To my initial horror, my husband recently stopped taking his multivitamin.  Ok, this may not sound like a big deal, especially in a household where fruits and vegetables abound at every meal.  But, my grandparent’s family business was a vitamin distribution company and I grew up programmed to think that vitamins are both healthy and necessary. My family members still fill entire kitchen cupboards full of various pills and supplements, which they take with religious vigor, some up to 3 times daily.  I have always intuitively felt that eating healthy whole foods should give our bodies what they need, but there has always been this fear that if I stop taking a multivitamin, something horrible will happen to me.  I would even take the recommended daily 1000mg of vitamin C when sick, even though I never noticed it making any difference.  My husband’s not so drastic decision to cut his multivitamin was inspired by wanting to reduce our grocery budget and by an intuitive sense that he really didn’t need a supplement when he is a healthy eater.

A recent article in the Atlantic entitled “The Vitamin Myth” confirmed his suspicions that vitamins are not only unnecessary in many cases, but also extremely dangerous when taken in high doses or by people with chronic health conditions.  Linus Pauling, a renowned chemist, popularized the idea that vitamins, especially vitamin C, could treat everything from the common cold to cancer.  Pauling was convinced that because vitamins and supplements were antioxidants, they must be modern cure alls; the higher the doses the better!  He convinced our nation of this.  I don’t know about you, but I cannot make it through a cold without at least one person telling me to take vitamin C.   Yet what the article uncovers are many studies that show that vitamin C does not only not treat the common cold, in fact, that large amounts of vitamins (antioxidants) actually increased risk of cancer and heart disease. So, why do people continue to spend copious amounts of money on vitamins and supplements when studies as far back as 1942 have proved that they have little or negative effect on our health?

We were told so, over and over again; by scientists, by commercials, by bottles and our families.

But let’s be honest here.  This is really not about vitamins.  What struck me about my husband’s decision to abandon his multivitamin was really the fact that he tuned into that little feeling inside that told him something wasn’t right.  And yes, like many of us, he logged on to the Internet to confirm or deny his sneaking suspicions.  But just think of how often we have these sneaking suspicions and completely ignore them, leaving our fate instead to the “experts” or to habit.  When we ignore that little feeling inside that tells us something is not right for us, a little part of us feels insecure. There is a disconnect, and it is uncomfortable.  Maybe your experience is different from what the news, your doctor or your friends and family keep telling you. After all, there is a lot of money to be made by you buying things you may intuitively feel you don’t really need, especially when they are marketed as good for your “health.”  And there can be a lot of fear and discomfort in ignoring messages that have been permeating your world since childhood.  It takes a lot of courage to say, “no, that just doesn’t work for me.”  And while it’s validating for an expert to conduct or dig up the research that confirms you are not alone in your experience, the first step is embracing and trusting your experience.  Someone else, somewhere, has experienced the same feeling in some form or another.

As a social worker, I have worked with many individuals on trusting themselves and building self-confidence. There are so many psychological reasons why we may doubt ourselves and look outward for solutions in our life. For those with unsupportive childhoods, it can be especially difficult to identify and act on one’s true feelings in a given situation. Neuroscience has shown that the right part of our brain doesn’t always communicate with the left, making it hard to trust one’s “instinct” and act on it in a rational way.  For any who have watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo you will understand what I am talking about.  Stay with me through a rather extreme example.  The killer notices the hero lingering outside his house and invites the hero (his next victim) into his home for a drink, after the hero has already realized this man is a serial killer.  You can see the terror and panic in the hero’s eyes, like what he knows in the deepest part of himself is that he needs to run for his life.   And the victim goes inside, despite all of this fear.  He ignores his very clear instinct to get the hell out of there.  The hero puts himself in danger just to be polite, to be socially appropriate.  He was so compelled to accept this kind offer of a drink that he lets that win out over his instinct to flee.  Our environments and social conditioning can be that intense; so intense that they force us to abandon even our animal instincts to flee in times of extreme danger.  This is insightful fiction.  How many times have you done something quite insignificant that you felt you knew was not good for you, compelled by social courtesy, by advertising, habit or family pressure?

Whether it is your own self-doubt or a compulsive need to be polite or make someone happy, the truth is that we all ignore our instincts every day.  There are countless times where we do not trust ourselves.  I challenge you to take one day this week to observe your choices, objectively and without judgment, and notice each time you do not trust yourself.  If you begin to notice these times, and become conscious in these moments, you may not only feel more confident, but your priorities may come into clearer focus. It may be as small as ditching your multivitamin, but the more we trust ourselves, the stronger we become and the less we regret.