feel we should be doing. This may lead to thoughts of "Why aren't I brave enough?" and "I'm not being a good enough allergy parent!" And once we jump down that judgmental rabbit hole, it may actually feel harder to introduce foods since we're now dealing with fear AND judgement! Here's what helps if you find yourself experiencing self-judgement:
Yes, one big WHY for introducing allergens early and often are to help with allergy prevention, but there are likely other reasons why you're wanting to do food introductions. These WHYs become important reminders that help us push through the times when we're anxious, and help us stay on track when it feels hard to do so. To determine your additional WHYs for food introduction, ask yourself these questions:
BONUS Tip for Toddler Food Introduction: Start off super simple - by making food feel like a fun topic to explore! With foods approved for introduction, focus on helping your child learn about them. Start by finding books that include the foods and spotting them in stories, pointing them out at grocery stories, and if approved by your allergist/physician, touching them* - basically anything that helps them become open to trying the food. Then build from there! This sets a fun tone for food introduction, and is one way to get your foot on the first rung of that introduction ladder. *[Discuss with your allergist/healthcare provider whether touching allergens prior to introducing/ingesting it is recommended or not, especially if your child is at higher risk for developing food allergy, or is managing eczema and other allergic conditions]. So here are this week's takeaways:
To read more on the topic of food introduction, check out these resources:
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A common question asked in allergy support groups relates to how to move from fearing food allergies to confidently managing them. The honest answer is: It's a learning process. So let's explore that process. Once you've adjusted to life with a food allergy, you'll likely find yourself in the allergy comfort zone. It's a place filled with routine, a sense of comfort, and most likely, limited risk-taking - all of which helps keep your anxiety manageable. Since we feel safe in our comfort zone, it can feel incredibly hard to motivate yourself to leave it. So then, why would you want to leave a place that feels so comfortable just to welcomes more fear? To learn, grow, and develop food allergy confidence! Sure, it's possible to stay in the allergy comfort zone forever and there's no judgement if that's the choice you make. But what happens when we stick within these rigid walls of comfort is that we limit our ability to engage in a number of meaningful life experiences because we experience fear and discomfort even just thinking about them, never mind trying them. Therefore, let's look at the zones we move through in order to develop allergy confidence, and why its beneficial to be willing to step outside of your allergy comfort zone!  THE FEAR ZONE Yes, the fear zone is just outside of the walls of the allergy comfort zone, but reminding yourself that it's just part of the process of developing confidence is useful. Many experience increased anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, and even physical panic sensations while in the fear zone. This is understandable! When we are faced with the unknown, increased risk, and something new, it's common for anxiety and fear to increase. However, we don't have to stay in the fear zone, and we don't have to run right back to our allergy comfort zone either (as much as we may want to). By reminding yourself that fear and anxiety are normal parts of this process, it can help you feel more empowered to keep moving forward to the next zone! THE LEARNING ZONE The learning zone is where we do AND learn! It's where we develop new skills that help us move closer to feeling food allergy confidence. Yes, this means we actually have to practice these new skills - which can make us feel very uncomfortable. But by practicing new skills, you are allowing yourself to experience situations that are useful for developing new insights that will truly make a difference in your mindset about allergy management. This is crucial, because confidence is developed by building competence - or building your ability to do things effectively, such as navigating an anxiety-provoking situation. Just because we're in the learning zone doesn't mean we don't still feel fear - these stages aren't as linear as the image shows. Again, anytime we're facing the unknown, unpredictability, uncertainty, newness, and transition, it's common for increased anxiety, and if there's perceived risk associated, an increase in fear as well. But these feelings of discomfort don't always signify danger - sometimes they signify growth! THE GROWTH ZONE This is the zone we can't wait to get to! The growth zone is where we develop more confidence in our ability to navigate the feared experiences we've wanted to learn how to handle better. As a result, this often leads to decreased anxiety and fear, and essentially brings us to a new and expanded version of our allergy comfort zone! Tips to Help You Move Through The Zones: The following can help you stay committed to moving forward (rather than moving back to the allergy comfort zone) and towards growth and confidence in managing your allergies:
Final Thoughts: When we're brave enough to leave our comfort zone, and push through the fear zone into the learning zone, we allow ourselves to develop the skills that help make things feel less scary. Skills that help us assess allergy risks, logically think through scenarios, and ultimately increase our belief in ourselves. All of this then helps us develop a more empowered attitude about living with food allergies! Want more tips to help you when you're outside of your allergy comfort zone? Check out this FAC content: want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
Ever notice that we live by rules? I'm not talking about societal rules such as laws, but internal rules, or beliefs and guidelines we've created for ourselves to live by. We typically develop these internal rules/beliefs through experiences we've had, or to help us achieve or avoid things. You'll likely identify these internal rules by the language you use when thinking of them. "Should, ought to, must, right or wrong, good or bad, always or never" are common words and phrases that let us know that we're connecting with these internal rules/beliefs. But internal rules and beliefs are useful, right? Maybe. They can be useful, guiding us towards things that matter to us in life. BUT, they can also be unhelpful, leading us to veer off track. It's this unhelpfulness that I want to explore - with a simple, practical strategy to help navigate these unhelpful internal rules and beliefs.  Credit: johnhain on Pixabay Quality of Life Impacts of Unhelpful Internal BeliefsOur internal rules and beliefs can act as guides for how we navigate life. Let's look at some non-allergy examples first:
Just like the rules of the road that guide us in driving, these internal rules/beliefs guide our behaviors and how we navigate life. Think of them like guard rails on the highway. When the internal rules/beliefs are helpful, they're like guard rails separated by many lanes - there's so much space to move around, and there may even be portions of the road where there aren't any guard rails limiting us! But when these internal rules/beliefs are unhelpful, they can feel like guard rails on a one-lane highway - keeping you confined to a very small space. Before we explore examples of unhelpful allergy-specific internal rules/beliefs and what to do with them, I need to cover one more topic: How rigid or flexible our internal beliefs are. How Rigid Or Flexible Are Your Internal Beliefs? Credit: Memory Catcher on Pixabay Using the guard rail metaphor, let's apply it to bowling. Have you ever gone "bumper bowling" with the guard rails up so that the bowling ball doesn't go into the gutter? In my experiences with bumper bowling, sometimes I've played with hard, rigid metal bumpers and other times with softer, inflatable-looking bumpers. With the hard, rigid metal bumpers, my ball would typically bounce off of them so much so that it would overcorrect itself, bounce to the other side of the lane, and then bounce back again. It looked like it was erratically bouncing back and forth with no real hope of hitting a pin! But when I've played with the softer, more flexible bumpers, while my ball would still bounce off of the bumpers, it actually seemed to have a chance to actually move down the lane with hope of hitting a pin. What this example is getting at is that our internal rules/beliefs (guard rails) can be rigid or flexible, which impacts the actions we take and our quality of life. With rigid internal rules/beliefs, we often find ourselves avoiding experiences and limiting ourselves because they don't leave much room for exploration, possibilities, and other perspectives. Things need to be a certain way and align with these internal rules, otherwise it's too risky, scary, uncomfortable, and likely unattainable (or so we believe). The rigid nature of these rules is MEANT to help us feel less anxious and more certain about things, but often times, it ends up doing the opposite and creating more discomfort in our lives. When our internal rules/beliefs are more flexible, we're more willing to test the waters outside of our comfort zone to see what happens. We're also more willing to see things from more than one perspective, which potentially leads to changing our internal rules/beliefs to be more workable ones for ourselves, our goals, and our lives in general. While the flexibility of these rules/beliefs may initially scare us because it feels so uncertain, the flexibility helps us to develop life skills that get us through the discomfort and uncertainty life throws our way - and that helps us develop competence and confidence in ourselves! Now, let's put this all together with allergy-specific examples! Noticing Your Unhelpful Allergy BeliefsMany of the internal allergy rules/beliefs we've developed are likely rigid ones, which doesn't leave much room for anything less than perfection. Let's look at these examples of unhelpful allergy rules/beliefs and potential outcomes of living by these rules - and as you read them, I encourage you to think about the rigid rules/beliefs you may have developed:
Now, let's use these rigid allergy belief examples above and turn them into more flexible internal beliefs. A Practical Tool For Changing Unhelpful BeliefsSo what's the simple, practical tool that helps us change our rigid rules/beliefs into more flexible and workable ones? LANGUAGE, or the words we choose to use, even in our own mind! You'll see we can turn a rigid belief into a more flexible one by simply changing the words or phrases used - because language matters when it comes to how we internal rule-making!
Final Takeaways....While there is a lot of room for very calculated and precise rules in allergy life (and life in general), not EVERY internal allergy rule/belief has to be so rigid. And in fact, the more rigid we tend to be, the more potential there is that these rules/beliefs will negatively impact our quality of life. Therefore, remember:
Other FAC posts that may help: Remember, support is out there if you need it! Don't forget to check out the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, the Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast, the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Resource section, and the allergy-specific therapeutic worksheets. And if you're an allergy-informed therapy provider, then visit the Provider page! ----> And don't forget to sign up to receive helpful allergy psychosocial tips and updates via email! Subscribers also get the free "Allergy Anxiety and Overwhelm Mini Guide". Don't be shy - reach out and say hi! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this post and other FAC content. 
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