Overdrinking, overeating, overscrolling at night: a 5-minute fix every high performer needs.

Your late-night wine, snack spiral, or doomscrolling streak might not be a “discipline problem” at all.

I’m Angela Shurina, and I’m digging into the surprising reason so many of us repeat self-sabotaging habits even when we know they wreck our sleep quality, mood, and next-day productivity.

We start with a real coaching moment a client sums up perfectly: after a crushing week, 4 glasses of wine felt earned. When we slow down and get curious, the story shifts from guilt to clarity. The behavior isn’t random, it’s a fast state change. It helps a busy mind shut off, numb discomfort, or replace a missing sense of rest and connection. That’s why shame and willpower alone keep failing, and why the real leverage point is the unmet need underneath the habit.

Then we get practical with 3 simple experiments grounded in stress management and high performance principles to stop the self-soothing, self-sabotaging habit without willpower and discipline. 

We also talk ultradian rhythms, brain fatigue, and how your system will force rest anyway, so you might as well choose a version that doesn’t steal from tomorrow.

If this hit home, subscribe to Change Wired Podcast, share it with someone who needs a healthier stop button, and leave a quick review so more people can find these tools.

What habit are you ready to replace first?

Transcript

Welcome And The Real Problem

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in change, personal and collective transformation, executive coach 360, master health stress management, sleep, nutrition, fitness coach. Yes, I've done all of that, guys. And that is why I am in quite a unique position of helping you and helping myself to analyze, to discover, to think through different tools and strategies to discover, unlock, use more of our potential. So together we can create the most extraordinary lives and live the most extraordinary life experiences, creating more beautiful worlds all around us. Today,

Why We Reach For Numbing Habits

SPEAKER_00 1:02

guys, by the end of this podcast, you're gonna learn why so many of us develop this like self-sabotaging behaviors, whether that's finishing your day with four glasses of wine too many, or scrolling till you can't control the scroll and it controls you, and then going to bed later, and then not sleeping that well and waking up not as fresh, stealing the potential from your next morning and from your next day, or maybe it watching it's watching Netflix or overeating on nuts or chocolates or whatever snacks you um you like and you tend to go to when you need to just like unwind and relax. So by the end of this podcast, you can understand why it happens for a lot of us and what can we do to stop doing the behaviors that we wish we didn't. And it's actually all quite simple. But first,

A Client’s Four Glasses Of Wine

SPEAKER_00 2:03

let me share a story from my very recent client's conversation. Let me find the story on my blog that I write every day on your best coaching on SubSteck. So the conversation went something like this: Well, four glasses of wine too many this week. Full-on week at work, my wife, my wife was away, I was holding down the kids, preparing the house for the move, like all of it. Four glasses of wine, I felt like I needed them, that I deserved that. A client mentioned in our recent session. And I felt uh I followed uh I followed it up with a question. What did you think you needed them? Like those four glasses of wine? Not and I asked this question, guys, not to judge, but to help the client reflect on on the cause of this behavior. Like why uh there was this need? What was happening? What was the feeling he was trying to achieve? What change of state uh you were after when you felt that you needed this wine that it gave to you? He thought about it for a moment, and he said something that I'm personally quite familiar with. I just needed to wind down, like press stop button hard and fast. Get myself to chill and do nothing. My mind is always going in a hundred different directions at the speed of light. Busy mind, I said. I'm quite familiar with the concept myself. Just your mind just goes, goes, goes, and you want to do do do. And then I asked, if you could just stop, truly allow yourself to like rest, do nothing, be unproductive, and just recharge. If you were to just allow yourself to lay on the couch staring at the ceiling or sit here in your comfortable on your comfortable sofa, uh do you think you'd still need that wine? The client thought for a moment, and like, probably not. And also I know that my sleep is trash after, and it doesn't help with my training recovery, with my fitness goals, with my weight loss goals, and it kills my productivity the next morning, and everything feels a bit off, definitely not feeling my best after all this wine in me before sleep.

The Hidden Need Behind Overeating

SPEAKER_00 4:42

And that reminded me of something, something that I used to do. I was never into wine. I had it like once in my life for you know many different reasons. It was never a thing. But every couple of weeks I'd stuck myself with nuts in the evening. Like handfuls and then more handfuls, one kilogram of them, easy. Like one kilogram of nuts, it's a lot of nuts, guys. So I don't know if you tried eating that, but you're not gonna feel your best after all of this, you know, food in your stomach is hard to digest. Nuts are one of the like really heavy foods to digest. So my brain would get foggy and heavy and sleepy, and I finally would be able to just like you know, switch off and not do much. Just rest, do nothing. And at some point I noticed this pattern that if I just spent that time, the same time I'd spent eating those nuts, and it also took quite some time, if I just spent that time and the time that followed on intentional rest, lying on the couch with some jazz or long hot shower or staring at the wall, going around, not anything productive or learning, nothing at all. Just something that I could say was a waste of my time, you know. Then if I were to just allow myself to do that, I wouldn't actually need the knots. And then I'd sleep better and I'd wake up fresh instead of sluggish with a stomachache and low energy from a bad night. So, you know what? I decided to give it a try. When the urge came, I'd push that stop button intentionally instead of waiting for my body to force it, for my brain to force it. And guess what? I stopped overeating for good. When I learned to do nothing at all. Or sometimes when I needed to call a friend or my mom or go and see people. Social need is another need that I used to uh stuff myself with nuts over instead, right? Or those uncomfortable feelings, like the reason actually might be different when you're trying to numb yourself like with wine, nuts, or scrolling. The reason might be different, that emotional trigger, but the cause, sort of the response, the is the same. It's that you know, either to stop and wind down or to numb certain feelings, and after you do the behavior, it just changes your feeling, it changes your state. You never actually had the need for wine or the need for nuts or the need for scrolling. That was not your need, and you probably by now already are aware of that. Sorry by the way, guys, if you hear some noise for some reason outside of my window at 6 a.m. in the morning, there are bikes going back and forth. Go figure. Anyhow, so I stepped over eating for good when I learned to just do nothing. In high

Brain Fatigue And Intentional Rest

SPEAKER_00 8:05

performance circles, they teach us. I went through a high performance coaching program. So they teach us to teach our clients to do to practice wall staring, which is exactly what it sounds like. Intentionally staring at the wall, any wall, for some time. Like wasting your time, one might say. Why does this actually work? What's the reason? Your brain accumulates fatigue just like your muscles do. It's the feature of your nervous system that can't be on in go mode all the time. Your nervous system needs brakes just like your muscles when let's say you do your bicep curls, or when you do your squats, or when you do any weight training, or let's say sprinting or running, you can't be sprinting or running or or squatting or pushing or bicep curling for forever. You need to stop. That's why in training they introduce rest periods, and then after rest, when you recover, when your system recovers, you can go again. And with good, balanced, well-designed recovery periods, you can go even better. Your brain, your body, your nervous system, they adjust to the load, they adjust to the work, they learn, they accumulate. Like when it comes to, for example, learning or reading, you have time to connect the dots, and then after rest, you are more prepared, you are sort of warmed up, and you can go longer. And if you incorporate the needed amount of stop buttons or intentionally incorporate rest and breaks, what neuroscientists and researchers and performance experts tell us, then you can prolong your performance for quite some time. Again, that there is a reason why sprinters don't just sprint for kilometers on end. It a lot of it has to do with the inability of your nervous system to be in that intense go mode. You need to break before you can go again. And that is what a lot of high performers, people who are wired to act, to uh track their time, to try to maximize value of almost like every second, like their whole life is on fire. That is a problem of a lot of high performers. We just don't stop, and especially if you naturally have this busy mind, I don't know. Sometimes you know they say you have ADD, A D D, A, D, but sometimes it's just a busy mind that just keeps coming up with ideas and your nervous system is more active than it is not. I don't know if you notice it about yourself, but if your mind, if you are in the go mode more than you're not, then that can be your problem. Inability to stop yourself intentionally, to give your nervous system, your brain and the rest of your body to recover so then you can actually sprint again. Right? Your brain accumulates this again fatigue just like your muscles do. Your nervous system can't be in goal mode for hours non-stop. And when it hits a threshold, it will find a way to make you stop. The question isn't if it's gonna happen. The question is how will your nervous system, will your brain find the behavior that gives you genius rest, or the one that steals from tomorrow and your other goals like fitness or weight loss. With my

Three Experiments To Replace The Habit

SPEAKER_00 11:59

client, we built three experiments. Experiment number one, micro breaks, five minutes on the timer, midday. Objective, do nothing. Surprisingly, and it's not just the case for this client, I noticed it in myself as well. When I set the timer, I feel a lot more like secure. I trust the moment. I feel like uh, it's not like it's gonna last forever. I set the timer for five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and then after that is finished, you know, I have all of the other things that I gotta do, and they're gonna be there, and I'll be just fine. So the timer seemed to be the key. It works for most high performers who are afraid to like lose and waste time really, really well. Again, because it creates boundary around this rest, it's not like it feels like it's gonna go on forever, and plus you have something to do, actually, nothing. So for five minutes, the item on your to-do list is nothing. And my clients with the even with the goal mind that doesn't seem to stop. Actually, for them, it works quite well, and it worked for me quite well as well. So, first habit micro breaks. So set the timer for five minutes. What is recommended in high performance coaching? Actually, every 90 minutes or so, because your brain works in cycles just like it sleeps in cycles of 90 minutes. At night, those are called sleep cycles. During the day, those are called ultradian cycles. So your brain works in those cycles of high activity and rest, and it seems to be somewhere around 90 minutes, even though you know our biology is not exactly a precise clock. So every 90 minutes, I would suggest incorporating breaks at least five minutes when you literally do nothing and ideally do something like staring at the wall, allowing your brain to recover just like that muscle of a sprinter, so then you can sprint again. You'd be surprised how much longer your no-fatigue state will last, and how much less urge to overeat or drink wine or scroll you will have. And not only that, in those five minutes, when it comes to mental performance and work, your brain does work and it connects the dots and it learns and it creates like new connections for new ideas and solutions. So it's actually not unproductive, but a very productive state. For athletes, they found if you let's say uh if you are learning any skill and you give yourself that rest when you just drop on the ground and for five minutes you lay there. Your brain actually starts replaying those physical skills and you learn them faster and you do them more efficiently. So it's like a win-win, it's not a waste, it's just the work that your brain does, you don't see it. So microbreaks, trust me, every 90 minutes, five minutes, or at least like midday once a day, try it. The second

Smelling The Roses On Purpose

SPEAKER_00 15:09

one is smelling the roses, and that is what my client shared with me this beautiful moment, which I can totally relate to. When Bebe he likes riding his bike outside, and he said, you know, there is another thing, like I never stop to just enjoy the moment. Like there is this bench on my right, and it has this beautiful view, and I always wanted to stop and just sit there for five minutes, and I never did. And I'm like, I can so recognize myself in that that I would walk past this beautiful scenery, and it can be you know random day on random Tuesday afternoon, and the I don't know, something would just catch my attention. I would think to myself, oh, that's beautiful, and I would want to stop and just observe it, and I wouldn't allow myself to do that because guess what? I had things to do and I needed to rush somewhere, and it felt like my whole life was on fire when in reality, like those five minutes, life delays you all the time, right? What if you delayed yourself on purpose and dedicated that to the moment of beauty, of awe, of mindfulness, which they say quite amazing for your well-being, your feeling of connectedness to everything, and yes, your recovery. So the practice was was smelling the roses. Whenever you feel that urge to stop and smell those roses, do. What because why not? Is your life truly on fire? And do you truly need every second of your day to be productive? And it's never the case anyhow, so you might just quote unquote waste or enjoy those five minutes on purpose. What's the worst that can happen? Maybe the wine habit will fall off eventually. So that is practice number two, smelling the roses. And

The Wine Swap For Nervous System Calm

SPEAKER_00 17:11

then the wine swap, practice number three. When you feel the urge for that behavior, whether that's scrolling a wine or or stuffing yourself with nuts or whatever food you tend to go to, take a long shower in the dark. Darkness comes down your nervous system versus taking a shower in this brightly bathroom, which is like a wake-up call, which is not actually relaxing for your nervous system, right? So tone down the dim the lights and take that long shower. Just you know, usually water take grabs your attention and your mind just naturally stops and slows down. And then after that shower, allow yourself again that break for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever the time is that uh you would spend anyhow drinking that wine. Allow yourself to just do nothing. Lay on the couch, watch the ceiling, or if you can like watch the clouds outside, again smell those roses, uh, listen to your favorite piece of music, like just spend that time that would take to scroll or drink wine, or again, whatever that habit is, eat your nuts. Just spend that time and and chill and do nothing, and see what happens after.

The One Question That Changes Habits

SPEAKER_00 18:39

The main idea here is all of it comes back to one question, and it's worth uh asking about any behavior you keep doing, but you wish you didn't. It's like what's the purpose of this behavior? What does it actually serve? What's the real need that I'm not satisfying? What's the feeling underneath the state change I need? And then what else could meet this need without the painful trade-off of that behavior? I wish I didn't do. And ask this question: like, what is what does this behavior actually serve? What need? And then what else could satisfy that need without the painful trade-off? And ask this question without judgment, but from curiosity, like, what is it exactly? Why am I doing this? Like, what how how is it helpful in my life? And it is helpful in some way. There is a change of state, there is a need that you satisfy with it. The behavior isn't is never the problem, it always serves some problem, solves some problem, or serves a purpose. The unmet need is the real issue. So, what behavior in your life is quietly doing a job that something better could do instead? Something that serves your other goals, your other objectives, your well-being a lot better. So that is the question, right? Your homework for today is to look into that behavior that you wish you didn't do, like wine, like overeating, like over-scrolling. Look into that behavior and ask yourself, when does it happen? Why does it happen? Without judgment, and then saying things like, oh, I'm just not disciplined, right? Etc. I need to be, I don't know, more productive or something else. Like ask yourself, what purpose does it serve? What need does it satisfy? And how can I meet this need without guilt, without some self-sabotage? How can I meet this need with loving kindness to myself, compassion, understanding, and true care for my well-being? Like, how can I serve this need? How can I satisfy this need without the painful trade-off? And when you ask this yourself with curiosity, without judgment, when you keep asking, the answer will come. And your experiments, the ones that you can try, the ones that will help you, will come up. And you can try these other practices that work for so many people, right? Microbreaks every 90 minutes, set the timer for five minutes and just chill, do nothing. And then smelling the roses when the moment comes, when you want to stop and adore or experience something, just be in awe in the moment, do that. Like you have five minutes, and then the swap. Figure out what else you can do instead of that behavior that doesn't really serve your life and your long-term or even perhaps short-term objectives. So you do wake up fresh next morning and continue as your best self or as close to that as possible. Thank you

Homework And Share With A Friend

SPEAKER_00 22:05

guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. If you liked what you heard today, if you found it useful, if you know the person who is struggling with this behavior that they wish they didn't do, that they didn't indulge in, please share this podcast episode with that person, with that friend, with that family member, with that team member. Perhaps it will be helpful to them just like it was to you. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Till next time, please do explore that behavior that you wish you did less of. And till next time, keep growing.