Reducing your physical vulnerability to overwhelming emotions Your body needs the nutrients it gets from food in order to keep it functioning properly and the foods you eat affect how you feel both emotionally and physically. Ingesting a lot of sugar can temporarily make you feel pleased and satisfied. Eat too much sugar however, and you might start to feel heavy and sluggish. If, over time, you continue to consume an excessive amount of food or drink which contains high levels of sugar or fat, you will also gain weight. Weight gain often results in low self-esteem, lack of confidence and leads to health problems like a fatty liver, diabetes and heart disease. Foods with high sugar content can make you initially feel energized but, as the effect wears off, sugar can leave you feeling very tired or even depressed.  Sugar is toxic to those people who already have a fatty liver.  I recently read “Fatty Liver – You Can Reverse It” and found this book educational in helping my clients to love their liver and live longer! To help you work out which foods and drinks could be affecting your emotions, record everything in a journal. This easy to do exercise will help you to work out which foods can change your moods. Sugar will give you a short term heightened sensation followed by a slump in energy and possibly cravings for another sugar “hit”. How do I monitor out-of-control emotions? In DBT there is a strong emphasis on mindfulness and acceptance. When we are mindful, we live in the present and are aware of our own thoughts and feelings as they occur. To live one day at a time takes the pressure off past and present problems once you know how to emotionally detach from people, places, things and situations. When we are pre-occupied with our own neediness, we can be physically present to others, but mentally absent. Being mindful means having intention in your actions. With intention you purposefully choose your behavior (not to use food for comfort) with the bigger picture in mind. Learning how to be mindful of one’s thinking, emotions and behavior, complements a healthy life without the need to use food to escape reality.  DBT enables us to understand our feelings and untangle complicated emotions. It helps to ends cycles of depression, anxiety and substance abuse like sugar, alcohol, drugs, prescription drugs and behavioral addictions like shopping, gambling, etc. Active meditation is another tool that assists the sub-conscious mind to change limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns. Your thoughts dictate your feelings (emotions) and your feelings dictate your behavior. You cannot react without first thinking then feeling. People say they just act instinctively but there must be a thought before they act. Feelings are not facts and you need to decipher what is real and what is fiction. Supplements to assist your emotional well-being and assist in regulating mood swings, concentration and motivation include Tyrosine, Magnesium Ultra Potent, L-Glutamine. I found that a good liver tonic, Livatone Plus, helped me to re-energize and relieve my bloated stomach.   The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.