ADHD, disordered eating, and getting through the holidays

The holidays are here — and so is all the food, family, and sensory overload that can come with them. Host Cate Osborn sits down with Aleta Storch, dietitian, nutritionist, ADHD expert, and founder of Wise Heart Nutrition, to talk about food and ADHD. They cover what disordered eating looks like (and how it’s different from a diagnosed eating disorder), why sensory sensitivities can make meals stressful, and what it’s like not to be believed when you say you don’t want to eat something. Plus, the dopamine rush of holiday treats — and how to navigate it all with more compassion and understanding.

(Note: This episode does not dive deeply into diagnosed eating disorders — we’ll have another episode in the future focused entirely on that topic.)

Related resources

• The National Eating Disorders Association

• ADHD and eating

• Understood.org’s “Neurodiversity and the Holidays” survey 

• Aleta’s website, www.wiseheartnutrition.com

• Aleta’s Instagram, @the_adhd_rd

Episode transcript

(00:00) Intro

Cate Osborn: Hey everybody, and welcome back to "Sorry I Missed This," the show where we talk about all things ADHD and its impact on relationships, intimacy, sex, communication, and more. It's me, your host, Cate Osborn. In this episode, we are going to talk about the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating and how ADHD can impact our relationship to food around the holidays.

I am so excited because joining me for this conversation is Aleta Storch. She is a dietitian, a nutritionist, a mental health therapist, and the founder of Wise Heart Nutrition, and she is doing amazing work in the fields of ADHD and eating disorders.

This episode is really personal for me. And the reason why is because I have lived with an eating disorder since I was 16 years old. And despite the fact that I didn't know I had ADHD when I was 16, I really do believe that if somebody had told me that ADHD and binge eating and bulimia and disordered eating were so closely entwined, I really do think that it would have changed the course of my life.

I am actively, currently right now in recovery from my eating disorder, and I am really proud of that. It has been very hard-won. And I know on a cellular level what it is like to struggle. I think on this show we talk a lot about relationships. We talk a lot about relationships to partners, love, sex, intimacy, that kind of thing. But my relationship to food is a relationship that I have had my entire life, and it has not always been a healthy one.

And so as part of this show, as part of acknowledging the struggles that women with ADHD, especially late-diagnosed women face, I really wanted to talk about that relationship. I wanted to start talking about our relationship to food and our bodies and our self-image and eating and all of that stuff. This is a topic that we are going to continue talking about on the show, delving into a little bit more. And so without further ado, I'm so excited to welcome you to this episode with Aleta Storch, who is so phenomenal and doing such great work in the fields of disordered eating and ADHD.

Aleta, welcome to "Sorry I Missed This."

Aleta Storch: Hi, Cate. I am also a huge fan of yours, so super excited to be here.

Cate: Oh my god. Are we like mutually fangirling?

Aleta: Yes.

Cate: Yes.

(02:05) Aleta’s personal story with ADHD and eating

Cate: So Aleta, before we start the conversation, I would love for you to just talk to people a little bit about how you got started in this work, what brought you to this work, and why this work is so important, especially if you are living with an ADHD brain.

Aleta: Yeah. Kind of going back to undergrad, that was the first time that I was out of the house. I had a lot more responsibility. And it was the first time that I was really exposed to diet culture. And now I understand it as someone with ADHD, not wanting to be like left out or seen as weird, right, or experience that rejection, I really latched on to connecting with that identity.

And so I started restricting food, I started getting really hyperfocused on controlling my body, and over the first year of college, it turned into a full-blown eating disorder. And I was really lucky that when I looked for help, for treatment, I landed on a dietitian and a therapist who worked from an anti-diet health-at-every-size approach. I went through the treatment process and I really thrived in recovery.

And so, fast-forward to grad school, I all of a sudden was really overwhelmed again, right? I had a lot more responsibilities, so many things going on. I was also at a school that was really focused on like whole foods and cooking things from scratch and was kind of coming from this privileged mindset. And so I had this expectation that I had to be cooking all of my meals, that I had to be eating like quinoa and kale and roasted butternut squash for lunch. And that's what everyone around me was doing.

And it just became so overwhelming, and I couldn't do it, and I felt like I was failing. And so I ended up going through like a restrict-binge cycle again. And that was really confusing to me because I had done so much work to heal my relationship with food. And that's really when it became clear that it wasn't actually like a typical eating disorder, but that I was struggling logistically with feeding myself, that like my executive function was not allowing me to do the planning, do the shopping, actually remember to bring my food with me to class.

And so once I really understood that it was more the ADHD showing up, I was able to create some systems to let go of some of the ableism that was feeding that, and I was able to nourish myself through grad school, get through it. And then when I went out into the world, I found that ADHDers were gravitating towards me and my work. And so I just sort of continued to go down that path and focus on how does ADHD impact food and eating, but also how does food and eating impact ADHD and mental health?

Cate: I love that. It's also so interesting how frequently I hear a variation on that story from women with ADHD. I do want to say, going into this episode, dear listener, we today are not specifically going to be talking about eating disorders. We are going to be talking about that later on in the show in another episode. But today we have brought Aleta on because the holidays are upon us and the holidays, especially in the US, is a time when so many celebrations, so many things are centered around food.

And it can be really difficult because not only are you navigating a relationship to food, you are also navigating a relationship with the people in the room with whom you are eating the food. And so it can be kind of tricky. And so just going in, please know that we are going to be talking about obviously disordered eating, things like that. So if you're not in a place to listen to this episode just yet, treat yourself kindly and come back when you are ready. We would love to have you.

(05:48) What is the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating?

Cate: But so, Aleta, I guess the first important question to ask is what is the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating?

Aleta: That is a great question. And I would say it depends on who you ask. If you ask the DSM manual, which is for clinical diagnosis, there's a very, very clear line. But I would say in my work, I have kind of expanded my understanding of how those two overlap and how someone might not fit the clinical diagnosis of an eating disorder but struggle with disordered eating, and it's distressing enough that it would be considered an eating disorder, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I would say if someone is just struggling with food in general and is maybe like following food rules or trying to follow food rules or really stuck in diet culture, feeling guilt and shame about the way that they're eating, that to me is a form of disordered eating, right? And it's on a spectrum. You can struggle a little bit with disordered eating, you can struggle a lot a bit with disordered eating, and an eating disorder would just be like you check all the clinical boxes, which there's a lot of issues with, right, diagnostic criteria. There is a lot of overlap, and I like to use the word disordered eating because a lot of people don't have access to getting a diagnosis or maybe don't check all the boxes.

Cate: And the patterns of disordered eating are such that if you sort of were to, I don't know, broadly look at the ADHD population, we see a lot of people with ADHD engaging in disordered eating, but not necessarily eating disorders, right?

Aleta: Yes and no. I would say I think 3 to 4% of ADHDers have a clinically diagnosed eating disorder, but I think a lot of people get missed in that. But the number of ADHDers who have disordered eating, like I don't have like science to back this up, but I would say probably like 90% of ADHDers struggle with disordered eating. So there is a big part of the population.

(07:46) What about ADHD can affect our relationship with food?

Cate: So, I am a person with ADHD. I've also lived with an eating disorder since I was almost 16. And dear listener, this is a topic that is very close to my heart. It is something that I really think is important to talk about and to destigmatize and to really, I think delve into more than we normally do because these conversations can be difficult. But Aleta, do you want to kind of start us off by just talking about how ADHD, like what about ADHD can affect our relationship to food?

Aleta: Yeah, absolutely. And it is so different for folks who are neurodivergent.

Cate: It's so — oh my God. Okay, sorry. You answer, and then I'll rant a little bit at the end, but yes, please go.

Aleta: Totally fair. So like I kind of was talking about in my own story at the beginning, right, with ADHD, there's often this piece of unintentional restriction. So with intentional restriction, it's like you have a plan and you're following food rules and you're eliminating certain food groups and that sort of stuff. With ADHD, it's a little sneakier where folks can forget to eat because executive function gets in the way.

We don't have as great of interoceptive awareness, so ADHDers might not even notice that we're hungry. We might also not notice that we're full. So that's where like maybe more of that like binging can come in. Planning. I don't know any ADHDers that go to the grocery store like every Sunday without fail for their entire life. Like that, that's just not going to happen. So the planning, the organization, the emotional dysregulation can really show up. We can either eat when we are feeling emotional or sometimes that can get in the way of feeding ourselves. It can make us feel more full. So it kind of shows up like on every aspect of ADHD and all the different characteristics, end up being a barrier to feeding ourselves.

And when we're not feeding ourselves enough, then we are more likely to swing the other way and engage in compensatory eating or binge eating. So often when ADHDers come to me, they report that they're struggling with binge eating. But when we really dig into it, we find that there's a lot of that unintentional restriction, right? And people might not even realize that that's what's going on, and that's what's leading to the binge eating. So if we can work on treating that unintentional restriction, then people find that they have just like more comfort and they feel more in control with food. And that's really about addressing those different barriers related to ADHD.

Cate: Yeah. Also Christmas cookies are real good, right? There's sometimes Christmas cookies are just delicious. And so for me especially, I find that there's like that dopamine-seeking factor. There's that like, "Oh, this tastes good. I'll have one." "Actually, I'll have three." And then like that combination of binge eating and time blindness and just like, I should probably change the task that I'm doing because right now the task is eating Christmas cookies, but I'm just going to keep eating these Christmas cookies because task switching is difficult for me as well. All of a sudden the plate of Christmas cookies is gone, and then I feel like a jerk and I'm like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I did that."

Aleta: Yes, so many things. First, I can totally relate. And yeah, this shows up a lot for folks who are neurodivergent and neurotypical, right? Like when there are foods that are not available the rest of the year, they're novel, they're exciting. And so there's this almost like scarcity mentality around them. And so when foods are off limits or not available, whether that's intentional or not, we're actually more drawn to them. And with ADHD, right, like novelty is our golden ticket.

So it just sort of exacerbates that experience of like, well I need all the Christmas cookies because they're not going to be here next week and all the other things that you listed that come into it. The other thing is the guilt and the shame. And so that really comes from diet culture telling us that, well, you're bad because you ate all those cookies. You've done something wrong, you've messed up.

And so there's the diet culture side of that, but then there's also the ADHD side of it where we really internalize these messages of, "I'm wrong, I'm broken." And then we kind of end up spiraling into that shame. And then that just perpetuates the restriction and the binging.

Cate: Yeah. And we almost activate our own rejection sensitivity, the messaging that we receive around like food and diet culture, that kind of thing. But it's your brain telling you that you are bad and you've screwed up, but then the rejection sensitivity activates and you're like, "I really am a jerk. Oh man, I suck so," you know, but it's like, no, that's just another place that that rejection sensitivity is showing up in.

Aleta: Exactly.

Cate: I don't know, that it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating to have to navigate that.

Aleta: Yeah, it really is. And especially with all the other stuff that shows up around the holidays, right? We're already navigating like family situations, relationships, travel, having to like for some of us remembering to buy gifts, right? Remembering to book travel plans. There's so many areas where we already feel like we're failing. And so then to have that show up even more with food around that time can just, it doesn't feel good.

Cate: And the executive functioning aspect of the holidays as it relates to food choices, I think is also really important to talk about too, because at some point there just becomes that decision fatigue. Like I've been buying gifts, I've been booking travel, I've been organizing everything, I've been packing the suitcase, I've been getting the kids ready for grandma's house. And then it's the end of the day and you're exhausted and what do I eat? What do I make? And so it can be so easy for those executive functioning challenges to kind of pile up on each other and impact our relationship to food just in context of all of the other stuff that's going on. It doesn't even have to be about the Christmas cookies or the casserole, you know, whatever. It's just that juggling everything in your whole life exhaustion that manifests as a relationship to food.

Aleta: Yes, exactly. And that seems to be starting earlier and earlier every year.

(13:39) Sensory challenges and food

Cate: Something that we talk about infrequently, but I think it is important to talk about on the show, is that there is a pretty wide overlap between people with ADHD and autistic people. And I know that for autism in particular, sensory issues and interoceptive issues can also compound food. I am a combo platter person. Can you talk a little bit about how that sort of the — the AudHD combo platter can also make food a little bit more challenging, a little different to navigate?

Aleta: Yes, definitely. I mean, even just when you were talking about sensory overwhelm, right? Like when I think of the holidays, I think of that really intense like cinnamon, pumpkin spice, candle grossness, right? And walking into a store.

Cate: Those like sickly sweet, like vanilla cupcake candles. Yes.

Aleta: Yes, walking into a store and having to smell that and then having to make decisions about what groceries I'm going to choose. But then there's also the really loud Christmas music and all sorts of knickknacks to purchase. And so then there's like that impulsivity. And so I think that can be a really big factor in being able to even just go to the grocery store.

Cate: I would love for you to talk a little bit about sensory issues, sensory processing and food, because I know for me, I have a lot of like traumatic childhood stories around like being forced to eat the vegetables that I didn't want to eat or you know, you have to take a scoop of grandma's green bean casserole because it's impolite to not, you know, that kind of thing. Can you talk a little bit about how sensory issues can impact our relationship to food?

Aleta: So with folks who are neurodivergent, sensory issues can show up in kind of two different ways, right? There's hypersensitivity, but then there's also hyposensitivity. And the hypersensitivity tends to come from external sources. So things like sounds, smells, tastes, even just the ways that our like clothing is touching our body. There's lots of different sensory inputs. And then the hypo tends to come from our internal experience, so not noticing if we're hungry or not noticing if we're full.

And on the flip side, the hypersensitivity of all of a sudden, I'm so hungry, I feel like I'm going to eat someone's leg, or I'm so full, I feel like I'm dying. So we kind of get the extremes of both. And whether it's around the holidays or not, our sensory experience really impacts how we show up with food because food is a sensory experience. Food has different textures. So a lot of neurodivergent people struggle with things that are like slimy or if there's like mixed textures.

Cate: Illegal. Illegal. Straight to jail.

Aleta: Yes. Yes. Sloppy Joe is like the food that is on my no list. I just, I can't do it. And I know a lot of people love Sloppy Joes, that's great.

Cate: That’s a no for me, dog.

Aleta: But soggy bread, nope, not doing it. And that experience can be intolerable. And I think a lot of neurotypical people don't understand that where it's like, just eat the Sloppy Joe. You'll be fine. You're going to survive.

Cate: Oh God. I'm sorry. I'm about to start ranting, but like that like just eat it. Just suck it up and eat it. Oh, you're being overdramatic, or you're over-exaggerating or like don't be such a drama queen. It's just vegetables. You're not going to die. It genuinely makes me upset that so many times the narratives around the neurodivergent experience with food is people telling us what our experience is and that our own experience isn't authentic and real and true.

And so, especially when you're growing up in an environment where maybe you do have to take the scoop of grandma's casserole or you do have to like eat the polite mouthful of vegetables or whatever, even though you're internally like screaming inside, you start gaslighting yourself. Maybe I am just being overdramatic. Maybe I am just weird. Maybe there is just something weird and strange and wrong with me. And so it can be really difficult to take ownership of our relationship to food, to say, actually, this is what is right for me even as adults, right? Even as like full adults, it can be really difficult to look at Aunt Edna and be like, "I'm not eating your nasty ass casserole. I'm so sorry." You know what I mean?

Aleta: Yes, absolutely. And it's like we start to distrust our bodies, right? Like, well why does no one else struggle with Aunt Edna's green bean casserole? Something must be wrong with me. And if people are telling me it's not that bad, then we start to shut down the signals and the cues and the messaging from our body, and we become really disconnected, really disembodied. And that just like further worsens our ability to listen, to hear when we're hungry, when we're full, but also what feels right in our body.

(18:11) The consequences of ignoring our own needs

Cate: Can you talk a little bit more about what happens when we ignore those sensations, when we gaslight ourselves into just eating the casserole anyway, even though we're miserable? Like, how does that show up later in our lives?

Aleta: When you started talking about this, you named like traumatic experiences, right? And so when we are forcing ourselves to have an experience that isn't just uncomfortable, like it might actually feel like a slow death to eat that casserole, that can be really traumatizing. And when we have a traumatizing experience and we have it again and again, it activates our nervous system. We're in threat mode, we're in survival mode.

And that further shuts down executive function, so that makes it harder to focus, harder to pay attention, harder to plan, organize, all of those pieces. It increases our emotional dysregulation, so we're feeling things really intensely and not being able to manage that or to navigate that. And when our nervous system is activated all of the time, like it actually affects our health and our wellbeing. We know that stress is like one of the biggest factors that can lead to chronic illness.

So it might seem so small and so insignificant to maybe a parent who's trying to get their kid to eat vegetables, right? Like, well, if they just eat it, they'll be fine. But over time, that can really add up to this experience of trauma and nervous system activation. And then actually like poor health outcomes. And like you're saying, like if we're not in our own body and our own experience, we can't make choices. We're just sort of like going through the world, doing things in like auto mode, kind of steamrolling through.

And a lot of ADHDers explain that experience, right, of like, "I don't know, I just like go through my day and I don't think." But when we are more connected to our body and we are coming from this embodied place, it allows for more choice and so that knowing, and we might not make the choice that we want to make, but at least we're making that choice.

(20:12) Good food practices to support ourselves, and the neurodivergent people in our lives

Cate: What are good practices for supporting the neurodivergent eaters in your family, especially around the holidays, the people that you don't see very often, that kind of thing?

Aleta: I mean, I think just getting curious and asking like, "Oh, you don't want green beans? What is it about the green bean casserole that you don't like?" or you know, "Would you like to smell the green bean casserole off my plate?" So I think just like being really kind and trying to move out of judgment and more into this place of like getting to know the people in your life who are neurodivergent and maybe better understanding what their actual experience is, and then trusting that they know their bodies best.

I remember as a kid, I'm Jewish, right? So there's a lot of like kind of forcing food on each other within Jewish families. And just having to be like, "Oh my goodness. Okay, if you want to put it on my plate, like put it on my plate, but please do not force me to eat this." And that sometimes that comes off as like, you don't love me or it sort of creates this like relational tension when someone doesn't accept food because it is this love language for a lot of people.

If food is your love language, if feeding people is your love language, recognizing that receiving food isn't everyone's love language and that's okay, and it doesn't mean that someone doesn't care. And so just like honoring what people need in the moment and ask questions.

Cate: Something that I realized is that it feels violating to me for someone to put something on my plate that I didn't ask for. Especially because I have sensory issues, I like to, you know, keep my food separate. I don't like the turkey to touch the mashed potatoes. Do you know what I mean? I like them both, but when they're touching, I'm like, less so. And so somebody taking the big scoop and putting it on my plate, that feels like a violation. That feels like I'm no longer in control of my, my space, my body, my plate, whatever.

Aleta: Yeah. And that's so hard depending on who you're spending time with. You might have Aunt Janet who just like cannot understand that and will not understand that. And so I would say trying to figure out like how can you take care of yourself in that moment, the best that you can. And that might mean being able to like get up and leave the table and go to the bathroom and maybe text your friend about how crazy Aunt Janet is, right? Kind of figuring out like what are other ways that you can do self-care instead of just kind of shutting down and taking it in that moment, but it's not always going to be perfect, which is a bummer.

Cate: I feel like sometimes being socialized as a woman is really challenging because there's that expectation of, "Oh, of course you're going to be polite," and like assertiveness can be conflated with like bitchiness or rudeness or something like that. I've really had to work on that. I've really had to work on naming out loud, "Like, no, we don't comment on people's bodies. It's 2025 Aunt Janet," you know? "Like Aunt Janet, my doctor and I are happy with my weight. And so we're not going to be discussing it at dinner."

And really placing firm boundaries on those things. And it's so scary. Like, I don't pretend that it is easy. And it's something that I've really had to work on like in my recovery. A lot of that had nothing to do with my relationship to food. It had nothing to do with my ability to eat or my desire to binge or whatever. So much of it was about my reticence to advocate for myself because it felt uncomfortable to stand up to Aunt Janet even when I'm like in my 30s and I'm a whole adult who pays my taxes, it still feels scary.

Aleta: Yeah. So how do you respond to that without bringing out the worst of Aunt Janet?

Cate: Yeah, yeah. How do you keep the peace in your family, you know, because I I don't I know a lot of the neurodivergent people that I encounter talk about how their neurodivergence becomes this source of tension, this source of like, "Oh, well you're always causing problems at dinner. Why can't you just eat like everybody else?"

Aleta: Absolutely. I think like having a team around you that can help you advocate for those moments where you don't have the energy or the capacity or you just don't feel like you can. Like if I was in that situation and someone was putting something on my plate that I didn't want, I think I would have a conversation with my husband before of like, "Can you help me immediately scrape that off onto your plate?" Right? And he would totally be down with that.

And 10 years ago he would have been like, "What?" Like, "What's wrong with you? Why can't you just leave it on your plate?" But he has come to understand my experience with food and how uncomfortable something like that could be. So I think asking for help from someone that you trust that maybe gets it or maybe doesn't fully understand it, but can understand why you need that support.

Cate: Holiday buddy system.

Aleta: Yes, exactly.

Cate: Yeah, I'm a big fan of the buddy system.

Aleta: And I think we have this idea that we have to like do it all ourselves, right? That we don't get to ask for help because our requests or our needs are like weird or they don't make sense. And I would say like, it doesn't matter. It can be the quirkiest need in the world, but if you have someone that loves you and that can support you with that, just ask and get that.

Cate: Do you have a few more scripts that we can maybe practice, maybe use?

Aleta: Yeah, I mean I think there's so many different approaches and it just depends on like what is your comfort level, what is your relationship with this person. I mean, I think the easiest one is, "No, thank you. Thanks but no thanks."

Cate: "No" is a complete sentence.

Aleta: Right? And then just move away. Physically move yourself away from that. Put your hand over your plate, right? "No, thank you. I don't want that." It could be a kinder approach of, "I know that those are probably really delicious. I just don't want any of that right now. If I decide later that I want some, I'll ask for it. Thank you." If you're more of a comedian, you could get silly about it. And I can't come up with anything off the cuff, but right, like make fun of Aunt Janet somehow. And if you have the capacity to talk about it, you could say like, "Hey, I have ADHD and that really impacts," or autism, right, "that really impacts the way that I experience these foods."

Cate: Let me tell you — yeah, "Let me tell you about why I don't like sweet potatoes," you know?

Aleta: Yeah. And if she doesn't, like that's her loss. So kind of depending again like where you are in your relationship with that person, how much energy you have, different responses.

(26:23) Aleta’s parting advice for the holiday season

Cate: All right, Aleta Storch, as we move into the holiday season, as we navigate the difficulties that can come from being surrounded by food constantly for the next three months of our lives, do you have any last pieces of advice, any words of wisdom, any thoughts that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Aleta: I would say like the number one conversation I'm having with my clients right now is about creating abundance and permission, because a lot of the foods that show up around the holidays are the foods that diet culture tells us are bad or unhealthy, or we should only eat small amounts of them. We should be careful, we should be in control. So the more abundance we create, the more permission we have, I hate to use this word, but like the less out of control, the less chaotic we're going to feel around those foods.

So stock up on Christmas cookies, stock up on Halloween candy, right, allow yourself to enjoy those. Having them off limits is only going to make you want them more.

Cate: Aleta, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your expertise. And dear listener, if you are struggling, if you are frustrated around food, if you are like me and you've been dealing with binging and just disordered and unhealthy eating your whole life, I just want to speak to you for a minute and let you know like you are not alone, you are not broken. It is such a common phenomenon, especially in ADHD brains.

There is help available. Aleta has wonderful resources on her website. Understood.org has some great resources over on our website. So please do not suffer in silence. Please do not think that this is what you are doomed to be like for the rest of your life. It took a lot of hard work, but like I can very proudly say that I am in recovery for my eating disorder. And I just wish you all the best in this holiday season, and I hope you know that you are great and not — I'm getting emotional. I can't. I'm just gonna keep saying you're not alone and you're not broken, but like it's really true. So just dear listener, know that I'm thinking of you and I wish you well this holiday season. Okay, bye. End of episode.

Aleta: Amazing.

(28:23) Outro and credits

Cate: Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes with more resources. Have a question, comment, or learning story you'd like to share? Email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

"Sorry, I Missed This" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis.

Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Production support provided by Andrew Rector.

Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.

And I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you SO much for listening!

I'm going to pause for a second because if I don't put my hair into a ponytail, I'm going to die. Hold on. Now that I've ruined the podcast continuity, we'll continue. Magic. No, it's a new test. Smashed cut, new hairstyle.