Hi, this is Dr. Sandy helping you tame your sugar Gremlin. Today, we're looking at how environmental cues can get your sugar Gremlin fired up. Let's begin this lesson by heading back to the UK. We already know that the way the hunger and appetite suppression neurons take the cue is primarily from the body's overall energy status, especially the sugar levels. This is all about biology. But having to react to travel is inherently problematic.

Going into panic station mode is traumatic for all concerned. And there's always the chance that well, the response won't be quick enough and to put it bluntly, all operations will come to an abrupt racked, helped, because the brain is deceased. Remember, no sugar is not just a major inconvenience. It's an absolute life threatening crisis. So it's good to be prepared so that when a life threatening crisis arises, no one actually needs to think the official name for these kinds of Be prepared plans or standard operating procedures, control rooms around the world run on these slps. The AUC is no different.

The brain has multiple playbooks. When this happens, do this. And surprise surprise, your sugar Gremlin has helped write many of these documents. So what sparks the arc neurons to Open up the playbooks the environment in which you're in. Now, environment is not just the physical space you find yourself in. It's the people you're with your social sphere, and the weird stuff that's going on in your head, your emotions, your moods, your headspace.

Everyone will be wired a little bit differently. But these all come together to create your habits. Depending on previous experiences, many of these patterns will ride into you a long time ago, often when you were knee high to a grasshopper. Let's look at a couple of examples. Maybe you were signed up to the clean the plate club. I know I was.

The scene would play out night after night. I would have eaten junk during the course of the day. So when dinnertime happened sugar levels were actually pretty okay mom with a very healthy meal, a piece of meat or chicken, some starch usually potato, rice and vegetables, lots of vegetables. My mom believed a plate full of vegetables was a sign of love. I on the other hand, thought she was trying to kill me. Needless to say, I ate everything except the broccoli.

And then it would begin the dinner table would turn into me, pitted against the old man. You know the drill, finish the food I slaved away all day so we have money to buy the food, your mother cooked it, you will eat it. The B version was along the lines of starving children in our house, it usually didn't end here. It would continue willful defiance. Some days I won. Most days.

Dad eventually won. The trouble was the little guys in the arc was so confused. The meal started with marginal hunger. After polishing off the meat and potatoes, the situation changed. The sugar levels had risen nicely. I was full, the appetite suppression urine triggered and just in case the sugar levels were not enough to trigger the full message.

The grumbles in the stomach confirmed. I was full. But despite all the evidence to suggest that I was full, more food arrived everywhere everyone wait for the explosion. I think happened. Everyone learned full head wiggle room. So it was Wired In.

Appetite suppression urine could be ignored and should be ignored if there was still food on the plate because dad's reward was not a squirt of dopamine. Now the lesson was not learned on one night. habits are learned in the same way as you learn about anything else. Imagine you're visiting from another planet, you arrive on earth and your spacecraft. Step out of the door and before you can get to grips with the earth world. big fluffy cat walks across your path.

You've never seen a cat before. Lucky for you, the field guide explains that the strange creature in front of you is a cat you make pathway, cat, but it's very faint. to really learn and understand the concept cat. You need to see another cat. As you see your second cat, the pathway becomes a little clearer and the concept a little stronger. Pet you really get the idea of cat when you see your third cat.

What? Now you know what a cat is, and you're unlikely to get confused. The first time there was an explosion at the dinner table. You made a pathway. Full is fallible and ANGRY DAD is scary and unpleasant, maybe even dangerous. Hearing the plate makes everyone happy and happy debt is a happy thing.

The more times you do it, the more likely the pathway is to stick. And the easier it is to do it. But it escalates from a learned behavior when you stop thinking about it and do it automatically, every time you find yourself in a particular environment, this is the habit loop. So in the case of the clean plate habit, every time you see a plate of food that you you feel compelled to eat every last morsel, the routine there would be decked. Probably this is no longer the actual reward. But running the pathway drops a dollop of dopamine into the system.

So you feel good. What characterizes the whole event, zero thinking. Let's look at another example. Going to the movies for most people. The movie recipe goes like this. Find out where the movie you would like to see a showing.

Find someone to go with you. You don't go to the movies alone. If you can help it. The exact order these steps can vary. Sometimes you find the friend, then pick the movie while other times you pick the movie and then find the friend. Step two, you show up at the cinema and buy your ticket.

Step three. You stand in the long line to buy popcorn soda and Adam and cheese that catch your fancy. Assuming you have the budget items are way more expensive here than anywhere else. Step Four. You watch the movie and chow down and you feel good that you knew that you would say so why do you buy the popcorn and soda? Well, it's not actually Because you're hungry, it tastes good.

A big box of popcorn buys a ticket into the nucleus accumbens. Actually. Even when it doesn't taste good. People still eat it. This is what a group of scientists discovered when they invited people to the movies, but served app week. All popcorn.

Even though it tasted so awful, that knows self respecting sugar Gremlin would touch it. The popcorn was gobbled down. Cue routine reward on paper with thinking beings, but thinking is reserved for special occasions. A lot of our day to day life boils down to running on autopilot. It's a case of eat first, think later. Join me in The next lesson as we think about thinking