Anna Runkle: Why Sugar Feels Impossible to Resist When Your Nervous System Is DysregulatedAnna Runkle: Why Sugar Feels Impossible to Resist When Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Florence Christophers talks with Anna Runkle about how childhood trauma and nervous system dysregulation can make sugar feel irresistible and life overwhelming. They share practical self-guided tools, discuss complex PTSD, and link physiological stress responses to food, relationships and everyday functioning.
50:09•12 Nov 2026
Why Sugar Feels Unstoppable When Your Nervous System Is On Overdrive
Episode Overview
- Calm the nervous system first; deep trauma processing is far safer and more effective once you are more regulated.
- Use structured writing followed by meditation to offload fearful and resentful thoughts and create mental space.
- Learn to recognise emotional flashbacks and dysregulation, and delay big decisions until intense feelings settle.
- Understand that childhood trauma can alter metabolism and make sugar and fast carbohydrates feel compulsive, reducing shame.
- Claim agency in adult life by making slower, more deliberate choices in work, relationships and food, rather than acting from trauma-driven impulses.
“There is so much healing that's possible when you have some agency over your own symptoms and when you recognize that there's a neurological injury there.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober – or sugar-free – when their nervous system is constantly on edge? This conversation between host Florence Christophers and guest Anna Runkle pulls back the curtain on how childhood trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and sugar cravings can all intertwine. Anna shares her story of growing up in a chaotic, violent, alcoholic home, later surviving a street assault and undiagnosed PTSD.
She explains how learning that PTSD is a "neurological injury" changed everything for her, and why trying to talk about trauma too soon left her even more overwhelmed. Instead, Anna found relief through a simple writing exercise followed by meditation that helped calm her brain: within weeks, she says she "didn't really have PTSD anymore" and could finally sleep and focus.
The episode breaks down the difference between emotional dysregulation (those intense reactions others can see) and neurological dysregulation, which quietly affects hormones, immune function, focus, and even how the body responds to surgery. Anna links these patterns to food and sugar, describing how sexual abuse and chronic stress can alter metabolism and make some people intensely sensitive to sugar and fast carbohydrates.
For her, "my brain believes that I need sugar" when stressed, and understanding this as physiology rather than moral failure removed a huge layer of shame. You’ll also hear how concepts like complex PTSD and emotional flashbacks transformed Anna’s marriage, her parenting, and her work with others through her Crappy Childhood Fairy platform. She talks about dating slowly, building safer relationships, and reclaiming agency in adult life after a traumatic childhood.
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t stop at one biscuit while others barely think about it, or why stress sends you straight to sugar, this episode offers practical tools and a huge dose of validation. Could calming your nervous system be the missing piece in changing your relationship with sugar?
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