How often do you feel guilty?
A recent poll of parents found that both moms and dads feel guilt an average of 23 times per week. (Wow, right?) How about this stat – another survey of women found that moms feel guilt EVERY SINGLE DAY.
What about you? Are you in the guilty-every-single-day club? (It’s not really a club you would have joined on purpose, is it?) While you probably can’t get out of your membership, guilt doesn’t have to make you miserable. In today’s blog, and in our current episode of GrooveTV, I’ll teach you how to make guilt work for you.
Step 1: Understand the science of guilt.
Before we talk about how to manage guilt, let’s talk about why it’s important for you to take control of it. We begin with the obvious. Guilt feels terrible. (But you already knew that, right?)
Unfortunately, it gets much worse than just feeling bad. Guilt produces a stress response in your body, which weakens your immune system, reduces your libido, and MAKES YOU FAT. (I have your attention now, don’t I?)
There is science to how this happens. When your guilt is triggered, your body releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol is designed to help you with the flight part of a fight-or-flight response. But when you don’t really need to run from the saber toothed tiger (because he’s only chasing you in your head) you basically jack-up your biochemistry. (That’s a scientific description.) Read More