Give yourself a break ... stop looking in the mirror

ASK any woman about fasting and I’m sure you’ll get some horror stories about existing on a potion of just maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water for days, juice diets, slimming shakes, cleanses and detoxes.

The newest craze, called ‘mirror fasting’, however, requires none of these measures. Mirror fasting was started by a group of like-minded bloggers in the US who say the only thing you need to abstain from is looking in the mirror. Sounds easy right?

For some women, myself included, who supposedly look at themselves about eight times a day, mirror fasting may not be a big deal, except when attempting to apply liquid eyeliner. Yet recent studies have shown that some women check their reflection up to 71 times in 24 hours.

Why any woman would look at herself so many times is one issue, but perhaps the reaction to our reflection is what’s really worth looking into.

A recent Irish survey showed that 59 per cent of women had negative thoughts about their looks at least four times a day.

So, can avoiding mirrors help address our insecurities? Is staying away from shiny surfaces (including your computer screen, mobile phone and the back of spoons) the cure for a fixation on appearance?

Those behind mirror fasting say it is. The idea is simple — look less, think about your appearance less. The assumption is you focus less on the spot appearing on your chin, errant eyebrow hairs; or a bad hair day, and are free to get on with more important things, like becoming the CEO of a FTSE 100 company.

One of the bloggers who started the craze is New Yorker Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, who posts her musings on her blog The Beheld. Her mirror fasting came from a need to “sever the self-observation loop we all fall into”. She explains: “Women are constantly on a public stage. Men look at women, women look at one another, and women observe themselves. There’s not a whole lot I can do about surveillance from others, but I was curious to find out what would happen if I cut off one of the means of the self-consciousness that has plagued me my whole life.”

Having tried mirror fasting myself for a day or two I found it relatively easy (the trickiest part was actually avoiding mirrors in bars, restaurants and shops), but still, it proved far less taxing than going a day without carbs. Whitefield-Madrano, a more hardcore faster, often goes for a month without looking in a mirror.

“The first time wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be,” she says, adding: “The second go was far more difficult than I anticipated.” Both experiences made her arrive at realisation about herself:

“The mirror is not just about how we look; it’s about how we feel and where we’re at in life. I was at a very stressful point in life for the second fast, and it showed up in how much I longed to look at myself.”

For me, the opposite was true. On a busy day at work, I cared not a jot about looking in the mirror, other than a fleeting glance to check my lippy wasn’t on my teeth before running out the door. However on a lazy Saturday I spent at least 15 minutes examining my skin in the mirror, yet this was more out of boredom than vanity.

Only once, in a nightclub bathroom where a group of girls huddled around the sinks reapplying make-up, did I feel proud to walk by them and not look at my own reflection; but still, if they want to spend half the night in a club they paid £20 to get into in the loos, who am I to judge?

Whitefield-Madrano had a more positive experience after her fast: “By the end of the experiment I had settled into a sort of serenity I don’t normally feel. Letting go of the ability to observe myself meant that the space that concern had occupied in my mind could open up,’’ she says.

Newlywed Kjersten Gruys took mirror fasting a step further and did what for most women is unthinkable. She stopped looking in a mirror for a year in the run up to her wedding.

From March 2011 to March 2012 she documented her experience on the blog Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall, adhering to strict rules about looking at herself in photographs and other ‘cheats’.

Gruys, who describes herself as a feminist, is now writing a book about her fast.

For anyone who feels their own mirror habits might be unhealthy, Whitefield-Madrano has some practical guidance:

“You won’t know what you’re really attaching to the mirror besides your mere reflection unless you give yourself this opportunity. And chances are, you look perfectly lovely.”!

“Let someone close to you be your ‘mirror’ and trust them to tell you if you have a smudge on your cheek or whatever.”

If I might add my own piece of advice to novice mirror fasters — make sure you don’t have a job interview coming up, try not to burn yourself while using heating styling appliances and good luck — here’s not looking at you kid.