Anxiety & Binge Eating [Podcast]

Dr. Nina Inc.

00:00 / 51:18

Today I explore different types of anxiety, discuss why treating anxiety is important, and explain the relationship between anxiety and binge eating, stress eating, and emotional eating.

Discover the one super effective way to stop anxiety in its tracks.

And, I also share how to feel more empowered in all situations, especially when other people challenge or judge you.

Check out this powerful show now!

Transcript

You're listening to the Dr. Nina show with Dr. Anita Seville, Rockland, only on La talk radio.

Introduction for eating disorders/binge eating

Dr. Nina: Welcome to the Dr. Nina show. I am your host, Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin. I'm a psychoanalyst specializing in eating disorders. And I am here to help you break free from binging body shame, and diets that don't work.

I want you to wake up and think about your day, not your diet. If you would like to join me today, the number here in the studio, still says that even though I'm not in the studio anymore, I'm in my home office anyway, the number to reach me is 323-203-0815.

I would love to hear what is on your mind. What is weighing on you, because the real problem with binge eating is stress eating or any kind of emotional eating, the real problem is not what you're eating. It's why it is what is eating at you. That is the true problem.

Binging is a solution to that problem. And I'm here to help you solve the problem differently. So today, we're talking about anxiety and binge eating. And by the way, if I'm talking and you want to talk to me, feel free to call anytime, feel free to interrupt me, I'd rather hear from you.

So go ahead and give me a call again, if you want to join the show. So, if you tend to binge when you are anxious, you are not alone.

Introduction to Anxiety

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders affect nearly 20% of adults in the United States. And anxiety is very treatable, but very few people get help for anxiety. And we also talk about anxiety a lot.

And different people have different ideas about what anxiety is. So, what is anxiety anyway, you may think you know, and you may be right, but maybe not.

Anxiety is the body's reaction to stress that triggers our fight-flight or freeze response. And I want to add another one to that fight-flight or freeze/fawn is another anxiety response, a trauma response. So, when we're traumatized, we either want to fight, we want to flee, we want to get away from that situation.

Fawning is people pleasing to an extreme degree. When you are people pleasing too much, that is a sign of a possible trauma anxiety response. When we sense danger, our bodies react instinctively. And if the anxiety persists, it becomes you know, kind of counterproductive, it takes less and less and less of a trigger to create that kind of physiological anxiety response.

And that leads to a chronic state of anxiety. So not much makes you anxious all the time. And for many people struggling with binge eating disorder, binging is a way of managing anxiety, eating a large portion of food in a short amount of time, which is the definition of binging.

Especially food that has a lot of carbs, which has a calming and sedative effect on our bodies. So, keep this in mind, if you're anxious all the time. And you're binging on carb-heavy foods, in addition to the emotional aspect of it that I talked about in my food mood formula, it can be your way of trying to manage your anxiety, your way of trying to calm yourself down by eating so that your body kind of goes because then if you're in a state of “I'm so full”, and now the carbs are doing their thing and you're calmer.

You may hate yourself. You may be full of regret and self-recrimination and all of that, but you're not in a physiologically anxious state. So, we eat to calm down. But then the guilt and shame about binging as well as worries about gaining weight lead to more anxiety and it becomes a terrible vicious cycle.

So, again, anxiety can be a trigger for binge eating. And it's important to treat the underlying states that create binging anxiety as one of them.

Binging and Anxiety

Remember I said binging is like a way to a solution to a problem. If the problem is anxiety, binging is a solution to the problem. It is just a really poor solution. So, we need to come up with a different solution.

Because not only it is important to treat anxiety but for psychological relief, there are physiological reasons why it's really important to address anxiety. Anxiety does a real number on our bodies.

Anxiety Disorder

Evidence suggests that people with anxiety disorder are at a greater risk for developing other chronic mental health conditions and medical conditions. Like a greater risk of having gastrointestinal problems. Heart disease, even substance abuse, addiction, and migraines, have all been correlated to higher levels of anxiety.

So why does anxiety develop? And by the way, if you're listening and you want to talk to me about your anxiety or anything else that is eating at you, feel free to call the show at 323-203-0815.

Okay, so anxiety is a response to a situation or two thoughts that cause worry, fear, trauma, child abuse and neglect, poverty, and other really difficult life experiences that make people more susceptible to anxiety.

Trauma

Let me talk for a moment about trauma. Often what I hear when I talk about trauma, people say well, I wasn't traumatized. Nothing, like really horrible happened to me. I didn't get, you know, sexually molested by my grandfather, or wasn't in a terrible car accident or I didn't lose a parent, or we were perfectly comfortable financially like nothing really bad happened.

Well, there are two kinds of trauma. One is big trauma, that's when really bad things happen, molestation, car accident loss, and tragic circumstance. The other kind of trauma is what's called little T trauma and that's like 1,000 small cuts. So, 1,000 Small cutting remarks can be equally as traumatic as one big event 1,000 times where you feel like you're not important, where you're neglected, or you're treated with hostility or content that is traumatic and that leads to anxiety. I will hold on to this for a moment because we have Josh on the air. Hi, Josh.

Josh: Hi, Dr. Nina, can you hear me?

Dr. Nina: I can hear you. Your voice is a little bit low. So, I'm making the volume higher.

Josh: Okay, so you're talking about anxiety like

Dr. Nina: I am and I hear something in the background. Are you somewhere where you are?

Josh: Is it too loud?

Dr. Nina: Yes, it is too loud.

Josh: Oh, okay. Let me just move somewhere else. I wanted to talk to you on what you were talking about. How about this better?

Dr. Nina: There's some background sound that's coming through it’s really, really loud. Can you get to a quieter place?

Josh: I can't, unfortunately. I'm so sorry to do this, too. Yeah, no, there's no Well,

Dr. Nina: Why don't you ask? Oh, I guess. Maybe you hang up, and come back on later and comment on Instagram.

Josh: Oh, you want me to ask you a question?

Dr. Nina: Yeah, did you have a question or a comment?

Root of Anxiety

Josh: Yeah, yeah, my question is, you know, how do we get to the root of the anxiety that you're talking about? And I think you're probably already going there. I apologize again, for sort of getting in your way, but just how to get to the root of the anxiety that we could be using food to deal with.

Dr. Nina: Excellent question. And yes, I am on that track. So, okay, great, hang up and mute yourself, or hang up. Either way, just because it is a little bit disconcerting to hear the background.

Josh: I'll just mute myself.

Dr. Nina: Perfect. Okay. Some people are born with kind of a central nervous system that processes things differently. And people with that kind of nervous system reach a level of anxiety much more quickly than other people.

So, it takes less of a trigger for them to get anxious. But more often, it is about some kind of experience in your past and or your present. That is creating anxiety. And as I talk about a lot, sometimes, experiences from the past kind of haunt you, your presence of something that seems to have happened in the past still affects you in the present. And that can cause loss of less of a trigger to get to more of an anxious state.

Then you have less and less of a trigger and more and more and more anxiety. With people with anxiety, their stress hormones get normalized in 20 minutes, if you have anxiety, it can take two hours or more.

The symptoms of anxiety subside, as those hormones subside, unless you have an anxiety disorder, are prone to anxiety, or have been traumatized in your life. For anxious people, people who live in the kind of an amped-up state of anxiety, the return to normal stress levels hormonally can take over two hours.

That means that you are living with symptoms of anxiety, physiologically, all the time and that can feel intolerable. Again, binging or turning to food is a way that you can sedate your body, which then affects the symptoms of the physiological symptoms of anxiety.

What can you do?

And where does this anxiety come from, to Josh's point, our thoughts about situations can create anxiety. One of the biggest problems that I see is thinking to remember, first the thoughts lead to feelings that lead to behavior.

What if this awful thing happens?

What if I get rejected?

This leads to a feeling of anxiety, depression, sadness, and a whole host of other things.

Binging and Coping with Anxiety

The way to cope with that feeling is using food as comfort, distraction, to numb out to resolve the physical effects of anxiety. So that's why if we only look at the behavior, we can focus on how you stop eating too much, brush your teeth, and take a shower.

Now, if it's not working, we have to start with the thoughts that lead to the feelings, in this case, we're talking about the anxiety that leads to the behavior. Binging is a frenemy it does something for you it is a friend, but it also hurts you. It does something for you in that it helps you cope. It helps you feel better. It helps you distract yourself. It is an enemy in that it hurts your body. It hurts your soul. It hurts your sense of self-esteem. Okay, so one of the things that I see a lot that leads to anxiety are the what ifs. What if I get rejected? What if I never lose weight? What if that person doesn't like me? What if I can't pay my mortgage or my rent? What if things never change? These are all what-ifs about the future and they cause anxiety, big-time anxiety in the present. What if is fear about the future but you have anxiety about that future event, which may or may not, and often it doesn't happen, then we feel anxiety in the present about something that hasn't happened. And then it becomes overwhelming because often people with an anxiety disorder or who suffer a lot from anxiety don't know how to self-soothe themselves. And so binging becomes a way of self-soothing.

Dr. Nina: If you are thinking, what if this and that happens, then you're scaring yourself in the present about something that isn't not existing in the future. So, what to do instead, the antidote to what if thinking is what is thinking? What is to only consider the present reality and what you know to be true right now? And when you stay with that, you are calmer, you feel better. You don't freak yourself out about what might happen in the future, because you're just with the present or reality, and what you know to be true, you feel more at ease, and you're less likely to turn to food. So that sounds like, in contrast, when we just go back and to the what ifs? What if I never lose weight? What is that is I am working hard to address the reasons I turned to food. What if that person doesn't like me? What if? I don't know what that person thinks of me. But let me consider what I think about that person. Because ultimately, what I think about that person is what matters. I do not want to put my self-esteem in someone else's hands. What if I can't pay my mortgage or my rent? Hey, guess what? I am resourceful. I will come up with a solution. I have encountered challenges before. If that becomes a challenge that I have to face, I will figure it out empowering. What if things never change? That's a big what if what is I am continuing to evolve. And I am creating changes in my life. See the difference? The “What if” only creates a kind of panicky anxiety. We turn to food to comfort ourselves to distract ourselves, then we're thinking about oh my god, I can't believe I ate that rather than the what if thought. But what is thinking, which is the antidote to anxiety is a way to calm yourself down and reassure yourself and you're doing it from a place of supporting and encouraging yourself. You're not freaking yourself out, you're showing up for yourself and you're there for yourself. That is incredibly reassuring and calming. Which takes the anxiety down many notches. Words are powerful. Words are more helpful to resolve anxiety than the temporary solution of binge eating. When you reassure yourself when you encourage yourself when you soothe yourself with words, your anxiety diminishes, and you feel calmer and better able to deal with various aspects of life. I also want to mention another thing that I just did with one of my groups. On Monday night and it was effective. We were talking about anxiety. I taught them the muscle relaxation exercise; I'm going to teach it to you. So, it's called the progressive muscle relaxation exercise. And ideally, you're supposed to do like different muscle parts progressively. I find it helpful to just do it all at once. And what it is, first of all, let me explain if I said, hey, Carla gosh. Hey, Katie. Hey, Kylene

Relaxing technique to stop anxiety

Dr. Nina: Those are just people I see on Instagram right now. Relax. Are you going to be feeling more relaxed instantly? It's going to be like, Oh, I should just relax. Okay, I'm relaxed. No, you're not going to feel relaxed. You're going to be like, how do I relax? So, here's how you relax. As you tighten, got to give your body something to relax against. You tighten up all your muscles. If you are listening, if you, of course, you're listening, or if you're watching on Instagram, let's do it together, it feels goofy. Don't worry about it, you can do it in your car, or the privacy of your own home, or wherever works. You just tighten all your muscles. And you just tighten everything like you tighten your legs, your abs, your arms, just like everything you can think of and you just hold it tight, tape, just hold it tight. For like 5-4-3-2-1 and now relax. Feel that, that is also an anxiety stopper. So that is a great way to just give yourself a moment to relax your body. And sometimes when we relax our bodies our minds can follow.

Question: Binge eating for five (5) years

So, if you have any questions about anxiety, please feel free to call as Josh did. And in the meantime, I am looking for some questions that I had, which I should have had, like, right in front of me, but I don't. So here we go. No, that's not it. Okay. This is a question from Nicole. And she said, she has been binge eating for five years. First of all, Nicole, my question to you is what happened five years ago? Before you started binging? What was going on in your life? That binging became the answer to what she said, I'm wondering whether you could give some advice about when one allows oneself to fear foods or items to enjoy where you usually restrict or feel guilty for eating them in the first place. But now you don't know how to stop eating because you end up binging them. Okay, here's the thing, fear, foods are just another way of talking about forbidden foods, good food, and bad food, when you have good food, bad food, also known as dieting. There's always some kind of restriction and or deprivation because all diets are depriving in some way. And we want what we cannot have. If we are deprived, we're going to end up having the thing that we can't have. This is why I'm not for cheat days at all. First of all, cheating implies dieting. You're going to cheat on your diet, but you're setting up this day where you're going to eat whatever well what do you think you're going to do? If you can, if six days out of the week, you can only have these certain foods, but that one day you can have whatever is going to be free for all and you're going to have way too much. And you're going to eat so much that it's going to mess up everything you did in the last six days anyway. So, deprivation leads to binging that's why it is a diet binge cycle. Okay, if your diet, dieting leads to binging so Nicole, your fear foods are the foods that you don't trust yourself with. You don't trust yourself with them because you don't allow yourself to have them when we allow ourselves to have food and not make it good food or bad food, safe food or fear food when it's just food and what am I hungry for which is intuitive eating, which is also pretty hard to do until after you've resolved why you're binging. But at a certain point, you want to be in a place where you're like why am I hungry? Am I hungry for protein? Do I need carbs? Do I want vegetables? Do I want fruit? Do I feel like pasta? Do you know if I want protein? Is it fish? Is it steak? Is it chicken? What do I feel like? That's called intuitive eating. And, then it's a lot easier to make healthy choices when we don't have enough of what we like when we eat things and we go overboard. Some years ago, another Nicole who used to call the show regularly she's doing great now.

Dr. Nina: She called and said that she had gone to a Greek restaurant and that she just could not stop eating this Greek food. She just could not stop. Her stomach was hurting but she couldn't stop. So, I asked her the usual question I asked when someone says they eat too much their stomach hurts which was converting emotional pain to physical pain, like what's hurting in your life, but there wasn't anything hurting in her life. So, we looked at the fact that this Greek restaurant was yummy. It was delicious. And what had she been eating for weeks bland, boring diet food? Because she was eating bland, boring diet food, as soon as she went to this restaurant that had yummy, tasty food, she had been so deprived of, like, really tasty stuff, she couldn't stop eating it. What we're deprived of, we will want more. So that is one answer to your question. And she's saying, the way you can't judge yourself or even. She's said, I won't go into what she's saying. But she's saying that she goes through a lot of mental machinations. And it's all about food.

Question: If you are not thinking in any food, what would be on your mind?

Here's the question, Nicole, if you weren't thinking about fear foods, safe foods, food freedom, or any of these things, what would be on your mind? And this is a very good question for you, who's listening or watching to ask yourself if you were not focused on what you were eating, what you're not eating, what you ate, what is your weight, what you're going to eat if you could just take away all thoughts of food and eating and all of that stuff out of your mind. What would be left, often focusing on food, ruminating, obsessing, being preoccupied about every bite that goes into our mouths and what we ate and what we weight, and how many calories we're burning? And what are our macros in the backgrounds and all of that? It distracts us from other worries and concerns. An example early on I did a group for women struggling with binge eating disorder. This was the same group that I talked about in my TEDx talk, which is still not posted. Oh my gosh, still waiting for that hopefully any day now. One of the other women in this group called and said what is the skinny bitch like you know about binging? Every week we would talk about what you know, what are the underpinnings of the behavior? What's eating at you? Why did you turn to food? What was going on? Did you need comfort? Are you lonely? Are you empty? Are you angry? Are you anxious? What's going on with you that's making you lead to whatever it is that you're binging on eating? And whatever everyone in the group was starting to get into, like, oh, gosh, I realized that I was mad at my boss. And then I took it out on myself because I got mad at myself for eating. Like they started seeing the connection and connecting the dots. Except for this one woman. She was a holdout. She said, no, I'm a food addict. I have no willpower. I have no control. That's all that it's about. Yes, she kept coming back, which I found interesting. But every week, she'd say, no, it's just all about the food. I can't help myself. I'm a binge eater. I'm a food addict, I can't help myself. And then on the very last day of the group, the very last day, maybe 20 minutes or even less, before the group was ending. She said, you know, she'd been thinking about it. And she thought if she were not focused on what she was eating, and on the 20 pounds that she'd been trying to lose for 20 years. If she were not thinking about that, she would be thinking that she wanted to leave her husband. Powerful, right?

Dr. Nina: Thinking about food keeps us from recognizing and processing, what's eating at us. And sometimes we know what that is. And sometimes we don't, it can be hidden from us in our unconscious minds. But it's very important to ask yourself that question and to be curious, not critical. This woman was focused on her weight and on and she would rather feel like a food addict. She would rather talk about willpower. She would rather feel bad about herself than realize that her marriage wasn't working and that she wanted to leave her husband. That's what focusing on food did for her and I hope I hope because I never talked to her again, the group was over and I was a trainee at the time, or maybe I don't know what I was, in turn. I never saw her again; I hope that she was able to resolve her marital issues. And I end it for someone who does that when they realize that they're focusing on their bodies and their weight instead of the weight of the bad relationship. When you deal with the real problem. You stop using food to distract from the problem. There's always a reason why you're turning to food. If you're turning to food, you're turning away from something else. Or you are experiencing some kind of deprivation. Usually, it is because you are numbing, distracting, comforting, or avoiding expressing something with food and your body that you don't want to look at in your life.

Question: How to overcome fear of happiness

Okay, next question. Okay. She said, um, oh, I was wondering whether you could elaborate on fear of happiness and how to overcome it, and your acronym Jedi. Okay, so I would love to elaborate on both of those. Jedi, if you've listened to the show for a while, you will know that I am a huge Star Wars fanatic. Original Star Wars. I love Star Wars. I came up with this acronym because a lot of times people get into communication problems with other people. And they feel like they've got to justify, explain, defend themselves, it feels terrible, feels yucky, you feel demoralized, and then you end up eating and being frustrated, anxious, turning to food to resolve it. My acronym is to help you, like, communicate differently to someone who's being confrontational, is Jedi. And it stands for do not justify, explain or defend the eye. You don't justify, explain or defend the eye. You have. And that's a way of reminding yourself if you are if you don't justify, explain or defend the eye, then you are protecting yourself. And that is important. Then you can put yourself in a position of thinking about not what other people are, are going to think of you. Often with anxiety back to anxiety.

Dr. Nina: Relationships could be can become very problematic. What do they think they're arguing with me? What are they going to think of me? Oh, no. And you end up kind of scrambling to justify, explain and defend that's part of people pleasing. That's part of the fawning member the trauma responses, which are anxiety responses, fight-flight, freeze, or fawn. So, Nicole, remember that acronym, I'll try to post it later on my Instagram. And that can help you to take your side. Because when we take our side, and we think about what do I think of this person, we feel centered when we don't take our side and we think what do they think of me? You abandon yourself and then if you don't feel like you have a voice if you can't encourage yourself, how are you going to speak up for yourself? How can you speak up to somebody else? So important to change the way we respond to ourselves is if we can't support ourselves, acknowledge ourselves and encourage ourselves to cheerlead ourselves, then we're liable to use food to escape. It's an abandonment of ourselves. And we want to stay with ourselves. That's the point.

Okay, fear of happiness. Yes, fear of happiness. One of the main anxieties actually, and whenever I bring up the reality that that anxiety about happiness is a thing. Do people always look at me like what are you talking about? I'm not afraid to be happy. I want to be happy. Yeah, you want to be happy consciously. But what happens when you are happy, lots of people will, for instance, find that they will be healthy, and they'll nurture and nourish their bodies in a good way. They'll get to a weight where they feel good, they'll feel fitter, they'll feel better. And then what happens, sabotage happens, they go off this healthy way of eating, they stop exercising, and they sabotage themselves. And then they get to a point where they start the cycle over. Why is this? Well, one reason is fear of happiness. Think about the kinds of prohibitions against happiness in our culture, oh, it was too good to be true. Oh, well, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Happiness was too good to last. Right? These, are things that give the message that happiness is a setup for loss. If we are the agents of creating our unhappiness, then we don't have to worry about it coming from out of the blue. So, if you're feeling good, and you want consciously, to feel good, but there's an unconscious part of you, that's like, Oh, this is too good to be true, the other shoe is going to draw up and in some way, you're afraid to be happy, and you might sabotage yourself again. You're the one doing it, it's safe, then it's not going to just the shoes not going to drop, the rugs are going to be pulled out from underneath you by somebody else, you're doing it to yourself, which in a sense, feels safer than just trusting that you know that nothing bad will happen. Josh is saying there's something that you're saying there's something you don't want to look at. Well, that's true of most people, feel free to post here if you're in a quieter place called back. The thing about fear of happiness is that everyone says, Well, I can give you 20 different examples of when something good happened, and then something bad happened, cause and effect, something good happened. And then something bad happened. Something bad always happens after something good happens. That's because we look for patterns. Now, back in the day, when we were living in caves and stuff like that, looking for patterns helped us survive. When we were out on the tundra, or wherever. When we saw some paw prints, we had to make a pattern in our minds. Oh, that paw print belongs to the big scary animal who's going to try to eat us. So, paw print, animal fear.

Dr. Nina: Let's get out of here. We no longer live in a world where our survival depends on us seeing patterns. But we still have the legacy of pattern-making within us just like we still have an appendix. But it doesn't serve a purpose, we still have it, and we still have this pattern-making tendency even though we don't need it anymore. And what happens is, we have a narrative, and then we look for what fits the narrative. One extreme example was, I had a friend and, who became more than an Orthodox Jewish, she became like some ultra-moved to Israel became super, super way up there almost like I'm going to say like Taliban style Judaism, in which, you know, the, it's like a cult. She said to me, well, the Holocaust is the Jews' fault. And by the way, guys, you know, I'm Jewish, so I'm not disparaging Jewish people. She said that the Holocaust, the Holocaust was the Jews' fault, because Reformed Judaism started in, like 1890. And then 40 years later, the Holocaust, cause, and effect. She heard, which is ludicrous, right? Oh, right. God hates reformed Jews. So, we waited for two years, and then he decided to kill all Jews in a holocaust in her mind that was cause and effect because she was looking for the evidence to prove her own very rigid way of living. That's an extreme example, but we all do it. We all filter things out so that we seek the evidence we find, oh, this good thing happened. This bad thing happened. Those things are correlated as opposed to this good thing happening. And this bad thing happened and one has nothing to do with the other. And by the way, here's some food for thought. I find that when something good happens it's because you make it happen, you make something good happen. And often when something bad happens, it happens to us out of the blue. And we don't like to feel vulnerable as if something bad could happen out of the blue. We want to think that we could have predicted it, I should have known better this good thing happened. And now this bad thing happened. And what is one way of feeling bad if you feel quote unquote, too good, feel bad about your weight, eat some cake. Get on a scale. Alright, so that's why the fear of happiness is something that we want to challenge.

Question: Why I eat smooth and creamy things, instead of looking at things I don't want to see?

Okay, so Josh has a question. I eat smooth and creamy things, instead of looking at things I don't want to see. And we know screen smooth and creamy, is associated with a need for comfort based on my food mood formula. It's the same with racism against any minority. Okay. Okay, that doesn't even track but so I'm going to stay with the food, the smooth and creamy things. Josh, what you just said is exactly what binge eating is. People binge because they don't want to know, feel, think about, or experience something that they don't that is uncomfortable. We are. We are also like, programmed to avoid uncomfortable things. That's why we tell ourselves to drop just positive, think that drop that, you know, drop that uncomfortable thought positive thinking away, ignore it. No, you can't drop something uncomfortable, painful, positive thinking away or ignore it or stuffed it down. But it's an attempt to do so. Again, it's just a coping mechanism that hurts instead of help. So, Josh, if you're eating smooth and creamy foods, then that tells us that there's some kind of need for comfort, and you need to learn a way of comforting yourself with words instead of with smooth, creamy foods.

Dr. Nina: Now, because I am the queen of acronyms, this one has nothing to do with Star Wars. But my acronym is something to keep in mind. Vary your response to yourself, Josh VARY stands for validate, acknowledge and reassure yourself. If you are feeling the need for comfort, give yourself comforting words instead of comfort food, and validate what you're feeling. Acknowledge and validate what you're feeling. And then reassure yourself, remind yourself that this feeling won't last. You've been through tough times before. If there's something painful, you can find a solution. You're a smart guy, you'll figure it out. You'll get past this won't feel this way forever, and you can find a resolution. Find a way to use words for comfort instead of food. And if you're still here, feel free to comment on any other thoughts you have about that. What are the kinds of words that you would say to yourself, you can practice here? And validating, acknowledging, and reassuring yourself sounds like this. It sounds like hey, it's tough right now. I'm feeling I'm just making this up, you know, lonely or overwhelmed. And things are hard right now. And I'm struggling. So of course, it's hoarse. I feel bad. I feel demoralized, dejected, discouraged, and depressed; how else could I feel? Given how things are, of course, I feel this way. And I am working on it. I'm working to change the way that I relate to myself. I've faced tough things in the past. I'm going to face this. I'm resourceful. And I will feel better. Right? Beverly, you feel better when you listen to my show. Oh, that makes me so happy. Yay. So, Beverly, Josh, and everyone here and whoever's listening on La talk radio. Or, you know, or wherever it is on a podcast. Know that to chant to change your relationship with food is to change your relationship with yourself. When we make peace with ourselves. When we respond differently to ourselves. Everything with food changes, Carly gashes, saying patterns and fear of success is a real challenge. I'm getting more inspired to talk to myself in a soothing tone as, honestly, it's the only thing that works. Exactly, and thank you for bringing up the tone. Because people more than one person has said this to me, but I'll use the most extreme example of someone who said that they talk to themselves and didn't work. So, that doesn't make you feel very good, does it? Nurses? Would you say that to a friend? Would you say that to somebody you love? Well, this is hard, but you're going to be okay. Not so much. You say you know; this is hard. But you're going to be okay. The tone of voice is everything as well. A soothing tone is like a verbal hug. We want to be there for you. Treat yourself as a friend. Oh, Carla, gosh, thank you. I'm glad that you also feel better if you listen to this show. And that you get to put my mind back on track. You make me hopeful and God out of fear. What if? Right? Yes, that's great. Yes. Remember, anytime you start a question with what if? What if, oh, my God, what if then that is anxiety about a future event that we feel in the present, and that event may not happen and often does not. But we have real anxiety in the present about something that has not happened.

Dr. Nina: And likely will not. And if it does, you will deal with it. But in the meantime, it's not happening. So that's why it's really important to do that. We don't like to feel as if we're vulnerable to things happening to us. This is why COVID was creating so much anger, fear, and craziness in our culture, because we don't like to think that there are things that can happen to us that we cannot foresee or manage. That's why you have a lot of people who felt so terrified that something could happen to them. And there was the sense was, oh, you're going to go outside and there's just COVID everywhere, and how can you avoid it? And then there are other people who said, I take vitamins and I have a good immune system. I'm good. Like, as if denying that anything bad could happen. We had this range of reactions to the idea that something out of the blue could happen to us that we could not foresee. Beverly, I'm glad you feel better about being able to handle the situation when it happens. Yes, you absolutely can like think about all the things that you have encountered in your life that you have overcome, that your challenge is painful, difficult, scary things we've all had them. And we've overcome them.

Conclusion

Remember that you have the ability, the capacity to overcome whatever obstacle life throws in your way. And while you're doing that, remember that when it comes to other people, keep your self-esteem within you when you put your self-esteem in other people's hands. What did they think of me? First of all, you feel self-conscious and terrible and anxious and awful. And then binging takes you away. But also, your self-esteem is in the hands of other people, some people you might not even know. Take back your power. What do you think of other people? What do you think of a situation? Not what does other people what other people think of you or what the situation says about you? What do you think? Center yourself in you? And you got this you can do this? I believe in you. You are capable. You are strong. You have gotten this far. You are aware you are reflective. You've got this and practice makes progress because there is no perfect. Okay. That is our show for today. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Dr. Nina show. I am here live every Wednesday at 11 am Pacific you're on La talk radio. You can listen later on Apple podcasts or anywhere where you get podcasts. And remember stay curious, not critical. If you would like to have more info like this, please I'm looking for my book. I don't have it. My other book is up there. Please get my book The binge cure Seven Steps to outsmart emotional eating it is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle and I read it to you in the audible book. And it's coming soon in hardcover, so excited. The binge cares Seven Steps to outsmart emotional eating. It will fill in a lot of what I've been talking about today. Take good care and I will see you next week. Bye for now

Narrator: You're listening to the Dr. Nina show with Dr. Nina Savelle Rocklin only on La talk radio

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