June 22, 2009
I mentioned Oprah’s Best Life Week in a long ago post and I wanted to talk about a statement she made in her interview on Monday of that week that I keep on thinking about – almost half a year later. As she talked about her own struggles with weight, she said “Anybody who struggles with weight is hungry for something else.”
I’ve been entrenched in the world of weight loss, professionally and personally, for almost a decade. I’ve heard a lot of things said about people who struggle with their weight, most hurtful and a far cry from the truth. Oprah, no big surprise here, knows what she’s talking about. For about 20% of the people I work with, weight loss is merely a matter of understanding how many calories they need and how many calories are in the foods they eat. They get the formula, the book, the log and off they go. For the majority, eating in excess (and a deficit of activity) may indeed be one part lack of knowledge, but is a greater part emotionally driven. It’s not about willpower, about being lazy, about being stupid or all the other things we’ve all heard said (probably most often from none other than Yourself) – it’s about discovering and understanding, as Oprah, said what you’re really hungry for.
It could be as simple as more sleep or as profound as more love. It could be as benign as a cure for boredom or as complex as a cure for low self-worth.
Many people fear being hungry when they’re trying to lose weight, but the fact is that stomach growling hunger is much easier to deal with then love-hunger, security-hunger, self-worth-hunger, companionship-hunger, peace-hunger, calm-hunger, or whatever else you are starving for. Feeding that hunger with food – food that is so readily available and inexpensive in our country – is a learned habit. Can you un-learn a habit? Of course… but not without support, introspection, determination and the choice to build a new habit.
Oprah has bared her hunger and declared herself willing to try and feed it in a way that supports her health. Are you ready to find and feed your hunger?
More articles on emotional eating:
Stress Eating
Cravings
February 25, 2009
You’re trying hard. You’ve eaten great all day, bringing your brown bag lunch to work, having your fruit for a snack, skipping dessert at dinner. But it’s 9 pm, Ryan Seacrest is on the background, you’re snuggled up in your jammies…relaxing…. When all of a sudden it hits you: that craving for a little something something. Sweet or salty, creamy or crunchy, hot or cold… each person’s craving is different.
Like the tractor beam on the Starship Enterprise pulling you, you find yourself drawn to the pantry or freezer. Despite the “you shouldn’t do this” warning in your head, you find your hand reaching forward to grab….
Nothing.
Nothing? Wait a second, that’s not how this scene played out for the last few years. There was always something there – some chips, some ice cream, maybe that secret stash of chocolate you don’t think your spouse knows about. Why is there nothing now?
There’s nothing there now because you set yourself up for success. How did you do that? By saying no at the grocery store. By saying no at the grocery store, and not bringing your tempting foods into your house, you set up an environment that makes you successful in times that you would have otherwise struggled: when you’re tired, bored, relaxing, anxious, worried…. You reach for your comfort food only to find it’s not there.
You’re not really hungry. (If you were, you’d be reaching for a quick salad or a piece of fruit, not the jar of cashews.) There’s something else at play here, and until you deal with the root of the cravings, the quickest course to success is to Say No Once and make your environment a no-fail zone.
Like taking away a child’s security blanket, the absence of food will help you become more aware of what you’re using that food for. This may mean you have to feel those emotions – boredom, fatigue, worry – but allowing yourself to feel and endure those emotions is the first step in healing emotional eating. Say No Once, and succeed many times.
November 19, 2008
T.F.A.
Thoughts. Feelings. Actions.
TFA is the major principal to understanding and untangling emotional eating. TFA stands for Thoughts lead to Feelings, Feelings lead to Actions.
Here’s an example:
Many people start off their weight loss program hopeful, enthusiastic, and confident. Their predominant thought might be something like “I can do this! I have the tools, I know what I need to do and I can do this!!” Weight comes off and reinforces this belief.
The thought here is: I can do this.
What kind of feelings would you experience if your predominant thinking was “I can do this?” I always think of confidence and excitement as the two main emotions that derive from that thought.
What kind of actions do you take when you feel confident and excited?
Do you make healthy choices?
Do you meal plan?
Do you track your food?
Do you go to the gym?
You betcha. You’re on top of the world and ain’t no stopping you now.
Fast forward to a few months later. There’s often a period of burn-out around this time, and thoughts start going something like this: “Gosh, this is hard. I have to track my foods for the rest of my life? I want to eat that, why can’t I eat that? Can I really do this? Why is the weight slowing down? This is hard.”
Predominant thought: This is hard.
What kind of feelings do you experience when you’re walking around thinking “This is hard.”? No longer confident and excited, most people here feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and maybe even a little resentful.
What kind of actions do you think you take when you feel frustrated and overwhelmed?
Do you make healthy choices?
Do you meal plan?
Do you track your food?
Do you go to the gym?
At this point, probably not. The action that follows overwhelm is something akin to curling up in the fetal position and whimpering for it to go away. Well, maybe not quite that dramatic, but you can see how the feelings you experience (that derive from the thoughts you have) drive the actions you take.
Before you go any further, I need to ask you this question:
Who determines what thoughts you have?
If you said “I do!” then proceed on. You’re ready for Step Two.
If you answered anything else, then Step Two isn’t going to be help you yet. If you feel as if your thoughts come from somewhere other than yourself, then you’re not in a position to change your thoughts. If you’re not ready to change your thoughts, you’re certainly not ready to change your actions.
If you are ready to change your thoughts, let’s proceed and see how this works for emotional eating. In Step One, you collected the data of the feelings that triggered your moments of disconnection. You’ve collected the F in TFA. When you reflect on these cues, can you see why your brain has effectively removed you from those feelings with a disconnection?
Using the data you collected in Step One, trace the feelings you’ve pinpointed back to the Thoughts that generated those feelings.
Example:
For me, a trigger to disconnect (have a food craving) is when I sit down to write something and I have writers’ block. You can imagine how many boxes of Wheat Thins were consumed during my thesis preparation.
The feeling I experience is something akin to anxiousness and pressure.
The thought I trace that back to: “I have to think of something to write. I have to finish this paper/article/email/blog/product by — date, I only have an hour to work on it and it has to be good.” That thought presses my panic button.
What kind of choices do I make when I feel anxious? Not good ones.
Step Two: Trace the Feelings back to the Thoughts, until you can pinpoint what thoughts are generating the feelings of discomfort that create the action of craving/eating food. T.F.A.
Now here’s the fun part. Remember who we said was in charge of your thoughts? That’s right… you. You and you alone have the power to change that thought. Remember, a thought is just your perception of a situation. Like it or not, your thoughts are not infallible. I often meet a lot of resistance with clients around this area, because they believe if they release themselves from the thoughts they are having, things won’t get done, people will think differently of them, they won’t feel as good about themselves, and the world will stop spinning.
Newsflash: Reducing your stress rarely leads to these negative outcomes.
My thought change around my writer’s block meant that I had to let go of the idea that if I didn’t finish whatever I was working on in that very moment that my world would keep on spinning. From “I have to finish this now” to “It’s okay if I don’t know what to say now. I’ll come back to it when I feel more creative” may seem like a simple switch, but it’s taken months of practicing my new thought for it to start becoming ingrained.
Now when I experience writer’s block my new thoughts allows me to feel relieved and released, instead of panicked and anxious. I put down what I’m doing and walk away with a feeling of lightness. The snack craving I used to experience every time I got stuck has diminished and will, I believe, eventually disappear. The new feelings of relief and permission to let go do not generate feelings of discomfort.
Changing your thoughts requires patience, vigilance and practice. Once you identify the thoughts you have that are generating the feelings of discomfort, choose a new perception of the situation that allows you to feel something more productive: excited, confident, hopeful, encouraged, calm….
Go crazy daydreaming about what different perceptions you might have, until you find one that creates the least resistance and doubt. Once you hear the old thought starting to surface, blow the whistle and intentionally replace the old thought with the new one.
Practice, practice, practice. With time, your new thoughts can become as automatic as your old thoughts once were. This process may feel a bit tedious, but the end result is as effective as it is dramatic. You have nothing to lose (except some weight) and a whole lot to gain (except some weight.)
Food For Thought: Start small – choose just one feeling cue from Step One to work around and trace it back to the thought you are experiencing that is generating that feeling. Imagine how else you could perceive the situation that is generating this feeling of discomfort. What new interpretation would create the feelings you want to feel? Choose a new thought and make it a point to intentionally replace that old, automatic thought every time you hear it surface over the new few weeks. If you experience a shift in your thinking and reduction in your cravings, let me hear from you!
November 13, 2008
It’s 8:13 pm. You’ve got your feet up on the couch and your finger on the fast forward button to rewind through the commercials of your favorite TV show. Your long day – complete with a deadline at work, a new statement from your 401k you really didn’t want to see, an email from your kid’s teacher and a phone call from your parents about their latest health concern – is finally, finally behind you. It is now time to relax.
And, apparently… eat?
Forget that you’ve just eaten dinner. And it was a good dinner. A gorgeous green salad with light dressing, a lean protein, a fiber packed grain. You eat three meals and snacks. Fruits and veggies. Drank all your water. Boy, you were good today.
So, why, oh why, oh why, is it that that little bugger of a snack craving always hits as soon as you get good and relaxed?
The Answer? One part habit, one part emotions.
How many of you can recall a time when you were a wee impressionable one and food was given to you as some sort of reward for a job well done? Whether you are six or forty-six, food as a reward for a hard day’s work is an all too common habit. No need to point fingers at the rewarder, they probably learned it from their superiors too. It’s a habit many, many people have established.
Part two is the emotional eating aspect. Emotional eating is a complex process. Emotional eating is a means of disconnecting. Store up that word – it’s one of my favorites for explaining emotional eating, and this is a topic on which we’ve got a lot of grounds to cover. What does disconnection look like?
Here’s a picture of disconnection: You, sitting on the couch, your feet up. You, the whirlwind that is on the go from 5 am to 8 pm without a breather, finally stops moving. When you stop, the brain starts. Have you ever found that if you sit still for juuuust long enough all those uncomfy thoughts start rushing in? All the things on your to do list that you didn’t tackle today that beckon tomorrow, the money or health concerns that don’t go away, your kids’ problems, how tired you are, how you should have gone to the gym… on and on and on.
Haven’t experienced this? That’s because your sneaky little brain saved you from this intense overwhelm of the thoughts many of us carry around daily. Before you have time to dwell on this onslaught of unfixable worries, your brain steps in and saves the day with a disconnection.
A disconnection is a thought that removes you from a situation (in your mind) that causes discomfort and is not easily remedied. My disconnection comes in the form of wheat thins. Or tostitos. Or rainbow sherbet. Yours?
The moment your brain serves up that snack craving, it effectively removes you from the thoughts that rush in when we slow down. Mix in years of habitually using food as a reward for a day’s hard work, and you have a recipe for a CRAVING.
If this is resonating with you, we have some work to do. Step One is not to fight it with willpower. This will only get you so far. A few days if you’re normal, a few months if you’re reallllllly lucky. This isn’t about willpower. It’s about changing the way you think about food in order to make a lifestyle change.
Step One is to identify the moment of disconnection. When that craving hits (regardless of it’s 8 pm relaxing or 3 pm at work or 10 am after putting the kids down for a nap or 5 pm when you walk in the door) and you recognize that you’re not hungry, stop and acknowledge a) that you are disconnecting from something and b) what is is your disconnecting from. Ask yourself the question “What am I disconnecting from?” Ask and answer. Ask and answer, ask and answer, ask and answer. Find the themes. As you answer your own question, start gathering the data that pinpoints the who, what, where, why and when’s of your own personal cues to disconnect.
This is Step One. Step Two is all about changing your perception of the things that are your cues to eat. But, this is turning into a novel of an entry so I’ll leave you here to practice your Step One for awhile. I’ll be back, with step two. (And it won’t take me 2 weeks this time – I promise!)
Food For Thought: If this concept of disconnection hits home, start with Step One. Keep a little journal somewhere that you can collect your data. It can be a calendar, a notebook, the back of envelope… just write it down so you can start recognizing what themes are your cues. Healing the worry means finding the worry. So let it in. Even if you go ahead and eat your craving this week, doing the Step One will pull you from a place of mindless decision making to conscious, thought driven choices. So even if you eat, it’s a conscious choice. Conscious choices are the antidote to mindless munching.
November 12, 2008
It’s 8:13 pm. You’ve got your feet up on the couch and your finger on the fast forward button to rewind through the commercials of your favorite TV show. Your long day – complete with a deadline at work, a new statement from your 401k you really didn’t want to see, an email from your kid’s teacher and a phone call from your parents about their latest health concern – is finally, finally behind you. It is now time to relax.
And, apparently… eat?
Forget that you’ve just eaten dinner. And it was a good dinner. A gorgeous green salad with light dressing, a lean protein, a fiber packed grain. You eat three meals and snacks. Fruits and veggies. Drank all your water. Boy, you were good today.
So, why, oh why, oh why, is it that that little bugger of a snack craving always hits as soon as you get good and relaxed?
The Answer? One part habit, one part emotions.
How many of you can recall a time when you were a wee impressionable one and food was given to you as some sort of reward for a job well done? Whether you are six or forty-six, food as a reward for a hard day’s work is an all too common habit. No need to point fingers at the rewarder, they probably learned it from their superiors too. It’s a habit many, many people have established.
Part two is the emotional eating aspect. Emotional eating is a complex process. Emotional eating is a means of disconnecting. Store up that word – it’s one of my favorites for explaining emotional eating, and this is a topic on which we’ve got a lot of grounds to cover. What does disconnection look like?
Here’s a picture of disconnection: You, sitting on the couch, your feet up. You, the whirlwind that is on the go from 5 am to 8 pm without a breather, finally stops moving. When you stop, the brain starts. Have you ever found that if you sit still for juuuust long enough all those uncomfy thoughts start rushing in? All the things on your to do list that you didn’t tackle today that beckon tomorrow, the money or health concerns that don’t go away, your kids’ problems, how tired you are, how you should have gone to the gym… on and on and on.
Haven’t experienced this? That’s because your sneaky little brain saved you from this intense overwhelm of the thoughts many of us carry around daily. Before you have time to dwell on this onslaught of unfixable worries, your brain steps in and saves the day with a disconnection.
A disconnection is a thought that removes you from a situation (in your mind) that causes discomfort and is not easily remedied. My disconnection comes in the form of wheat thins. Or tostitos. Or rainbow sherbet. Yours?
The moment your brain serves up that snack craving, it effectively removes you from the thoughts that rush in when we slow down. Mix in years of habitually using food as a reward for a day’s hard work, and you have a recipe for a CRAVING.
If this is resonating with you, we have some work to do. Step One is not to fight it with willpower. This will only get you so far. A few days if you’re normal, a few months if you’re reallllllly lucky. This isn’t about willpower. It’s about changing the way you think about food in order to make a lifestyle change.
Step One is to identify the moment of disconnection. When that craving hits (regardless of it’s 8 pm relaxing or 3 pm at work or 10 am after putting the kids down for a nap or 5 pm when you walk in the door) and you recognize that you’re not hungry, stop and acknowledge a) that you are disconnecting from something and b) what is is your disconnecting from. Ask yourself the question “What am I disconnecting from?” Ask and answer. Ask and answer, ask and answer, ask and answer. Find the themes. As you answer your own question, start gathering the data that pinpoints the who, what, where, why and when’s of your own personal cues to disconnect.
This is Step One. Step Two is all about changing your perception of the things that are your cues to eat. But, this is turning into a novel of an entry so I’ll leave you here to practice your Step One for awhile. I’ll be back, with step two. (And it won’t take me 2 weeks this time – I promise!)
Food For Thought: If this concept of disconnection hits home, start with Step One. Keep a little journal somewhere that you can collect your data. It can be a calendar, a notebook, the back of envelope… just write it down so you can start recognizing what themes are your cues. Healing the worry means finding the worry. So let it in. Even if you go ahead and eat your craving this week, doing the Step One will pull you from a place of mindless decision making to conscious, thought driven choices. So even if you eat, it’s a conscious choice. Conscious choices are the antidote to mindless munching.
October 31, 2008
Dear Readers,
I lied to you in my last blog post and I’m sorry.
Well not really sorry. I lied to you on purpose to see if any of you would raise up in arms. You didn’t, which either means there’s less of you than I think or my lie was just subtle enough to slip by. What did I lie about?
The ease of calorie reduction. I said something along the lines of reducing calories through what you eat is easier than reducing calories through exercise. Now has anyone actually tried reducing the amount of calories that you eat every day? Was it easy?
(I’ve got about 3 clients out there scratching there head going “umm yeah… it was….”) For the rest of us real lifers, reducing your caloric intake by 500 may sound easier than jogging an hour every day but we all know in real life, change is rarely so easy.
Our decision to put xyz food in our mouth is a complex one. It’s driven by hunger, it’s driven by emotions, by sights, by cues of our friends, family, colleagues and random strangers on public transportation, by traditions, by values, by hormonal changes, by whims, by coercion… you name it. This is why I firmly believe in the power of coaching. (And not just by me, but I am pretty good.) A coach can be anyone – your best pal Shelia, your Uncle Leo, your doting wife… or it can be a professional someone – a personal trainer, a nutritionist, a coach, a therapist, a physican.
The truth is is that untangling the complex web of eating decisions is a journey. You’ll make one enlightened step forward and tumble two confusing “why did I do that” steps backward. It will at times be exciting as you discover your own sense of understanding and confidence, but it will also be fraught with frustration and disappointment. Having someone or a team of someones to hold your hand is not just a nice idea, it’s a neccesity.
Food For Thought: If you were going to run a marathon, would you sign up for the one that boasts spectators and bands playing at every mile or the one that promises crickets chirping and silent, barren landscape? Too much time in your head on a long journey is not good for anyone. Are you ready to tackle your weight loss marathon? Round up your spectators, let them know where you need them to stand and make sure when you hear them cheering loud and clear you give them a big ol thanks so they’ll keep on cheering.
Let me say this one more time: You. Need. Support.
Stay tuned for more on untangling that messy web of eating cues I just introduced. That’s where we’re going next. (Get your spectators ready if you think you want to dig in to your own cues!)
September 12, 2008
Don’t.
Ok, I know – easier said than done. I am not necessarily implying that with a snap of your fingers you can simply make difficult people disappear (oh what a world! left lanes free of slow drivers! customer service from the cable company that gives you a scheduled appointment! DMV officials with smiles!). And if your difficult people happen to share a gene pool or a water cooler with you, the likelihood of the avoidance strategy being implemented is smaller. So while we may not be able to eliminate or avoid difficult people, we do not have to deal with them on their level and permit them the power to alter the course of our mood.
Why am I talking about difficult people on a weight loss blog? Many of my clients’ healthy choices relating to eating and exercise are intricately linked to mood. And, like it or not, many of those moods are related to their interactions with other people around us. Unless you’re a modern day Thoreau, chances are you’re interacting with quite a few people on any given day. Imagine if your happiness, and potentially your health, rode up and down like the stock market depending on whether or not those interactions were good ones or bad ones.
Imagine it? Most of us live it.
Yesterday was a phenomenal day for me. I was wrapping up a group I had been working with for the last 18 months. A group that had seen spectacular changes and with whom I had bonded greatly during our time together. One woman described her changes over the last year and half by telling me at one time she was so overweight and in such poor health she couldn’t climb out of her bath tub by herself. Today, she goes salsa dancing whenever she wants. Amazing, right?
After our group wrapped up with hugs and promises to keep in touch, I went home smugly satisfied. Right before climbing in bed, I checked my email only to find a note from a woman who was unhappy with a program I designed. She gave great detail as to which aspects of the program she was unhappy with and in what ways she had been let down.
I cried. I fumed. I stomped my feet.
I woke up today still smarting from her remarks, noted it was raining and decided this day could only go downhill from here.
Wait, WHAT? I nearly came to a screeching halt on the highway when I realized I had just turned over the reins on my blissful, satisfied season finale day to one unhappy woman.
We all do this, often times subconsciously. One bad interaction puts a tarnish on a day that would otherwise have been delightful when we deal with a difficult person. My first instinct was to defend myself to her every point. With some purposeful rethinking, I decided to see what I could learn from her.
There’s an intention behind every action. Most of the time, it is a well meaning intention with poor delivery. Making the choice to imagine what your foe of the moment’s intention is is not an easy one. It means you have to give up the smug “I am RIGHT!” stance that feels oh so warranted in the moment. Delayed gratification isn’t always our strong suit as humans but the more we practice it, the more rewarding it becomes. As you being to recognize that more often than not, your difficult peer is acting out of their own fear, stress, worries, sadness or unhappiness, the need to defend is slowly replaced by a small bud of empathy. Incredible are the results when that empathy genuinely grows.
I was coaching a group around this issue one time and a woman shared her woes about a difficult brother. As we spoke, she surmised her malcontent by stating “But I’m so sick of being the bigger person!”
Sick of being the bigger person? We should all be so fortunate to be the bigger person.
Just imagine what it might feel like to be the smaller person. The view is much, much different from down there.
Food for Thought: The next time you find yourself ranting and raving over an injustice served up by someone you’ve interacted with, stop and ask yourself where they might be coming from. Their actions don’t have to seem “fair” to you, but as you imagine what kind of feeling it would take to speak or act the way they have, do your feelings towards them change?
August 26, 2008
Years ago I came across one of those kitschy post-it note pads that declared “STRESSED SPELLED BACKWARDS IS DESSERTS!” and the adage has been stuck in my head ever since. However, there’s a deeper connection between stress and our favorite comfort foods that goes beyond a palindrome word game. The majority of my clients tell me that when they are stressed, they eat. There truly is a well trained emotional and physical balance between stress and the desire to plow through an entire carton’s of Edy’s Slow Churned. Under stress, your body pumps out cortisol as part of its natural “fight or flight” response to such threats. In chronic stress situations, however, the body no longer responds to the natural signals that tell it to shut down cortisol production. One of the jobs of cortisol is to replenish the energy that would have been used in our fight or flight response (say, to run away from that saber tooth tiger in our caveman days) and thus, hunger is spiked. Cortisol is also responsible for ushering all the excess energy being taken in through Edy’s, oreos and wheat thins and guide them straight to storage in the abdomen area. Helpful when you’ve just run 4 miles to get away from that saber tooth, but not so helpful when the source of your stress is ongoing and usually involves you being pinned to your desk chair, driving around like a chauffeur or vegging out in a near-coma in front of The Office reruns as you try to forget your office drama. Now we’ve got elevated hungry, cravings for quick energy (hello, sugar!), and quick and easy storage of that extra energy.
So, where does this leave us? Helpless to cream puff cravings when your boss is cracking the whip? Having to accept that the moment your daughter says “Mommy, there’s this boy…”, you’re destined to increase a pants size? Hardly! The good news is that while these physiological pathways do exist and can help relieve us of some of our “why can’t I just get my act together” guilt, there is a very strong psychological aspect of stress eating that we evolved humans can do something about. A strong part of this chain is the learned behavior. Under stress, your body responds as it has since its caveman days. We respond as we have since our childhood days – by using food as a comfort and an automatic response to these triggers. Do this enough times (say, the course of a few decades) and we’ve become the proverbial Pavlovian dogs to our pantries and freezers.
Want to free yourself of the response overall? For years I worked with clients (and myself) on finding “replacement activities” when it came to eating as a response to stress. While other activities – exercise, yoga, meditation, laughter, reading, hot baths, and even sex – can act to reduce stress (and consequently, diminish cortisol levels), like food they are still a balm to a sore. Crank that stress up high enough and it’s hard to remember that downward facing dog might be a better response than double chocolate moose tracks.
Then one day it occurred to me – why didn’t we go straight to the root of the problem? Eliminate or reduce the stress.
Sound too good to be true? “I can’t help but be stressed – my job brings it on!” “Being a parent means being stressed – there’s no way around it.” I got to thinking as I explored this route – which came first? Are the situations we humans are in inherently stressful, or are our perceptions of them driving the stress? Have you ever been sitting at work and felt like you wanted to leap out your chair, announce to the world at large that you quit and go find some other task – even one with less compensation – if only to avoid the stress of YOUR job?
I polled many women to ask them if they experienced stress at their job. You might not be surprised that the CEO of a fortune 500 company is stressed, but did you ever imagine the woman handing you over your skinny vanilla latte was experiencing her own woes? If you think escaping your life into someone else’s Louboutins is the answer, think again. The real impact comes when we start digging around at how we personally perceive the situations that are causing us stress.
Is it hard? A little bit.
Is it possible? You bet.
Is it worth it? Oh yes. You have no idea.
Food for thought: Choose one situation in your life that is causing you stress and identify your predominant thoughts around it. Challenge yourself to come up with as many different interpretations of the situation as you can, other than the one you’ve been carrying. Go crazy. Make yourself laugh. When you run out of ideas, choose an interpretation that generates a feeling you’d prefer to have – contentment, competence, empathy, even humor. It may be a small step, but all it takes is making the first one. Let me know how it goes!
*Giving credit where credit is due! A great portion of the information about hormones and stress was based on the truly wonderful research of Dr. Elissa Epel, PhD. Dr. Epel is a health pscyhologist at UCSF.
