The XX Lab

Why do you eat when you’re not hungry? If you’ve ever finished dinner and found yourself back in the kitchen twenty minutes later, or stood in the pantry at 3:30 in the afternoon looking for something sweet, it may not be a willpower problem.I’m a research psychologist, and I’ve studied health and behavior for more than 25 years. In this video, I explain why stress eating may be an old survival strategy: when life feels stressful or uncertain, your brain can read it as a sign that resources are running low, tune out your hunger and fullness cues, and push you to eat while food is around. Then I walk you through three things to try: asking “What am I feeling right now?” before you snack, a 60-second body scan to get better at reading your hunger signals, and safety and security journaling to give your brain evidence that you’re okay.TimestampsIntroduction: Why Do You Eat When You’re Not Hungry? (00:00)How Stress Puts Your Brain in Low Power Mode (01:18)Ask Yourself This Before You Snack (04:40)How to Tell Real Hunger From Stress: The 60-Second Body Scan (07:37)Safety Journaling and How to Put It All Together (10:43)The XX Lab is where midlife women come to understand the science of their own biology: hormones, brain chemistry, behavior, and the research that finally makes sense of how you feel. Dr. Sarah Hill breaks down the evidence with rigor and warmth, so you can make decisions rooted in real science, not guesswork.For more research-backed insight on your hormones, brain, and behavior, find Dr. Sarah Hill here:Website: https://www.sarahehill.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/sarahehillphd  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahehillphdGo deeper with Dr. Sarah Hill's books, both science-backed guides to understanding your own biology: The Period Brain: the new science of why we PMS and PMDD, and how to feel your best all month long  https://www.amazon.com/Period-Brain-S...

Thinking about freezing your eggs? The ads make it sound simple: a few shots, a quick procedure, and more time on your biological clock. What does it really cost, what does it do to your body, and how often does it lead to a baby?In this episode of The XX Lab, Dr. Sarah Hill sits down with health and science journalist Kristen V. Brown, creator of Misconception, the Bloomberg Prognosis series that followed her own path through the fertility industry. Kristen froze embryos at 36 while reporting the story. They cover whether egg freezing is worth it, the hidden costs, what ovarian stimulation does to your body, egg freezing success rates, AMH and the best age to freeze, how to choose a fertility clinic, and why fertility ads can slide from education into fear.Key Takeaways: - Whether egg freezing is worth it depends on your finances, age, relationship, life plans and how much discomfort you can handle; there is no one answer - The drugs make the ovaries mature many eggs at once, so they swell "to the size of very juicy lemons"; the procedure is low-risk, not zero-risk - In the best study so far, about 40% of women who went back to use their frozen eggs had a live birth, and most women never use their eggs - Eggs are fragile when frozen and thawed; embryos survive freezing better About Kristen V. Brown: Kristen V. Brown is a health and science journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, where she was a staff writer. At Bloomberg News she reported on genetics, biohacking, vaccine psychology and reproductive health. She made Misconception, a four-episode Bloomberg Prognosis series that followed her own path through the fertility industry, and Doubt, a 2021 Bloomberg podcast on vaccine hesitancy that won a Signal Award. Her first book, The Immortal Womb, about the long scientific quest to control the female body and reshape human reproduction, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. Timestamps Introduction: Why a Health Reporter Decided to Freeze Her Eggs (00:00)The Hidden Costs of Egg Freezing (and What Insurance Covers) (06:51)What Egg Freezing Does to Your Body (13:31) How Many Frozen Eggs Become a Baby? (20:35)How Egg Freezing Created a "Burden of Choice" for Women (24:05)Is There a Best Age to Freeze Your Eggs? (35:21) Egg Freezing Success Rates: 39%, 51% and 70% (37:15)What AMH Can (and Can't) Tell You About Your Fertility (40:33)How Little We Know About Female Reproductive Biology (53:59)The XX Lab is where midlife women come to understand the science of their own biology: hormones, brain chemistry, behavior, and the research that finally makes sense of how you feel. Dr. Sarah Hill breaks down the evidence with rigor and warmth, so you can make decisions rooted in real science, not guesswork. For more research-backed insight on your hormones, brain, and behavior, find Dr. Sarah Hill here: Website: https://www.sarahehill.com Instagram: / sarahehillphd

Love your partner but rarely feel like having sex?Most of us were taught that desire should strike out of nowhere, and that if it doesn’t, something is wrong with us. What if desire never worked that way for anyone?In this episode of The XX Lab, Dr. Sarah Hill sits down with Dr. Cynthia Graham, Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sex Research, who has spent decades studying sexual response and about 35 years working with individuals and couples in sex therapy. They talk about why planned sex can be just as satisfying as spontaneous sex, the myth that men always want sex, why desire changes in long-term relationships, what turns women on and off, why you can love your partner and still not want sex, and why low desire without distress isn’t a dysfunction.Key Takeaways:Planned sex can be just as enjoyable and arousing as spontaneous sex, and anticipation is one of the biggest triggers of desireIn a UK study of 15,000+ people, the strongest predictor of losing sexual interest was not being able to share likes and dislikes with a partnerDesire often changes over a long relationship, and that doesn’t mean the relationship or either partner is brokenA sexual difficulty is only a dysfunction when it causes distress, lasts and is severe; counting distress, most sexual problems drop to about 1–4%About Cynthia Graham: Dr. Cynthia Graham is a clinical psychologist, Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute and Distinguished Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sex Research since 2009, is a past president of the International Academy for Sex Research, and was a member of the DSM-5 Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Working Group. She earned her PhD at McGill University, worked clinically with individuals and couples for about 35 years, and was previously Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health at the University of Southampton.Kinsey Institute: https://kinseyinstitute.org/about/profiles/cgraham.phpIndiana University: https://gender.indiana.edu/about/faculty/graham-cynthia.htmlTimestampsIntroduction: Is Spontaneous Sexual Desire a Myth? (00:00)What “Context” Really Means for Sexual Desire (13:49)How Much Does Emotional Connection Matter for Sex? (22:23)The #1 Predictor of Losing Sexual Interest (28:14)Why Desire Fades in Long-Term Relationships (36:31)Why a Little Distance Keeps Desire Alive (45:59)Mismatched Libidos: Is It a Deal Breaker? (52:27)What Turns Women On and Off: Inside Her Most-Cited Study (1:07:04)How Body Image Distracts Women During Sex (1:21:50)Sexual Difficulty vs. Dysfunction: Why Distress Matters (1:29:16)What Sex Researchers Are Studying Now (1:40:01)The XX Lab is where midlife women come to understand the science of their own biology: hormones, brain chemistry, behavior, and the research that finally makes sense of how you feel. Dr. Sarah Hill breaks down the evidence with rigor and warmth, so you can make decisions rooted in real science, not guesswork.

Can the birth control pill change who you’re attracted to? If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve probably heard some version of this: go on the pill and you’ll pick the wrong partner, or come off it and suddenly realize you’re not attracted to the person you’re with.In this video, I explain how estrogen, progesterone and the pill shape what you notice in a partner, why there’s no hormone-free “real you” hiding underneath, how to tell low libido from lost attraction, how to track your own patterns, and how to work with your hormones instead of being surprised by them. Timestamps Introduction: Can the Pill Change Who You’re Attracted To?(00:00) How Hormones and the Pill Shift Attraction(00:50)Low Libido or Lost Attraction? How to Tell the Difference (05:48)How to Track Your Cycle, Desire and Attraction (07:58)How to Work With Your Hormones, Not Against Them (11:35)The XX Lab is where midlife women come to understand the science of their own biology: hormones, brain chemistry, behavior, and the research that finally makes sense of how you feel. Dr. Sarah Hill breaks down the evidence with rigor and warmth, so you can make decisions rooted in real science, not guesswork. For more research-backed insight on your hormones, brain, and behavior, find Dr. Sarah Hill here: Website: https://www.sarahehill.com Instagram:   / sarahehillphd   LinkedIn:   / sarahehillphd   Go deeper with Dr. Sarah Hill's books, both science-backed guides to understanding your own biology: The Period Brain: the new science of why we PMS and PMDD, and how to feel your best all month long  https://www.amazon.com/Period-Brain-S... This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: how the pill shapes mood, attraction, and behavior in ways most women are never told  https://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brai...

Why do we feel so misunderstood, even by the people closest to us? Clinical psychologist Dr. Yael Schonbrun says it’s because we’re trying to fix misunderstanding with the wrong tool. Communication happens between people, but understanding happens inside them. It’s shaped by overconfidence, mood, hunger, history and the stories we tell about each other.Most of us are certain we understand other people, and just as certain they don’t understand us. That math doesn’t work out. Our brains are built to feel sure of what we perceive, and even Nobel Prize - winning psychologist Danny Kahneman wrote that he still falls for cognitive bias. Talking more won’t change that on its own. Awareness, curiosity and a little more generosity can.In this episode of The XX Lab, Dr. Sarah Hill sits down with Dr. Yael Schonbrun, a clinical psychologist at Brown University and author of Why Don’t You Understand Me?, to explore what drives understanding and misunderstanding beneath the words. They cover why overconfidence is the bias that rules all others, how naive realism makes our own view feel like the truth, why we cast people as villains, how keeping score wears down relationships, why understanding someone isn’t agreeing with them, and what to ask when the same fight keeps coming back.KEY TAKEAWAYS:Misunderstanding usually starts inside us, in how we interpret what others say and do, not in the words themselvesOverconfidence is “the bias that rules all others”: feeling certain about what someone meant isn’t the same as knowingWe notice what we give more than what we receive, so being a little more generous than feels fair keeps relationships in a positive cycle, without becoming a doormatIn a recurring fight, ask: “What do you think I’m missing?”Guest Bio Dr. Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist at Brown University with more than 20 years of clinical experience, specializing in the treatment of couples and relationships. She writes for media outlets including The Washington Post and is the author of Why Don't You Understand Me?, which looks at the processes inside people that drive understanding and misunderstanding. Connect with Dr. Yael SchonbrunWebsite: https://www.yaelschonbrun.comTimestamps Introduction (00:00)Overconfidence Is the Bias That Rules All Others (05:50)When Should You Stop and Get Curious? (10:40)The Villain-Victim Story We Tell Ourselves (22:10)Strategic Generosity: Stop Assuming the Worst (34:09)Why It's So Hard to Stop Seeing Someone as the Villain (46:22)Understanding Someone Isn't Agreeing With Them (51:55)What to Ask When You Keep Having the Same Fight (58:31)The XX Lab is where midlife women come to understand the science of their own biology: hormones, brain chemistry, behavior, and the research that finally makes sense of how you feel. Dr. Sarah Hill breaks down the evidence with rigor and warmth, so you can make decisions rooted in real science, not guesswork.For more research-backed insight on your hormones, brain, and behavior, find Dr. Sarah Hill here:-Website: https://www.sarahehill.com -Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahehillphd -LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahehillphd