I have decided to dedicate a post on Thursday to therapy, and offer you the many tips I have learned on the couch. They will be a good reminder for me, as well, of something small I can concentrate on. Many of them are published in my book, “The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit.”

Here’s the catch-22: the more stressed you are, the more you crave coffee and doughnuts, pizza and Coke. But the more Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and Big Gulps in your system, the more stressed you become. Because when stressed, your body has lower levels of serotonin, which causes your brain to produce cravings for sugar and simple carbohydrates, which primes the beta-endorphin system to want more and more.

The same with caffeine.

It’s a powerful drug that affects a number of neurochemicals in your brain, which means it produces withdrawal symptoms that can make you very very very very irritable.