Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Jenny Taitz: Self-Soothing Strategies, How to be Single and Happy & Ending Emotional Eating

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Dr. Jenny Taitz, Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at UCLA and licensed clinical psychologist board certified in cognitive behavioral therapy, outlines her custom, dialectical therapy approach to helping people meet their long term goals by utilizing evidenced-based tools. She breaks down the core issues of disordered eating and highlights the importance of recognizing hunger cues and triggers, forming intuitive eating habits, and finding nourishment through self-soothing strategies. Mayim expands upon the origin of her eating disorder and current relationship with food, and details the role food plays in culture and intimacy. Dr. Taitz discusses how mindfulness, distress tolerance, finding bite-sized doses of hope, and even dunking your face in ice water can lead to radical acceptance & willingness. After Mayim opens up about her history of serial monogamy, she and Dr. Taitz examine the importance of finding happiness and empowerment while living single rather than waiting to find the right person to be happy. Mayim and Dr. Taitz wrap the episode with indicators one might need help overcoming an eating disorder, and Mayim explains Binge Eating Disorder during an installment of Ask Mayim Anything. Jenny's Books: https://drjennytaitz.com/books/ Jenny's Articles: https://drjennytaitz.com/media/ Overeaters Anonymous: https://oa.org/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The specific skill that a lot of my patients find helpful that is from this therapy called dialectical behavior therapy is getting a, like, you know, a salad bowl, sticking ice in it, then filling it with water, holding your breath, going into the ice bucket for like 15 to 30 seconds. What? This might see. What? 15 to 30 seconds. There's literally no way you're going to be perseverating on whatever was bothered you. Yeah, because you're going to be afraid you're going to die, Jenny. It's a whole different fear.

Hi, I'm Myambiolic's breakdown. Eating Disorders and how to be single and happy. We have a really cool, groovy psychologist who's going to join us today. Dr. Jenny Tate, she's an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry. at UCLA. And she's written an extremely important and such a timely book, How to Be Single and and Happy, Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity while Looking for a Soulmate. And she's got some really, really interesting perspectives on being single and on mindfulness and how to introduce kind of a new definition of happy into your search for happiness. She also has written

End Emotional Eating. And she's a frequent writer for the New York Times. times. She's a really eloquent science communicator in that she talks about really high-level scientific concepts, but in a way that makes a lot of sense. And she's a really, really interesting person. She also does a form of cognitive behavioral therapy called dialectical behavioral therapy. And anyway, we're going to speak to her soon. But first, it's Purple Day. Say hello to my prince in purple, Jonathan Cohen. Hello, my name. Hi, everyone. It's a royal color. that we're wearing today. What I'm excited about for this interview is interpersonal effectiveness,

which is a tool I'm using right now to get my own air time without conflict. Yes, we do talk a little bit about how to ask what you need for. How to ask, what is it? How to ask. For what you need without conflict. I can't even say. I can't even say ask for what you need. How many times you're like, I just know what I need, but I'm afraid that

that person's reaction is going to blow up and they're going to shake their head like this. We got some really big reception to me talking about my eating disorder in the Glennon Doyle episode, which if you haven't heard that one, we do recommend it very highly. And if you don't have a news alert for mine like everyone should, you might not have seen that it got picked up in the press. It did get picked up in the press. It got picked up in the press so much that I was mortified and did not read any of the articles, but instead spoke to some of my fellows who also are recovering from eating disorders. And I was told that hopefully it will be inspiring and empowering to people, even though I feel really mortified.

And some people might be saying, well, what did you expect? And honestly, in the moment, I wasn't planning on talking about me eating disorder, but in the moment, it felt like the right thing to do. because Glennon is so famously transparent and honest and raw. And literally, it was just like, why shouldn't I be matching her in invulnerability when we're talking about vulnerability? So much as I'd like to hide under this desk and not think or talk about it anymore, we happen to have scheduled Dr. Tate's on for, you know, for shortly after the Glennon Doyle episode was released. By the time you hear this, it will have been probably a little bit of time, but I do share actually quite a bit more in this episode about it. And she breaks down some

really interesting and really significant components of the way we eat. And even if you don't have an eating disorder, by the end of this episode, you might think you do. No, but she talks about many features of eating that so many of us grow up with or just think are fine. And in some cases, they may be. and in other cases, it may be a really good wake-up call to say, what's really going on? And if you were to kind of like ask me to sum up what the point is of therapy, of this podcast, of what we do, do you really know what's going on inside of you, right? So many of us think, like, oh, life is so hard or this, or this person wronged me or three people today, you know, made me pissed off. Do you know what your triggers are?

Do you know why you do the things you do? And the answer is, for most of us, yes and no. But something like eating, which we have to do, meaning we need sustenance, there are so many traps that I have found in eating. We talk about preventative eating. We talk about binging. We talk about exercise bulimia. It's a very, well, it's a very intense episode. And I was going to add that it's not just a disorder.

necessarily. It's understanding a relationship to food. We have so many motivations. We're eating differently now than ever before in ways that are changing our hunger cues or our relationship to our hunger cues. And so as we want to understand our motivations and why we do things, we have to understand what our feelings are and what's going on for us inside that then propels the action. We don't have a word of the day to day. I mean, I took so many notes in this episode. We could have had a word about DBT, about interpersonal effectiveness, about emotional regulation, about distress tolerance, radical acceptance and willingness, and even radical openness. But instead, why don't we let the audience get it from the episode itself?

I just wanted to listen to you say a boat many more times, but okay. A boat. I don't have my Canadian flag here in the northern cave, but maybe I need to insert it in the background to make sure that like... I'll mail you some. I'll overnight you some Canadian flags. My countrymen know that I'm still representing. Actually, I should say country people, be inclusive.

That's so Canadian of you. It's so polite and generous. I really love having real life actual genuine therapists on. Like most of what Dr. Tates does is see clients. You mean not therapists like me who are just pretend? You're not a therapist. No, what I mean is this is a person who literally, you know, lives and breeds working with humans and understanding how,

humans function and how she can support them. Okay, one more joke. I'll just say if there's any institutions out there that want to give me an honorary doctorate for my work on this podcast, I'm open to it. Just email. Do you mean Canadian institutions? No, American ones, ideally. Jonathan, you're not a therapist and you don't have a doctorate. You're many things. You keep saying that, but I'm not hearing you. You're a master of the fine art of being you and also screenwriting. No, but let's welcome Dr. Tates. She's, as I said, an assistant clinical professor

in psychiatry at UCLA. She's the author of How to Be Single and Happy and Emotional Eating. She frequently writes for The New York Times. She's board certified in cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and she maintains a clinical practice right here in Los Angeles.

And she's our new friend. She's kind of our new best friend. Dr. Tates. Break it down. Welcome, Dr. Tates. I will not call her Jenny. I will call her Jenny. Hi, Jenny.

Hi, nice to see you guys. Thank you for being with us here. We're always excited to have someone who can psychoanalyze us on any episode of this podcast. But that's not why we brought you here. But secretly, that's always... No, we brought you here under the guise of your expertise to talk about the subjects. Myam is about to talk about. But really, we're here for our own therapy.

For you to fix us. So in all seriousness, you are a very impressive person, and you're an impressive person in terms of your credentials and obviously the great university you are affiliated with, which I'm very partial to. you've also written two really incredible books that I want to talk about. Maybe you can just kind of start us off by telling us a little bit about the kind of therapy that you do, because while you are a professor in psychiatry at UCLA and you write these books, you also have a clinical practice. So what kind of therapy would we say you do? Thank you so much, Jonathan and mine for having me. I'm really excited to be here, and I'm super amazed and inspired by the work that you do. Thank you.

In terms of the practice that what patients might find when they come into my doors is I'm really interested in helping people meet their long-term goals in an efficient way. And so I'm super interested in, you know, what someone hopes if their life was like looking exactly the way that they would want it to be. And then I want it custom fit evidence-based tools in a compassionate way. So it doesn't feel like, you know, week three of this protocol, this is what we're going to do. but super tailored to the unique circumstances of the person. That being said, you know, the work that I do is really influenced heavily by mindfulness-based

cognitive therapies, which include something called dialectical behavior therapy, which is a treatment developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, who was at the University of Washington before she recently retired. And DBT is an incredible treatment because so often people worry when they walk into my doors. It's like, you know, I don't know if I could commit to this for a decade. I just want to do this for six months, you know, maybe a year. Fix me really quick. How do you fix me the quickest and the cheapest?

Yeah, and DBT teaches these four core modules that are really helpful for everyone. So one of the modules is mindfulness, how to be more present in the moment. Another module is interpersonal effectiveness. How do you assert yourself? How do you ask for what you want without burning bridges? That definitely helps reduce anger. Another unit that I teach in DBT is a motion regulation. A lot of people feel like their motions are on and on-off switch.

They go from zero to 100 with no in between. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'd be very interested to learn more. Oh, no, not at all. Can we refer back to the Glennon Doyle episode? Okay, just relax there. Let her get through her four points. So emotion regulation and then distress tolerance, which is how to survive a crisis without making it worse. which ironically include a lot of.

Sorry, that would literally be the title to my memoir, How to Survive a Crisis and Make It Worse. Maybe we spend the whole session on that. This is so much fun already. Oh, thank you guys. I also do want to mention that you have a very special kind of feature of your existence, is that you write and you write for the New York Times, which is one of my favorite places to read,

in particular science and, and science-related topics. And one of the things that you get to do is, you know, when you're writing for that kind of publication, the idea is to be a science communicator and to communicate things to people that may not otherwise have access to some of the fundamentals of what you're talking about. So you have all these really, really lovely, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way, but, you know, really well-encapsulated, you know, kind of tidbits of sort of tips and tricks, as it were. And I think what's really lovely about your writing is that you're able to sort of strike that balance of being, you know, a communicator that people will want to read in ways that they might not think of like, oh, I'm reading about science. But also it's completely grounded, you know, in real research. And can you talk a little bit about some of, especially in this past year, you know, what you found people are looking for? Jonathan is really into the fact that you're telling people to dunk their face in ice, which is something I've only done before red carpet events because it shrinks your pores and allows the makeup to stay on for. you know, 12 hours without moving. But tell us a little bit about sort of, especially in this last year,

what your writing has been like. So one of the things that I most like that gives me the most energy is writing for a popular audience because I love my patients. I really absolutely adore each patient that I see that walks through my door. But I also am acutely aware that so many people are going through hell right now. And I would really love to like offer people bite-sized doses of hope. And again, like, I really try to link the hope to research and best practice. And so I've been writing about the things that I hear most about in practice and that I can personally relate to. So some of the things that I've written about this year is how to find hope, which is kind of incredible. A lot of people think hope is like a feeling, but it's actually the combination of a

clear sense of your purpose and a willingness to persevere in the service of that. And so rather than kind of this like hope will fall in my lap and then I'll feel great. It's kind of like you're not going to have that experience. You're going to need to really sit down and do some soul searching about what your core values are and then, you know, really work on your willingness to sit with the feelings and doubts and negative thoughts that might intercept. And this sounds so like too simple to be true, but even with cancer patients in hospice care, like a hope kit, like literally collecting a collection of items of things that have given you hope in the past actually correlates with increased hope even in such dire circumstances. So that my hope article was one that really

I found very interesting in terms of just like I didn't know that even with cancer patients something like tangible objects could really fuel this feeling. And a lot of readers reached out to me about this piece I wrote about five quick resets to cope with stress. And And one of my big, like, you know, soapboxes that I don't want to bother you guys with, but is I really just to be totally transparent and I don't want to be controversial in the first few minutes. But benzodiazepines, the medications that people often take to deal with anxiety might reduce anxiety short term, but long term have serious negative side effects. They can affect memory. They can certainly affect energy levels. So you might have less anxiety, but also less energy to do the things that matter to you.

And remarkably, like, there are super user-friendly, accessible within your reach that don't take hours to take effect. But within a few minutes, like small things you could do, like crazy. But there's a song that, you know, people have researched in dental clinics that actually reduces anxiety almost as much as this medication. It's called Weightless. Wait, hold on one second. I'm going to stop you there. There's a song that called Weightless. It's called Waitlist.

This sounds so crazy. I have to listen to it at the dentist. So, yeah, literally, it's crazy. So this song by Marconi Union, I believe, is how they pronounce their name. I just added it to your playlist, my name. Thank you. It's on repeat in your house from now on. And I also want to say that, like, I listen to Weightless, and it wasn't like, wow, this is, I feel like I'm Weightless right now.

You could also pick your own sort of personal music. that resonates with you, and this is very similar to the late Oliver. In my life, by the Beatles, does that count in my life? No, no one thinks that's funny. It's a sad song. Yeah, whatever, whatever works for you. I mean, it should be something that you find. If I knew what worked for me, would I be sitting here asking you?

Well, you could try a weight list. I mean, it's crazy. I find it very sleep-inducing. But yeah, is it like Enya? Like, is it like that kind of music? Sort of. It's very, yeah, it's very instrumental and slow. that's actually a great. I actually haven't listened to it in a while, but when I listened to it,

it sort of reminded me of that. Oh. I'm going to botch the reference, but there is a song that has been researched to overcome depression, and it's shown to increase happiness when listened to, and there was a clinical study. I'll have to find it where they were... It must be you singing it with your melodious Canadian voice. I mean, I'm tone deaf, so I hope not. But it was shown that, you know, they did a clinical trial where people would choose whether or not to listen to the song first and then choose if they wanted to take antidepressants. And a large majority of them chose not to after listening to the song. And so music has an enormous impact on us.

Was it that they'd rather die than take an antidepressant or listen to the song? When I'm singing, yes, that's the case. But when it's done properly, it actually has a lot of positive benefits. Got it. And what I'm struck by is that they're like in your writing also, Jenny, is that like there's a lot of very practical things that people, We don't know how to hack ourselves. You know, there's a lot of, like, small hacks that we can do that can have huge implications. But people think, like, oh, the stress is so big, the anxiety is so big.

How could a little change, whether that be a three-minute breathing exercise or you have to unpack the science of why dunking your face in cold water is better than just to keep your makeup on? Yeah, we can get back to that. I just wanted to talk about waitless for a second. I don't want in any way suggest to people that a song is going to fix long-term stressors or resolve. issues, it will just kind of be like the emotional equivalent of having a gatorade or going to the gas station. Like it's a quick reset. So your emotions can go from like a five to a two and then at a two, maybe you have more bandwidth to do better problems. Well, and also, you know, as the resident neuroscientist, music has a very, very strong and significant emotional component, especially if you are a person who is musically inclined or is want to connect emotional intensity to the musical

experience, it can be very, very helpful. And, you know, for me, music has been one of my kind of constant companions, you know, through all of my teen years when I was very depressed. Anyway, so, so yeah, there actually also is science to music playing that kind of role. Okay, now we get to the ice dunking face situation. And super quick on the music front, it's really important with the music that oftentimes music can be used in mood induction studies and research studies where someone wants to induce, like, how do people make decisions when they're really angry? People, People do use music, but to change your emotional experience, it is very tempting to, like, listen to depressing music when you're sad. It's very tempting to listen to, like, you know, high-intensity music when you're feeling anxious.

But you need to choose music that has counter-emotional state. You don't want to listen to a heartbreak song when you're going through. Yeah. Interesting note, talking about sadness. One of the traditional practices of Judaism when you are in mourning is to not engage in live music. because the notion is the, well, obviously both to avoid immersing in kind of celebratory moods so that your grief process has its course, which, you know, is a year in traditional Judaism, but also that notion of kind of, I feel like, emotional misattunement, you know. So anyway, that's just interesting tidbit, which Jonathan will probably edit out of this podcast.

Okay, now the ice face. So basically this sounds totally crazy. And again, this is not a destination. a quick, you know, control, all delete for your body. But so one of the things that really increases our distress is rumination, you know, getting stuck in your head in this repetitive downward spiral kind of way. We have no idea what you're talking about also. She's speaking a different language, Jonathan. Again, Nime has no idea what you're talking about. Go on. And so just very practically, like even if you, I mean, we'll get into the science, but just

practically, it is, you know, I've never heard someone tell me that they're able to continue ruminating while their body temperature is very uncomfortably cold. And so the specific skill that a lot of my patients find helpful that is from this therapy called dialectical behavior therapy that I did write about in the New York Times that a lot of readers found helpful is getting a, like, you know, a salad bowl, sticking ice in it, then filling it with water, holding your breath and then going into the ice bucket for like 15 to 30 seconds. What? And this might see.

What? 15 to 30 seconds with your breath, holding your breath. Well, you don't want to breathe that in. Your lungs will freeze. And this, you know, and you don't need to make it super cold. Like you're not going to be, this isn't going to work better if it's more uncomfortable. But it needs to be somewhat shocking. And this will actually drop your heart rate.

So if you're wearing an Apple Watch, your heart rate will come down and just practice. practically, there's literally no way you're going to be perseverating on whatever was bothered you. Yeah, because you're going to be afraid you're going to die, Jenny. It's a whole different fear. And if I was really on top of my game, right now we would have someone walk in with an ice bucket and make Miam do this on air. No, Ma'am has her face on today. MyNBialx breakdown is supported by Superpower.

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This is in total alignment with like Winhoff, who probably everyone knows. And if you don't, we want to have him on. Shut out to the Hoff. He's like becoming a worldwide phenomenon, getting people dunking themselves into ice cold lakes. Everyone's into ice baths now with this idea that we're, shocking the system and bringing ourselves into that survival instinct. Can you two explain like what happens in that survival instinct, like where our brain goes and why that is so good for us? I mean, there's several things to that. And I think the idea, I mean, he's the cold shower dude,

right? He's like the guy who climbed Everest into shorts and like doesn't experience cold and believes that he's hacked his immune system to fight viruses because of it. Well, look, I mean, I can do more of the technical side and I will let Dr. Tatea. handle more of the emotional and psychological side. I mean, the notion is when you place your body in that kind of environment and you surround it like that. You start to squeal like I do. No.

Jonathan does not like extreme temperatures. But what happens is the first thing is there's a major distraction factor. And it's, you know, as Dr. Tate said, it's like a control all delete. It's like, how about this? Boom. So that initially will send a rush of adrenaline and epinephanour. and you're going to get that whole like, oh my gosh, what's happening? But it's not panic.

It's not meant to induce panic. What it's meant to do, it's meant to kind of focus your brain because it's focusing where blood is going and it's focusing really all of your organ systems to kind of reorient for extreme alertness, but again, not in a hypervigilant panicky way. How did I do so far? No, perfect. And this is what the research is on the dive response, that it redirects blood flow from non-essential to essential organs. It's called the mammalian dive response.

This even happens with animals, of course. And the whole point in my mind is to help you get present to anchor you. And how hard have we all tried to stop thinking about the thing that's bothering us or to relax our bodies? Telling someone to relax is like making them lose it. But if you just say, how about you just try to literally, you know, do this thing that takes 15 to 30 seconds. And it doesn't feel great. I mean, I've certainly, I would be a hypocrite if I hadn't tried it before prescribing it to clients. It's not, I wouldn't say it's relaxing, but it's not as intense as the Wim Hof, like full bath.

And it's portable. It is portable. You can do it at any hotel, you know, sink. What it made me think of and remember. And Jonathan, I don't know if you had this experience when your child was about to be. born. So I'm a natural birth person. I'm a home birth person. And one of the ways that we would prepare for the sensations of these surges, which most people call contractions, but that's a harsh word. So we use the word surges, was to place your hand into a bucket of ice water. And I think

it's not a very dissimilar concept. The notion, and I did. I had two children, quote, successfully, meaning, you know, without drugs. The notion is if you can breathe through, something, 30 seconds at a time, 10 seconds at a time. If every breath can be present and mindful, then you can do that for the length of a surge, which is approximately, you know, one to two minutes. And so that notion and even what you're, you know, are talking about in terms of this 15 to 30 second plunge, the notion is also that you are getting confirmation, that you are in control of your body. You're in control of your mind and they're connected. So that's also one of the kind of, you know, it's a confidence booster to remind you that, and this is, I think, what I really do appreciate so much about your writing and your work, is that while many things need the help and the support of a therapist, in many cases of medication, the notion that you can be present in your body and control the things that then happen in your mind is something that is yours and yours alone. And that's your birthright. That's your right as a human.

no matter what socioeconomic background you have, no matter what color you are. Like, everyone has that power. And doing these kinds of things is a reminder that we do have that power. Final note on the cold is that when I learned about Winhoff, I went and I started doing some kind of significant. And you didn't say anything. You just want to talk about. I'm agreeing with you.

I'm about to tie this in through a little personal anecdote, which is I started doing the ice showers. And as Mime says, I do not like colds or extremes. It was so painful. Like, it made me be like, I hated it. And literally like, sounds came out of me that I'm not proud of. But the impact and the and actually getting through it, I didn't do it for, you know, five minutes. I couldn't stand it that long.

But I did three or four or five days in a row. And the difference in a lot of like, I can't call it inflammation because I, you know, I have no markers to benchmark against that. that, but my breathing felt less congested, my head felt clearer, I felt less overall aches and pains just in that small change. And in those moments where it did feel like all I could do was focus on breathing and like not freaking out, had a huge impact on me. Also, like the cold plunge is something, you know, I've been known before COVID to go to the

Korean spa, which right now I'm like, we all shared that body of water. breathing on each other. That's crazy. But, you know, one of the sort of like, Kianis mas macho, like who's the most macho lady in the Korean spa was who's going to do the ice plunge, you know, and you get all warm and cozy and you're exfoliated and it feels so good and you're chatting with your girlfriends. And then you do that. And I've also, I've had that experience in San Francisco at a Japanese outdoor ice cold plunge, which was like a whole other experience. I almost passed out. That's a different story. I would like you to go back to taking your cold showers because I don't care if you make those sounds.

Everyone wants all the things that you talked about from you. Do you want to talk about when you tried to go in the hot springs once? No, let's not talk about that. Oh, sorry. And beyond just the discomfort, one of the things that I really try to teach my patients and personally practice is a skill called radical acceptance and willingness. Oh, yeah. can inevitably throw at us so much discomfort and things that we don't like and that are uncomfortable and that feel icky. And how do we face those things? And so again, like you're

not winning therapy by doing this specific exercise regularly. But if you're in general practicing willingness and radical acceptance when it comes to things that are uncomfortable in the service of your higher values, that is one of the ultimate things I'm trying to teach my clients. You've written two books, which each really deserve their own episode. I don't know what to do because I really, both of them are so relevant for me personally, but also I think for a lot of people. So I think we'll touch on both of them. I'd like to start with end emotional eating. There's a million things that I want to ask, but I think it's also something that's super timely because I think a lot of people have found that their anxiety has turned them to a lot of distractions.

You know, I've heard from more people kind of like both jokingly and not, like, I'm drinking a lot this past year. Or I'm smoking a lot of weed in a way that I never did. Or I'm eating all the time, you know, is what a lot of people are kind of saying. You know, I'm not going to ask you to sum up your book, you know, in three minutes or less. but the notion of emotional eating is I think something that many people don't want to think applies to them. And I actually would argue that it applies to more people than not. Because as I've started becoming aware of my eating disorder issues, which I've talked about here for really for the first time. I mean, I've talked about it elsewhere in rooms, as we say.

More people than not, I think don't even necessarily realize the relationship that they're having with food. And I think when we're younger and our metabolism allows us to eat that way, many of us are not seeing the effects. And then, you know, when you start rounding that 35, 40, your body starts telling you this is not working the way it was because it's, quote, showing. So can you speak a little bit to sort of why you chose that, you know, as a book? Was this a specialty of yours in your study? You know, how did you kind of come about it? One of the reasons I chose this book is to your point, Miami, so many people, like, I mean, I think if we did a survey, like, every person would endorse that at some point they ate when it wasn't honoring hunger cues.

This is such a pervasive issue. So many people do struggle with this. And why I specifically chose this book is I had this unique experience as a postdoctoral fellow, which is like before you get your license, but after you're done with graduate school, where I had a client who came in, who was a health professional, and she bought herself a tech. of this dialectical behavior therapy for binge eating at that time. It was just a textbook for professionals. And I had the, like, thought, like, she is so lucky that she's so astute to figure out, like, where is the research? Let me go by the clinicians version. It was very anxiety provoking as a postdoc to have someone twice your age that read the textbook. That's like, you know, this is what

you know, highlighted and flagged. And I just had this thought that there needs to be. some sort of synchrity between what is best practice and what is available to the masses. And so many people think that the way to cope with eating is to follow diets, but that's actually one of the transdiagnostic core processes that causes difficulties eating, right? You want to break down transdiagnostic cross processes? Yeah, yeah, yes. So Christopher Fairbird, who's a professor at University of Oxford, is one of the leading people in the world. He's a true hero of mine in the eating disorder space. And he he noticed in

working with patients that struggle with eating that maybe you start off as anorexic, then you struggle with binge eating, then maybe you struggle with bulimia. And it's not clear, separate diagnoses that are, you stay in your road, but there's a lot of overlap between challenges in the eating realm. And there's core issues. So rather than playing whackamol and You know, let's focus on anorexia treatment for, you know, 20 weeks. Let's do this. Let's get at the core issues. And here are some of the core issues. One issue is overvaluing shape and weight. The more if your life was a pie, the more you identify, like your self-worth is tied to your weight. The more ironically, you're going to struggle with your weight. You know, maybe with a math problem, the more you think about it or, you know, your budget, the more you're on it. The more you, that correlates with success. but here what you obsess about possesses you. And so overvaluing shape and weight leads to restricting, leads to binge eating, could lead to bulimia.

And so a huge part of the treatment of eating disorders. And I'm talking about eating disorders on a continuum from emotional eating on the low end to meeting clinical criteria for bulimia, binge eating disorder, anorexia. The more we can help people, like all. everyone listening, the more you can sort of move away from our culture, which is so focused on, you know, you see a friend. Oh, you look great. You look like you lost weight from this. Our worth is so hinged to our bodies, the more a person could kind of shift focuses and really do some soul searching on what actually, what is my worth besides my shape and my appearance and really like

start to, this is a big practice, but to shift into really seeing yourself as more than the number on the scale or the size on your genes. We like to say God doesn't care about a number. No. I mean, at whose funeral did you like with someone eulogized for their, you know, physique? You obviously don't know my family, Jenny. And so, yeah, so in terms of, you know, the core processes that lead to struggling with

food, you know, more valuing your body and then restricting, like, you know, not eating according to a plan, but according to, like, rigid rules. and then compensatory behaviors, and so really the treatment focuses on. And this is incredible for people that have been struggling with their eating. This specific approach leads to, like, if you do have an eating disorder, and then we'll come back to more emotional eating in a minute. But if people do have an eating disorder, you know, there's very, like, 60 to 80 percent response rate with this treatment. And mine, I know you love psychoanalytic treatments, but this was actually compared to 100, 100 sessions of psychoanalytic treatment and found to be more.

effective and I'm all about psychoanalysis. No, no, no. And I should say that for me, my personal, my personal preference for therapy is, you know, psychoanalysis. Like, like, I am a believer in, I mean, for me, literally for me, I am a believer in, in that kind of scaffolding being built up and that kind of long-term thing. But for my eating disorder, I happen to participate in more of a CBT approach. And also, you know, the 12-step approach to these kinds of things is very, very much in line with exactly what you're saying. The notion is, you know, we don't seek to figure it out. We seek to make life better, you know, one day at a time. So yeah, completely on board with that. And I'm all about, you know, each person deserves to do what works for them. But if someone

feels like, oh my gosh, I've been trying therapy for years and it's not helping. Oh, yeah. I feel hopeful that this is a really, and we could link to it in the show notes, hopefully. No, we absolutely will. And I will. And I will also link to Overreaders Anonymous, which is a 12-step program that many people seek based on the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous as well. You know, those are all resources. And yeah, I mean, I could talk forever in therapy about the feelings, but those actually, that kind of talk for me needs to be supported by, but what do I do? What is the food plan?

What's the feeling I'm running from? Why, you know, if I take away the food, then what's going to take its place, right? So we say it's about the food. It's not about the food. But yeah. Yeah. And then in terms of emotional eating, just to finish that part of it up, you know, emotional eating, maybe initially you think, oh, I had a hard day. Let me get myself like my favorite. That's every day.

You know, time. That's every day. Yeah. And I'm all about self-compassion. But that actually, like, it's like trying to get out of stain in a way that, like, just spreads the stain. You just described the last six years of my life. How so? Like every day feel, I mean, what I absolutely, let's just do it. Let's do it. What I feel and I do, and I do, I do, I do, I do. I typically do. I have very long days. I typically do. I have very back-to-back days. And there's this notion. And I, you know, I wasn't raised with this notion. No one told me this. It literally, my eating disorder didn't properly start until I was about 40 years old. I was coming out of a breakup. And, you know, I wasn't raised with this notion. And I was. And,

It literally, my eating disorder didn't properly start until I was about 40 years old. I was coming out of a breakup and it became the solution. It became the solution to, you know, going to bed alone or not having that person to text. Like food became my partner. It literally became my partner. So once I started attending meetings and working through that and it's been almost two years, what I realized, though, is that this is the game I play with myself. after every day that feels hard, stressful, whatever it is, this is what I think I deserve,

and then fill in the blank, you know, I deserve that special meal, which maybe some people will have once a week or twice a month or whatever it is. Every day felt like I need that. I need that comfort. It's like, and it was, I wasn't ordering steamed vegetables. Do you know what I mean? Like, I wanted comfort and I wanted carbs and I want fat, which I'm a mammal. I'm a human mammal animal. I know why those foods also feel so nourishing and comforting. There's a reason they're called comfort foods. There's science to that. But that notion of exactly what you said, like, I deserve this and I need it. It became every night, you know. So then I would restrict in the day because I knew what was coming at night and like, there you go. Like, how look, I'm such a good,

you know, restrictor. I wanted to be the best so that I didn't feel guilty when I did that at night. And this was after my binge eating disorder was actually kind of under control. This is, this is what gets left over. Everybody happy now? There it is. Well, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so great for your courage in expressing that. And I think every, like so many people listening would say the same. Like, you know, you're fatigued. You need carb loading. Then that becomes like this idea that that's like faux self-compassion, like, oh, let me treat myself. But then when you, on top of you're fatigue, you feel shame, guilt. And then the next day you're physiologically hungry. And you feel hung over too. Yeah. You feel hung over. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Right. And so my approach,

the reason I wrote end emotional eating in addition to feeling like the research should be disseminated to the asses was because I felt like everyone, there's a million diet books. Like we all know, you know, and also the newest, which I like the most, is intuitive eating. You don't need to follow a prescription. You could kind of trust your body and listen to your hunger cues. That being said, people need, people that struggle with eating need to learn how to manage their emotions. And there's a more compassionate, effective way to do so. And if you learn to manage your emotions, you can create a much more diverse, rewarding portfolio of self-sooting strategies that actually nourish you rather than just, you know, create this. First you felt tired and sad and then you just, you know, shame guilt.

Well, and I think when you mentioned hunger cues and really waiting for my bestie Jonathan Cohen to chime in here, because when you mentioned hunger cues, I realized when I started literally dealing with and repairing my eating disorder, I realized that I only had two cues, starving or no cues, meaning I'm also a grazer, I'm a habitual grazer, and I'm like, I'll do a handful of something or a two bites of something. And I mean, I used to do that essentially every 20 to 30 minutes, like if you let me, you know, and it just went like that all day. So there were zero hunger cues because I was never properly hungry. And it was just like maintaining, it was maintenance. And I also, there was a lot of stress in particular at this time. So for me, it was like that constant, I just like kept, I kept it,

you know, kept it right here, never had to feel hungry. And then when enough kind of guilt and shame would gather or self-consciousness, because I would notice that people noticed that I was like essentially constantly eating, right? Like little bits. Also, I work in an industry where most women do not eat a lot of food. And seeing women eat at all is often unusual, meaning there are times when you're in a meeting or whatever, and everyone's eating except the female actresses. You know, like that's completely common. But the other thing I would do is feel that hunger that no longer was a cue because it was just constant, you know? I mean, Jonathan, do you have anything to say about hunger cues? I have a ton to say here. One is that I want to dispel any

myth that this type of lack of hunger cues or relationship with food is at all a female only thing. I think it gets attributed a lot to women and women talk a lot more about it. I had the same thing. My family, constant grazer, constant snacks. All my friends used to be like, like, you never stop eating. You don't. Pack food. You don't stop eating.

I mean, I prevent. And I don't associate myself with having an eating disorder necessarily. And I'd love to sort of outline. like what are the things that maybe if someone has no concept that they might fall into this category, what should we look for? But let's not do that just yet. I can't wait for that. Yeah, I think it's fascinating. But for me, like I would preventatively eat because what would happen is I would crash so hard that I would start to feel delirious. Like my ex when I was married, she would carry snacks for me because like we would go to Costco and then like I'd become a monster.

I couldn't focus. I didn't know where I was going. And I started to actually develop a very, I started training myself because it used to be that when I woke up in the morning, if I didn't eat, I felt nauseous and like almost physically sick within 15 to 20 minutes. But then I heard about people like who intermittently fast. And I heard that if you're grazing all the time, your digestive system is constantly working. And so that is actually quite bad for us because we're putting a lot of energy into our digestion instead of into the reparative functions of some of our other processes that we need. So I started to like be like, well, how can I start to adjust that. So I started to push myself a little bit. And I would tell myself, like, I feel this

sensation like I'm dizzy and I'm about to die. But like any other emotion, I'm going to sort of breathe through it and get through it. And I started pushing myself to the point where I didn't have to eat right when I woke up. And I started developing a different relationship with my hunger cues. And by no means is, am I solved by, because sometimes I don't feel hungry at all. And I'm wondering why. And sometimes I still get to the point where I feel really sick from not eating or or from having that crash. But I think the idea that we all have to reevaluate what is the signal that is driving us to eat, when are we really hungry versus when are we feeling another emotion that we associate with food.

And then also how do we understand what do we really need in order to survive versus whatever other role food is playing in our lives? So, yeah, it is a practice to both your points to really like relearn hunger cues. and, you know, also be able to sort of eat when you're moderately hungry, not famished and finished when you're moderately full. A lot of people talk about, you know, kind of food being an expression of intimacy, you know, of emotion or, you know, it's also biblically, it's euphemistic, you know, and in many cultures, it's euphemistic. And I just know, I mean, I reference Jewish things because it's my, you know, point of reference. the first thing that a newly married couple does is they are secluded together to eat. They're supposed to eat together. And a lot of people are like, no, they're supposed to have sex.

But actually, at traditional Jewish weddings, that's the first thing you do. You know, whatever you say your vows and you walk to, and you are secluded. It's called Yichud. It's a separation. And you break bread together because this is how you build a union is with food. So it's such a powerful cultural icon. eating and, you know, and nourishing, but there is also a very strong connection historically and biologically with intimacy. Can you speak a little bit kind of to where that fits in, meaning

when Jonathan says I'm preventatively eating, like, and this is complete, I'm just using this as an example. It's like some people might say like, oh, is there not enough love to go around in one's childhood or like, you know, or for me, if I always have to be eating is I'm afraid there won't be the next thing. Like, is that a thing? Sure. I mean, first of all, food, like, if you you're eating especially for emotional reasons, short term, it does two things, right? Like, it takes away. It's a way to experientially avoid whatever you're feeling. Like, it takes away your bad emotion and then add something good and food is delicious and especially, you know, the foods that are accessible to us now are like amazing. And so it's a double win short term.

And again, like short term, but longer term, it's actually incredibly self-invalidating to be like, oh, I'm angry. Let me just like eat because that's not. normalizing or honoring the fact that your anger is coming from a reasonable place. Your needs weren't met and how to deal with that. Or if you're feeling lonely, that's something I certainly hear these days is people are feeling lonely and using food as like this, like, you know, maybe that was something that you had in your childhood. Like to your point, Maya, I'm like, you know, this was like a familial way to feel close and, you know, a sense of community. That being said, like I really want people to sort of slow down because,

long term this just backfires and it's not compassion to yourself. And if we can try to figure out what are better ways, like loneliness is a better one. Because like eating until you feel achy and embarrassed is not going to bring you closer to your people. And I also just want to acknowledge. Like I, you know, we're all in the same soup. And there, you know, I would be, I would be remiss to say that I'm not part of like I'm better. You know, I also, you know, if I have a hard long day, I'm like, I deserve a treat. I have this deadline tomorrow and I worked all day. I want this.

But there's a, you know, I truly practice everything I, I prescribe, which is, you know, I can notice. Like, am I actually hungry? Am I actually anxious? Like what observing and describing my hunger level, observing and describing my emotions and being able to more effectively think of other ways to self-sooth. And so I think if someone does identify as someone who struggles with, food is like they're one, you know, they're one way to regulate to think about other ways to self-sue.

And this could be very person-specific. More so now than ever before, people are, don't cook. We spend the least amount of time shopping, prepping, thinking. And some people have gone the other way where you're like, oh, we're superfoodies. But a lot of people, like you're ordering Uber eats, does our lack of actually touching food, chopping food, impact our hunger signals? because now it's like, I think I'm hungry. I'm just going to order something and then, oh, then it's done.

Like the interaction is so fast. Like, is there part of us that needs the ritual of actually cooking, prepping, thinking about that we're going to eat, prep it? Like, because there's a preparation that happens in our body that when we're cooking before we start to just consume. Jonathan, I think this is so interesting. And you're talking to someone who doesn't cook. But I do think that it's so crazy to me how long it takes to prepare a meal.

and how a person could just, you know, finish a meal in three minutes and mindlessly, you know, while they're multitasking, while they're on their phone and watching TV, that took hours to prepare. And so I think the fact that it's just arriving at our door, maybe we fail to appreciate the nuances of taste and effort put in. And like from the farmer to the person in the kitchen to the, you know, recipe developer to the person that brought it to our door, the more I think we can slow down both like before we eat during our eating because it's really quite impossible to eat to have problems with eating if you're eating really mindfully, really slowing down. So I think maybe if someone prepares a meal, there's more of an sense of let me savor this, let me slow down, like let me sort of like appreciate. Also super, yeah,

and super duper shout out to religious traditions that pray before they eat. and in my, our tradition, we pray after we eat. And one of the things that is so meticulous and ritualized about a lot of the practices of religious Judaism in particular, there's a prayer for every kind of food. There are categories of food and you bless each category independently unless you break bread because bread is like a, it's like a super blessing. But that notion, which like my children, I try and do that literally on Shabbas. I try and do it one day a week, and it is so painful for my children to wait. Just wait. We're going to bless the wine, grape juice.

We're going to bless the chala. You're going to wait. And then you also have to wash your hands and bless it and wait. And like, it is so painful. And when I'm with my religious family or religious friends, there's such a mindfulness because everyone's on that plane of timing about food. I think a lot about how technology impacts our psychology, our neurobiology, and our physiology. And I do really wonder a lot about how the speed and access to things in our lives are changing our perception of them.

So does it change? Like you consume that burger. You wolf it down while you've done seven other things. You've only, you know, the amount of time you spend to get it and to think about it is only a few minutes and then a few minutes consuming it. maybe it changes our hunger signals. Maybe it changes how full we feel and then when we want our next meal. And I think that's like we're at the beginning of something very different in our evolutionary history. It actually takes approximately 20 minutes for satiety mechanisms to like to actually kick in. I happen to know about this region of the hypothalamus because it was the topic of my thesis. But yeah, it actually does take time. And this is something especially with my younger one who eats really, really fast. You've witnessed this. We've tried to, you know, impress upon. him that your brain needs time to catch up with what's going into the gullet. I do the same thing with my son where I see him like consuming, scarf.

I scarf. Yeah, I do it too. I'm like, dude, you need to pause. He wants to get back to playing his video games, Jonathan. Well, that's the thing. It's like, okay, pause for 20 minutes. If you're still hungry later, we'll continue. But like just all in one sitting, you need time to catch up.

Video gaming, especially in this past year because they've played so much more than anyone I think would want their child to. He literally will either ask to eat in front of the screen, which the answer is no, except Saturday night he gets to eat his sushi in front of, you know, while playing with his friends. But no, that's what he does, is he will literally scarf because he wants to get back upstairs. And I say, oh, no, you can scarf it. And then you're going to sit here for another 15 minutes and watch me and your brother. And, you know, in terms of joy, you know, we enjoy our food so much more when we slow down. And also in terms of our ability to control what we eat or not control in like a restrictive way, but just in a, the opposite of,

you know, indulgence or overeating mindlessly. If you, one exercise that I love to do with my clients is like mindful eating. Like literally, if you open up a Hershey kiss and peel the wrapper slowly, smell it, you know, put it in your mouth, let it sit there, really notice like where it touches your teeth, what it tastes like differences in shape as it sits in your mouth, you're not going to be like going through an entire bag. Maybe you'll feel like I'm actually satisfied. That was very sweet. I don't want more. But the way we eat is we're totally not paying attention and paying attention is a huge part of our experience of fullness. I love that. I still could imagine doing that with every kiss in the bag. But they have dairy in them so I can't eat them anymore. It would just take you

longer. It would take me a bit. Oh, that would be the whole day. I do want to touch on your most recent book, How to Be Single and Happy, Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soulmate. This sounds like the most important book of everyone's life who is dealing with any aspect of being single, being lonely, wanting to be happy. I think that this past year in particular has really rocked a lot of people's worlds. And what I've heard from people who previously were single and happy. is that what has set in is like a level of fear and desperation surrounding this. And I think some of

that speaks to, you know, a really important kind of cultural and social reckoning that many people are having, meaning I've had friends who like literally didn't really think they wanted to partner up and all of a sudden said, no, I don't like this. I don't like this in this kind of climate because it's shown me how much we, and again, it makes me emotional. I'm a person that really has never been single because I'm, I'm one of those, like, serial monogamous, like, who goes from, like, first date to long-term relationship, first date to long-term relationship. So there, there has been, you know, specifically one period in my life when I was very single, and I was, I was, I was not happy. I was really, really, really, really, really not happy. And it wasn't even that I was look

I don't really resonate with online stuff. I did try one briefly, and it was hilarious and literally worth it for the hilarity. But just not my thing. Also, I'm a public person. It's very different. And people will be like, there's the celebrity one. And it's like, no, still not my thing. The advent or the popularization of swiping has introduced in some ways, I think, a lot more hysteria surrounding this.

And I guess, you know, if I had to kind of narrow it down to like one question, I've heard that there are people who are single and happy. But I don't, I also don't know that there's anything wrong with people who want to be coupled. But if you can sort of tell us, like, what was the impetus for writing it and sort of what, what was it like sort of presenting this kind of information? Also, are you single and happy? I'm married. Are you happy? Are you married and happy? You're married and happy? Yeah, people tell me you to write a follow up of how to be married and happy as well. Well, apparently that's an issue as well. Big issue. Shortly before writing this book, I had a broken engagement that was very embarrassing and very awkward and uncomfortable.

And I, previous to writing this book, I would personally estimate that I spent thousands of hours ruminating about, you know, will I meet someone, how much better my life will be if I do. And my prescription in the book is not to stay single. It is given the fact that so many people are having or trying to meet someone looking for love, but it's the one to do that's tough to tackle for so many people. a lot of the patients I see feel like in every area of their life, there's a correlation between effort and outcome. But in dating, they might feel especially with the online dating, it's just an endless amount of rejection. My goal in writing this book was for people that are wonderful human beings and are doing everything right in their lives to not second guess themselves and to feel like happiness is on hold until this other thing happens that they can't control. And so I'm trying to

teach people a science of happiness. and, you know, there are researchers that say that happiness has so much to do with your mindset than your circumstances. And we do like, you know, stuff like hedonic adaptation. We do get used to wonderful things that happen in our lives. And crazy enough, there's a German socioeconomic study with a population of 24,000 people. And on average, marriage made people 1% happier. And so I am not opposed to. all about, you know, coupling and honoring your instincts about what you need to be happy, but also until you find that connection, rather than feeling like, and then I'll be happy, how can you create happiness right now? You know, there's incredible brain studies that show

that mindfulness correlates with happiness. There's a lot on, I could go on on about this, behavioral activation, doing activities that you might normally do if you were happy, even if you don't feel that way correlating with happiness. That's actually. actually as effective as antidepressants in elevating your mood. So rather than people feel like they're kind of stuck and out of luck and they also need to beat themselves up for their struggles, I want people to feel especially women who feel ashamed or are looking at the past or criticizing themselves. I want people to feel empowered now. I think it's obviously such an important book for any time, but I think especially now, so, so needed.

You're a really fascinating person, and I'm so glad we got to speak to you. And I also really want to thank you for not only seeing so many clients and being, you know, being there for so many people, but also kind of not being afraid to put yourself out there in a larger way. And my therapist doesn't go on podcast. I mean, she should. I think everybody should talk to her. But it's a very brave thing in particular for you to, you know, really put your face on, you know, what you do in that way. and your clients are so lucky to have you and we're so lucky to have you with us today. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much. In terms of eating disorders, let's talk about some indicators that you might need help. We're not here to diagnose anyone or to label anyone. But let's ask Dr. Tate's, Dr. Jenny, or Jenny, what are the things to look for? You might need help if, fill in the blinks. You might need help if you feel a loss of control while you're eating. You feel like you totally lose control. You eat a very large number of calories very quickly,

would be an example of losing control. You might also need help if you're spending a tremendous amount of time thinking about food and your body, this is in your head at times beyond when you're preparing for your next meal. You might need help if you're choosing to not eat when you're hungry or do things like purge or, you know, getting rid of food, food in a way that's, you know, obvious, you know, indicative of not being kind to your body. And you might need help if the idea of going out in public in your current body is something that makes you feel ashamed. I would also argue you might need help if you use exercise

primarily as a way to get rid of the feelings you have after eating. Or if you are using, if you are exercising, you know, know upwards of hours a day in direct relation to calories that you have consumed. And that's one it's clinically described as exercise bulimia. It is a very, very serious, serious form of trying to transfer the emotional content of food. So I would add that you might need help if. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. And we will link to all of your articles and also your books. And we really appreciate your time with us. Thank you so much. Are you taking new clients?

Jonathan? My and B. Alex breakdown is supported by Scoremaster. Did you know that the average American has 97 points they could add to their credit score, but no idea how to get those points? Well, the data scientists at Scoremaster cracked the code on how. Adding 97 points to your credit score is literally like found money. It means faster loan approvals, discounts, low interest rates on everything from buying or refinancing a home to leasing a new car to applying for a credit card. How fast is Scoremaster? Jonathan.

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I have a whole list of things to talk to her about. I mean, she was telling me before we even started, like she specializes in treating panic disorder. She said it's one of the easiest things to treat. I was like, that's the thing that most people freak out about and don't know what to do. She's super, what I like about her. She's like a therapist for the people.

You know, her main message is there are, things that you can do that don't take 25 years. You know, I mean, like, like me, I'm a life or in therapy. But she really, really works in targeted ways. And look, that's what that kind of therapy does, you know, both cognitive behavioral therapy and this dialectical behavioral therapy. That's what they do. They're specific targeters. And I just love, well, I love how she talks about mindfulness. Like, that's so important. Just like, what a groovy lady. That's, I mean, look, she may not be everybody's vibe, meaning someone might say, like, I want someone more or whatever. But like, she's got to be a great therapist.

Like, that's, she's a great therapist, I'm sure. All over simplify the summary of this whole episode. Everything can be solved with ice. No, everything can solve by feeling terrified. Everyone's wondering why we don't get the finer version of Jonathan. We should make you do like a week of that. Before our next podcast recording, we should see if. we notice a difference. If your eyes stop darting around at all the things on your screen when we're

recording. You think I don't notice. I notice. I adjusted my camera three times off when I was off screen. Everyone noticed that who is in charge of our technical things. You're very fidgety. I don't think she can cure that, though. I bet she can. Ask MyManything. Yeah. Today's Ask MyM Anything submitted by Shereen. Thank you, Shireen. Her question is Could you explain binge eating disorder? Is it hereditary? If so, is there a way to break the chain for future generations? Binge eating disorder is an eating disorder where you frequently eat large amounts of food and you feel unable to stop.

Like that's kind of the typical description. So you're frequently consuming unusually large amounts of food and you feel like you can't stop. meaning it feels like a compulsion to do that. And look, overeating, we're not talking about overeating. You know, some people overeat on occasion it happens. We're talking about a habitual thing. And as someone with binge eating disorder, I can speak to that. There's also a sense of shame and embarrassment that comes about it and anxiety about

eating around other people because you're afraid you won't be able to control it. Some people do have an awareness that it's out of control. Another symptom of binge eating disorder is eating even when you're full. eating when you're not hungry, eating rapidly during these binging episodes, eating until you're uncomfortably full or sick? That's just holidays in America, right? Some people might say it's too soon to make that joke. Sorry, everyone.

Again, we're talking about something that's habitual and frequent and compulsive and not holidays in America. I try to lighten it a little bit. I didn't mean to upset. Eating a loner in secret, this is actually, this is very, very, Shireen. to share something very, very shameful, but we are as sick as our secrets. When I noticed that my binge eating disorder was out of control, I was still dating the person that I ended up not dating, which led to more of an exacerbation of this. I would find excuses to go downstairs when it was

supposed to be bedtime. I would find excuses to go downstairs and sneak food. And I would say, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that tonight. And I would do that. Feeling depressed or disgusted or ashamed or guilty about your eating often comes along with binge eating disorder and often binge eating disorder does go hand in hand with other abnormal eating. So that's binge eating disorder. And the severity is determined by how often this happens. But people with binge eating disorder can sometimes spend hours eating, like literally hours eating. Is it hereditary? You know, I'm not an expert. I'm not an eating disorder genetics expert. I do know that a lot of the aspects that lead people to binge eating disorder are aspects of anxiety and lack of coping mechanisms,

which can be genetically passed down, but it's a very kind of complicated combination of a genetic predisposition which may not be very clear, meaning it's not like, here's the gene for it, and an environmental component as well. You know, for me, it was essentially situational, but I do believe I had some genetic predisposition, but the healthy habits that we try to develop when we're in recovery, those are the things. things that we pass on, you know? And I've noticed that my children have gotten used to or had started getting used to me not eating with them and like eating at weird times and like restricting and they started noticing it. That was another thing that got me to get into recovery. It's not like

it's one gene that's passed on. It's a collection of behaviors and experiences and support. And one of the things that we can best do, especially, you know, when we think about our children, is to communicate healthy habits and also being honest about the complexity of eating and emotions. Thank you for that question and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some of my recovery. Thank you again, Dr. Tates. Thank you, Jonathan, for a particularly enlightening episode. And from my breakdown to the one that I hope you never have, we'll see you next time. It's my ambiotics breakdown.

She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break it. Bye