I don’t know about you, but the past few years have tested my emotional skills. Even if this hasn’t been your experience personally, I bet you have plenty of clients who seem to be in a constant state of anxiety, agitation, and general reactiveness. When things are hard, I like to revisit a simple, incredibly effective trick for supporting calm, clarity, and overall emotional well-being.
First, a little background. Did you know that we have different parts of our brains that make decisions differently?
In his best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman discusses how our slow responsive cortex responds to information differently than the fast reactive limbic brain in everyday decisions. Our fast-reactive brain is emotional and intuitive, and our responsive brain is deliberative and responsive. We need both! But we need to be aware of which one is in charge and what conditions will tilt our brain from dominantly responsive to dominantly reactive — and the other way around.
My favorite study (Danziger, 2011) on the difference between our fast-reactive brain and our slow-responsive brain is that of judges deciding on the possibility of parole. Immediately after a meal, the judges in the study granted parole in 65 percent of the cases. However, immediately before a meal, the judges found no one eligible for parole. In other words, the longer the judges had gone without eating, the less likely they were to consider parole.
These thoughtful, experienced, well-trained judges were unable to see the pattern. They were unaware of how their emotional states and decisions differed based on the time of day and time elapsed after their last meal.
So how does this apply to your life or a therapy practice?
Do you notice that you, clients, or someone in your family might be more reactive than a situation warrants when they are more than three hours away from their last meal? You might easily recognize that a family member is “hangry” if they seem agitated or grumpy. But what about when your mind is racing or you find yourself in a mental fog, seemingly without an explanation? This frequently plays a role in therapy environments as well, though if you aren’t looking for it, it can be difficult to make the connection between a client’s dysregulation and when they last ate.
A quick lesson in physiology to show what’s happening below the surface:
If we eat a mostly carbohydrate-based meal like cereal, toast, or a bagel, our brains will use up the glucose from that meal in about two hours.
To combat declining glucose, our bodies release a host of hormones, one of which is adrenaline. Adrenaline switches our thinking from our slow, smart brain to our fast, reactive brain. Said another way, it switches us into flight-or-fight mode.
Here are some common examples that could be related to this issue:
- A mom, challenged by anxiety, describes losing her patience and yelling at her toddler
- A teen who finished school for the day melts down at the smallest requests from his parents
- A young, capable professional has a near panic attack when their boss offers an opportunity to lead
- A therapy client spends sessions venting about frustrating things they can’t change and seems resistant to redirection
All these examples could be the result of a person’s brain shifting into flight-or-fight mode due to low nutritional fuel. We might not even notice this shift is happening until something triggers an emotional reaction, and then the overreaction makes apparent that the reactive brain is in charge, which is often not helpful.
Getting food to our bodies to fuel our brains can help our responsive brains get back in control.
When someone is melting down, overreacting, or panicking, I often suggest a “lizard brain treat” that has a mix of carbohydrates and protein, such as juice and nuts. This easy trick has helped parents, teens, grandparents, and children struggling with quick reactive emotions — and it can help your clients too.
Examples of easy lizard brain treats:
- ¼ cup of juice and ¼ cup of nuts
- ¼ cup of juice and a stick of jerky
- Honey stick and ¼ cup of cottage cheese
- One tablespoon of jelly and two tablespoons of peanut (or other nut butter)
Next time you or someone you connect with is struggling with anxiety,
irritation, agitation, or a racing mind, suggest they have a lizard brain treat. If it feels appropriate, you can keep small snacks in your office and offer them to clients who seem caught in an anxious spiral.
Generally, within ten minutes, you can see their slow-smart, responsive brains emerge, and then you can have a real conversation about what is going on, and what they want to do about it.
Want more simple tools to help clients regulate their bodies and minds and engage more effectively in therapy? In Fuel the Brain, Not Anxiety, Dr. Kristen Allot will guide you through the science of strategies that can literally change the brain’s state from fearful and reactive to engaged and curious and guide you in using them therapeutically to support deeper healing.
In 4 live online sessions anchored in polyvagal theory, you will explore the impact of nutrition, sleep, movement, and breathing on anxiety, depression, and mood disorders and learn approachable techniques that can reduce emotional dysregulation, improve energy and mental clarity, and give clients greater access to their creativity, resiliency, and compassion.
Find out more and join Fuel the Brain, Not Anxiety here
Please read full CE and conflict-of-interest disclosure information on the course enrollment page before registering.
Reference: Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011.) “Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 688–6892. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1018033108