Tall Tree Counselling
and Consulting Services
Behavioural Addiction
The more that is learned about behaviour and how brains operate the more attention is being put on what is defined as beahvioural addiction.
Some of the most common forms of behavioural addiction are gambling, food addiction, and gaming addiction.
Some of the things that are important to understand behavioural addiction is that a lot is invested is make things more consumable.
Many everyday foods have large amounts of substances that our bodies and brains can learn to crave such as sugar and caffeine that are often added to products we consume.
Even what used to be harmless things like video games have become highly addictive. Video games are being developed deliberately to active certain areas of the brain with the use of light and sound that are believed to be related to developing behavioural addiction.
Gambling is often thought of most when it comes to behavioural addiction and anyone that has visited a casino with its lights and sounds can see how excitement can lead to behavioural addiction.
Gambling has also become very normalized with poker tournaments on TV, multiple online gaming sites, or even a friendly bet between friends.
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Unfortunately, until there are changes to how we live our lives we are going to have to manage behavioural addictions.Often, when people with behavioural addictions face significant issues do they see how their behaviours have effected them.
It can come in the form of significant health concerns with food addiction, isolation behaviours that come along with video game addiction, and loss of financial stability when it comes to gambling.
There can also be times when there are other complications when working with behavioural addiction on top of health related issues such as anxiety and depression.
It is with these considerations that counselling can be beneficial in finding problem behaviours and developing healthy behaviourals that allow a person to live the best way possible for them.
This can be complicated for some people such as people over coming gambling addiction in finding financial stability again and repairing relationships.
For people with food addiction there can be long lasting relationships with food that has been a coping mechanism for a long time. It can take a long period of time to develop new relationships with food.
With video game addiction it can be difficult to develop a community and relationships outside of online gaming and place more value in areas of positive development.
If you or someone you know if struggling with a behavioural addiction please call or email to see if we can help.
