When was the last time you felt so “activated” (i.e., triggered) by a situation that you just “flew off the rails?” 

If you’re a parent, maybe your kid pushed all the wrong buttons one morning, and instead of keeping your cool, you told ‘em like it is. Oof. Been there.

Or maybe something happened with someone you love, and instead of waiting it out, you said things you didn’t mean to say. Yeah…

And when it comes to food, maybe when hard situations arise, grabbing for, well, anything, has become automatic and reactive. 

Firstly, as a dietitian and recovering perfectionist, I want to share that I’ve been in ALL of these situations. Backpedaling and apologizing, overeating and weighed down by the accompanying guilt. 

I’ve also learned that mistakes are a normal part of being human. Some people have developed self-regulation tools that help them pivot before it gets messy. I’d say that most of us are still very much in a learning phase, and might berate ourselves for not “getting it right” yet. 

Wherever you are in this process, this article will help you understand “the why” behind the “beeline”… Even better: I’ll introduce you to the “sacred pause” that changes it. 

By the end, you’ll have a few new tools for the next time it happens so you can respond versus react. At least more often than not 😉 

But first, let’s talk about what’s actually happening inside your brain at that very moment.

Your brain!

If you can’t already tell, I love this nerdy stuff…I understand the real connections between how we’re feeling and how we act, especially around our food. But first, to truly see this connection, we have to understand the parts of our brain.

Up first: let’s meet the amygdala. 

The amygdala is your brain’s threat detector. The moment it perceives danger (real or imagined), it pulls the alarm and initiates the fight, flight, or freeze response.

This is a deeply useful system when you’re actually running from real danger, like running from a bull. The only problem is that your amygdala doesn’t distinguish between a real threat (a wild animal) and a frustrating morning when your kiddo is acting like a wild animal. The amygdala will sound the alarm either way.

Meanwhile, the reptilian brain is preparing your body to get away from physical danger. Heart racing. Breath shortening. Muscles tensing. The reptilian brain is preparing your body’s emergency protocols for fight, flight, or freeze to kick in.

When that danger alarm goes off, the neocortex (aka, your rational, “let me think this through” brain) essentially goes offline. I talk a lot about this with my clients as “the light switch,” because once it’s off, it’s off. 

You lose access to impulse control, perspective-taking, and thoughtful communication. This is just how our brain works (it’s actually very protective, when you think about it! If a bull was running at you, the last thing you need is weighing all possible options – you need to run). As Dan Siegel, American psychiatrist and author, states, “you’ve flipped your lid.”

This is what’s going on when we’re feeling dysregulated. Your nervous system is flooded with alarm bell messages, your thinking brain is unavailable, and you’re operating from “survival mode.”

But during a perceived but unreal threat, how do we respond versus react when we’re about to “flip our lid?”

Window of tolerance 

To not “flip your lid” (or at least learn how to re-regulate if you have), Dan Siegel also came up with a name for the optimal emotional zone where we can function effectively, manage stress and emotions, think clearly, and feel in control: the window of tolerance. 

Now, before we can talk about how to re-access our neocortex during these times, we all have an optimal emotional zone where we feel content, or even when there are stressors, we know we can handle it and won’t have road rage if someone cuts us off. (Although I cannot promise that won’t happen to me in normal circumstances 🙂)

Imagine an elastic band running down the middle of you. Inside that stretchy band, you’re regulated. You can feel things, even hard things, when you’re stretched, and still stay regulated. 

Push too far though, and that band snaps. The train has left the station, and you’re outside this window, in fight-or-flight mode.

This is where you may experience hyperarousal (anxiety) or hypoarousal (numbness), which can impact emotional regulation and overall well-being.

When you’ve left the window, your thinking brain leaves with it.

Keep this picture in your back pocket, because it’s why you are here. 

No, you can’t force your way back into the window. But you can expand your window of tolerance to feel the edge coming before you go over it. 

Now, what does any of this have to do with food?

When we’re dysregulated, food can be one of the fastest tools the body reaches for to come back to baseline. Here’s why…

It actually works, at least in the short term.

Eating triggers a real, physiological response:

• Chewing slows us down.
• Swallowing activates the vagus nerve, which tells your nervous system the threat has passed and it’s safe to stand down.
• Carbohydrates prompt a release of serotonin.
• Fat and sugar light up the brain’s reward circuitry.
• Your nervous system genuinely calms. The flood recedes. You feel better.

If you’re able to see the connection here, this is your brain doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: reaching for the fastest available tool to restore a sense of safety.

So the next time you berate yourself for spiraling after eating past fullness, try to remember: your brain found something that reliably makes you feel better. I’d say that’s pretty resourceful of you (even if you don’t like the aftermath).

But…we do need to expand our coping toolkit. Because ideally, we’re not leaning on food (or yelling at other humans) as our only source of comfort and calm when we are dysregulated.

Expanding your coping toolkit is exactly how we expand our window of tolerance.

Dealing with the guilt piece

Food is supposed to be soothing. But when we have self-soothed a little too hard or frequently with food, the problem is what comes later, when the limbic alarm has settled down, and the neocortex comes back online.

F%#$, says your brain. 

This is generally when the guilt is overwhelmingly high. The “why TF did I eat all that again?” And this is the same self-criticism we might feel after we might have said some things we shouldn’t have to someone we love.

Sound familiar? It does because it’s the exact same mechanism.

When we snap at a family member, we’re not a bad person. We’re a dysregulated person who didn’t have a better coping tool in that moment.

When we beeline to the kitchen in the middle of a hard afternoon, same thing. We aren’t a bad person for eating too many chips. We’re a dysregulated person who didn’t have a more helpful way to vent uncomfortable feelings.

Ultimately, your goal isn’t to be shamed out of the behavior (p.s. shame never works). Instead, we have to build enough space between feeling dysregulated and the action that we have a moment (even a brief one) to choose differently.

I call this “the sacred pause.” My clients hear me say this many a time in sessions 🙂

With a family member, that pause might look like taking a breath before you respond, leaving the room, texting a friend, or naming out loud: “I’m activated.”

With food, it might look like the same things, plus getting curious about what your body is actually asking for in that moment. Is it:

• Comfort?
• Rest?
• Connection?
• Distraction?
• Sometimes the answer really is food.
• And sometimes food is standing in for something else entirely.

I’ve always loved that old acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry? Angry/Anxious? Lonely? Tired?) since it helps you to slow down and ask these questions.

The more you practice building that sacred pause, the more options you have. Not because you’ve eliminated the urge (to yell, to say venomous words, to eat, etc.), but because you’ve added more space to use your toolkit.

Extending grace: the last piece

When we say something we regret to someone we love, most of us know the next move.

You go back, you apologize, and repair. We extend that grace almost automatically to the people around us.

We are much less practiced at doing it for ourselves.

But the same repair is available after a hard moment with food. Instead of a punishment, a reset, or saying “I’ll do better tomorrow,” I recommend the following:

A genuine acknowledgment. 

You might say, “That was hard, I was overwhelmed, and I did the best I could with what I had in that moment.”

This is not letting yourself off the hook. Per the evidence, naming the behavior is how things can begin to actually change when we are feeling dysregulated (1, 2, 3). 

We cannot change through shame, but we can change through enough safety and self-compassion. And trying something different next time.

And what do you know? That actually helps expand your window of tolerance and give you more tools for next time.

Where to go from here after feeling dysregulated

You learned that feeling dysregulated knocks your thinking brain offline, and food is the fastest way back to short-term calm. This work isn’t stopping the urge, but rather, building a pause and expanding your window of tolerance so that you can choose what comes next. 

Of course, reading about the pause and expanding your coping toolkit is one thing. 

Practicing it in your actual life, in your actual kitchen, at 9 pm, is another, and it’s a lot easier with someone in your corner. And I love being in my clients’ corners. 

This is the kind of work I do every week, one-on-one. Clients also get access to my free messaging app where they can text when they feel the urge and practice the “sacred pause.” 

Together, we figure out your specific patterns, what pulls you out of your window, what your beeline to eating is really asking for, and we build a toolkit that fits your life instead of fighting it.  

If this is the kind of personalized support you’ve been looking for, here’s how we can work together. Most clients are surprised to find it’s fully covered by insurance. 

(In-network with Aetna, Premera, Regence, Lifewise, and BCBS).