Back in August, Ryan Holiday interviewed Lisa Barrett on Mastering Your Emotions for his nine-week Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge. During the discussion, Lisa used a systems approach to how describe how we should think about managing our emotions.

She used the term Body Budget to explain how the brain’s most important job is to regulate all the systems in the body in a metabolically efficient manner. You will be less likely to experience negative emotions if your body budget is solvent. If you are running a metabolic deficit, this can lead to feeling negative emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, and shame. Left unchecked, long-running deficits can lead to bigger issues like anxiety and depression.

How To Body Budget:

• Reframe your approach to managing your emotions as a body budgeting problem.
• Don’t allow yourself to run a metabolic deficit for any length of time.
• Catch deficits it in the moment and don’t let them get to the point that they drive your body budget into a deficit.

Do these to Stay on Budget:

• Get a full eight hours sleep every night.
• Eat healthy – Skip a meal if there isn’t a healthy option available.
• Exercise rigorously for at least 30 minutes every day.
• Make sure you have social connections with people.