A friend asked me recently why emotional stress has such a strong effect on one’s physical well-being. Break ups tend to bring on intense stomach pains and dramatic weight loss. Many therapists would argue that any emotional distress has a profound impact on one’s personal well-being. How well you sleep, perform at work, socialize, exercise etc are all intimately tied to your emotional health.

Thus, comfort foods; the only things we can eat when we can’t eat anything.

When I was little, my mother used to threaten us kids with jail time. Seriously – jail time. This was before the invention of the ‘time out’. We were told that we would be sent to jail where they only served bread and water. I thought; ‘Whatever Mom! I WANT to go to jail because bread is my favorite food!” It still is. Whenever I’m sick or sad, I crave bread – generally toasted and then slathered in butter. (When on the distress diet, I’m not worried about caloric intake). From the moment I can smell it heating – It starts to make me feel better.

This morning, Robert Pattinson fresh off his break up with Kristen Stewart, was on GMA. It was just his second public appearance since the split. And he seemed OK. Like Edward, in Twilight, he was relatively serious, put together and poised. Though he did joke with George Stephanopoulos about his Cosmopolis costar, Paul Giamatti’s, huge fan following in Brooklyn Heights. If you had been living under a rock lately and you were watching Robert this morning, you really wouldn’t suspect that anything had happened. You’d have no idea that he, the world’s sexiest vampire, had been cuckolded. And, making it worse, it had all played out in the tabloids. You wouldn’t know anything…

Anything except that…he looked a little thin.

So, I got to thinking  how I could help and thought I might send him some Banana Bread.

Here’s a simple recipe I found online and tweaked just a bit:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9×5 in loaf pan. You should really have a pretty colored one – I think bright colors can also help in treating a broken heart.

2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking soda an 1/4 tsp of salt.

3. In a second bowl, combine 1/2 cup of softened butter with 3/4 cup of brown sugar. I like to use the darker, but either is fine.

4. Gently beat two eggs and stir into the butter/sugar mixture. Add 1 tsp of vanilla. Add 2 – 2 1/2 cups of mashed over ripe bananas. Whenever I have an aging banana, I peel it and put it in the freezer and defrost when I’m ready to make banana bread.

5. Combine the wet mixture with the dry ingredients and stir just until the mixture is moist. (You can add walnuts at this point…but you also may be too sad to chew hard nuts and can leave them out)

6. Pour the mixture into your pretty colored loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes.

7. After about 10 minutes, you should be able to easily flip the loaf pan and release the banana bread. Serve it warm and slather it with butter. Go ahead – you’re thin and sad…

I don’t know Robert Pattinson personally but we’ve all been through a break up or two and I felt for him over the past weeks. And, I’m not a Twi-hard, but thought (besides the weight) he looked pretty good. I do hope he’s OK and getting through it. I’d like to see him eat more. Now, if I just knew where he was staying so that I could deliver the bread….and reassure him that this too shall pass and there will, no doubt, be a New Moon.