And then we get right into it.

Okay, sounds great.

Well, first of all, thank you for having me.

I'm a huge fan of your work, Dr. Livingston.

So this is really an honor.

I am a newly retired New York City public school teacher and a life coach.

And up until the end of December of 25, I was actually the brain over binge coach for Katherine Hansen and Brain Over Binge, which does work not too dissimilar from Defeat Your Cravings.

And so how do you discern the line in recovery? What does productive discomfort really mean in recovery? Yeah.

And so

the thing is that it's really important.

I always talk about finding your own formula in every way, right? With food, with movement, with with how you how you rest what you do for pleasure like what works for one person is not going to work for the next person because we are so unique but it's very important before you even start this process of considering nervous system regulation it's good to understand your own patterns right so like everybody listening one big question to ask yourself is you know what are your personal signs that tell you that you're running low that you're heading towards even a form of daily burnout, right? Because living with chronic stress, that depletes your emotional resources.

When you over function all the time, that's gonna disconnect you from your needs.

You start just operating on fumes, right? You're living on adrenaline and cortisol.

And so it's very, very important that you really look at your life and name signals that you know, I'm running really low.

My battery is very empty.

so everybody think about that for yourself and then it's very important

Right.

That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so how would you call future you really be careful about that? Because it's probably not I'm a non-binger.

Like I don't walk down the street thinking I'm a non smoker.

Like it's just I don't care because I don't think about smoking ever.

You don't have to wait till you're totally, you know, only acting from that identity all the time, which may not even be a hundred percent realistic, but you don't have to, every action you take now that aligns with that identity makes you feel better now.

And skin.

So I like to start really with the basics, which is your gut because your...

If your gut's not healthy, you're gonna know about it.

You, you're gonna know about it physically, but also if your gut's not functioning properly, then you may start to see it on your skin.

If you've got dull skin or problem skin or, uh, you know, lifeless skin, it could be your gut.

So I choose to nourish my gut every single day, and it's really, really important.

Your gut is now known as your second brain.

Mm.