You see, for years my hours, days, and weeks were organized around controlling my food, my exercise, and my body weight and shape. Evening plans with friends were routinely turned down to allow for my nightly date with the gym treadmill. Eating out became a stressful and unpleasant social activity and required desperately scouring the menu for the safest food option available. Friends would dive into the all-you-can-eat sushi menu while I feasted on my side dish of pickled ginger....

Let’s take a look at the various stages your body progresses through so you can get an idea of all the effects you’re experiencing at different points throughout your fast. Your pancreas produces the hormone insulin. This allows your body to use up the glucose that was released into your bloodstream after your meal and to store any excess energy in your cells for later use. Once the energy stored in your cells runs out, your body starts to rely instead on stored fat....

If you’re really deep in your sadness, you might want to actually create a playlist of songs that remind you of that other person. Doing this will allow you to really feel your feelings. It’s okay to bare your soul, break down, or cry. Because through that breakdown comes your breakthrough, and you will experience more peace, calm, and joy afterwards. Create an email account for the sole purpose of writing your deepest inner thoughts....

But underneath the humor, what’s actually going on? A 2021 study1 of people with bipolar disorder dealing with feelings of “chronic emptiness”’ found it was largely experienced as “a feeling of disconnection from both self and others, and a sense of numbness and nothingness which was frequent and reduced functional capacity.” The researchers also found the feeling of emptiness was closely associated with feelings of purposelessness and unfulfillment, and most people in the study found the feelings to be “distressing....

Men and women may cheat for very different reasons, licensed marriage and family therapist Shane Birkel, LMFT, explains. But he notes that it’s likely more due to the way men and women are socialized than any innate differences between them. He adds that the more we as a society move away from that socialization and away from patriarchy, the less we’re seeing those gendered differences in cheating behavior. Although people of all genders might do cheat for this reason, Birkel explains that men may be less likely to have difficult conversations with their partner about their own needs and the relationship....

In all my years of personal and professional experience around female endocrine health, I’ve found that very few women know how to spot the signs of hormonal imbalance. After all, we’re often taught that pain and suffering are just a normal part of the female experience. Why would we think to question killer cramps or massive mood swings? Because those things are, in fact, not normal, inevitable aspects of womanhood. They’re just a few clear signs from your body alerting you to a hormonal imbalance....

“Self-confidence comes from the information and ideas we take in through the world that support a positive perspective about ourselves,” says licensed psychotherapist Rameya Shanmugavelayutham, LCSW. “Often we enter into the world with an abundance of self-confidence. Consider the young child who feels confident taking risks like jumping off the swings or dances without a care in front of a crowd. When a young child is affirmed and encouraged, they strengthen their sense of self and begin to hold cognitive schemas that confirm they are worthy, valuable, beautiful, intelligent, etc....