Checking how you look in the mirror is a common practice for most of us in developed countries, before leaving the house or after you use the lou. For those of us that put more time and energy into our looks than we or others would like, “checking” may also be part of a habit and even a cycle that either reassures us temporarily that we look okay or that there is truly a problem to be worried about.
How many of the following do you do in a given day:
→checking areas of your body by touch or visually, by looking down or in a mirror or reflective surface
→verifying your appearance by taking a photo or video
→comparing yourself to old photographs or to images of other people
→asking other people about your appearance
→measuring parts of your body using tape measure, callipers, or your hands
→mirror gazing, including using mirrors that magnify
How much time do these take? If you feel angry or upset as you read this list, that may be an indicator that it will be hard for you to be honest about the frequency of your checking behaviors. If you can bring yourself to do it, asking family or friends what they have observed may give you a worthwhile perspective.
Because we know that rigid all or nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion and keeps us from seeing the nuance of real life, let’s look at checking behaviors on a continuum to determine whether we might benefit from changing them.
Too much time checking on how you look can make you feel worse by over-focusing on aspects of yourself that you don’t like. Body acceptance allows us to see how we look and then move on with our day. The focus of our attention can be on our looks, and then it can move to other things without a lot of emotion pulling us back to check again.
Body checking is not only unreliable, it is unfair because it is not an accurate representation.
→Mirrors distort our image- a mirror leaning to the right or left, or bent even a tad is what creates the silliness of a fun house mirror. The whole point of which is to make things look drastically different than IRL. Any mirror is not going to provide an exact replication of how you look to anyone else because there will almost always be some bend or imperfection in a given mirror.
→Next, if you stand in front of a full-length mirror and have a friend put tape on the top of your head in the mirror and the bottom of your feet in the mirror, you can measure how tall your mirror image is. It is not the same height as you! However, you don’t look in the mirror and tell yourself, “that’s short me.” You believe that the mirror is completely accurate.
→Cameras also distort our image. Haven’t you seen video or photos of yourself and it LOOKED DIFFERENT from what you just saw in the mirror? Which one is true?
→All of this to say, when you check on your “big hips” in the mirror or in a photo, you SEE that your hips look bigger than you want because you are looking for big hips. Focusing on something amplifies it and brings into focus what otherwise might not have been noticed. Expecting to see something and then focusing on that thing distorts your body image.
→Another reason that checking messes with your body image is that comparisons are frequently made with those we consider to look better. “Upward” comparisons set unrealistic and unachievable standards because comparing ourselves to people with different circumstances (lighting, makeup, filters, genetics) is unfair and adds to your pain. If you make comparisons, do you make them to every person you see each day, or just to those you think look better than you? Do you compare every body part, or do you focus on the body parts that you don’t like?
Determine whether it might be worthwhile to adjust your checking behaviors. If you are open to discussing this with people who are around you frequently, you may get some valuable feedback, especially if this topic upsets you. Everything doesn’t have to change immediately, in fact next week’s post will continue on this topic to assist you in getting more comfortable with how much and how often you check how you look.