Episode 20: Self-Care Strategies to Support Your Adrenals in Stressful Seasons
Self-care is important all the time, especially for those of us with autoimmune disease, but it can take on a whole new meaning when you’re heading into what you know will be a stressful season. Perhaps you’re working on healing your adrenals, or maybe you just want to really be proactive about NOT landing yourself in adrenal dysfunction. And, if you’re someone who is dealing with hypothyroidism, then there’s a 90% chance that you also have some level of adrenal dysfunction.... so you're wise to be concerned!
When our adrenals aren’t functioning properly then our stress response isn’t firing correctly,... we’ve got cortisol spikes at the wrong time and a number of physical symptoms that show up. PLUS- that messed up stress response actually impacts our thyroid hormones, as what's happening in the adrenals is tightly connected to our thyroid.
In this episode, we’re talking about adrenal dysfunction and self-care. We’ll get into what adrenal dysfunction is and how it's connected to thyroid health. We'll talk through some of the most impactful things that you can do to support your adrenals when you're in a stressful season of life, as well as resolve adrenal dysfunction through self-care and nourishing your body….and of course, I have a few simple shifts that you can do to start making an impact in this area today.
Glad you're here,
Sarah
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Take the Quizzes: bit.ly/thyroid-tools
Products and Tools to Support Hydration: bit.ly/thyroid-tools
Paleo On The Go: Thyroid-Friendly Meal Delivery Service (use code THYROID-FIX for $15 off your order)
Disclaimer: Information shared on this podcast and any referenced websites are not to be taken as medical advice or to be used as a diagnosis or treatment plan for any medical condition. I’m sharing my educated opinions & experience but nothing shared here can be taken on a one size fits all basis and we always recommend you do your own research, talk to your own doctors and practitioners, and take full responsibility for any health & medical choices you make.
For More:
To subscribe: on iOS, go to the iTunes page and subscribe. On Android, click this podcast link and select your podcast app.
Leave an iTunes review. These are so helpful for me + the show! Every review increases the chances another hypothyroid warrior will find me!
Follow the podcast page on Instagram for the latest updates and related information.
Share your thoughts! I’d love to hear more about the conversations you're having. Shoot me an email, or find me on social media.
Tell others. I truly hope this podcast empowers women to take control of their thyroid health- I’d be honored if you shared and encouraged others to listen in.
*Affiliate links used where appropriate. Thanks for supporting the podcast!
Want to read this episode instead? Here’s the transcript?
So self-care is important, like all the time, especially for those of us who have an autoimmune disease. But it really can take on a whole new meaning if you're heading into what you know will be a stressful season and perhaps you're working on maybe healing your adrenals, or maybe you just wanna be really proactive about not landing yourself in some adrenal dysfunction. And this is a concern 'cause if you're someone who's dealing with hypothyroid symptoms, there's a 90% chance that some of the symptoms that you have going on are actually connected back to adrenal dysfunction. So you're wise to pay attention to what's happening in your adrenals, especially during a stressful season, because all too often we arrive at the point of burnout and adrenal dysfunction that occurs because we're putting other people's needs above our own or saying yes more than we really have the bandwidth for.
And then you combine that with maybe not nourishing ourselves as well as we could be with the nutrients that our bodies need to thrive. And all of a sudden our adrenals can totally tank. And when our adrenals aren't functioning properly, then our stress response isn't firing correctly. We've got cortisol spikes at the wrong times. We've got a number of physical symptoms that show up as well. Plus that messed up stress response actually impacts our thyroid hormones. And what's happening in the adrenals is tightly connected to what's happening in our thyroid. So an essential part of healing your adrenals and an essential part of supporting your adrenals and resolving a lot of the symptoms that come with kind of the crossover between hypothyroid symptoms and adrenal dysfunction is prioritizing you <laugh>. Aside from, you know, learning how to set boundaries and managing stress consistently and saying no to things that drain you, there are quite a few tools that can really help to support you in self-care and taking care of yourself to specifically to support your adrenals and have that be something that you're able to do consistently and really ratchet up when you know you're heading into a stressful season.
In this episode, we're talking about adrenal dysfunction and self-care. We're gonna get into a bit about what adrenal dysfunction is and how it's connected to thyroid health and some of the most impactful things that you can do to support your adrenals and resolve adrenal dysfunction simply by taking care of yourself and nourishing your body. Of course, I have a few simple shifts that you can do to start making an impact in this area today, and I'm specifically focusing on what to do to support your adrenals heading into a stressful time. So grab a notebook and a pen and let's get started with today's episode. Before we jump in this week, I've got a quiz for you that I wanna draw your attention to. If you have not taken my adrenal dysfunction symptom assessment, you're gonna wanna do that. I am so excited to share these quick assessment tools each week with you because I think they're so handy, because so many of the symptoms that we deal with as women who are dealing with hypothyroid symptoms, they feel so subjective.
Sure, there's things that you, you know, you can get blood work done, you can get nutrient testing done, you know, all these different things to kind of see where your levels are, and those are helpful. But so many of our symptoms are very subjective in nature. And so this is really helpful to help identify what they're connected to and then you can know where you should sort of dial in your en energy and effort and helping to resolve those issues. So this is specifically for people who are working on thyroid issues and maybe are just still feeling fried, not getting restful sleep. Maybe you have sweet and salty food cravings. Those are just some of the key tip-offs that you might actually be dealing with some adrenal meal dysfunction as well. And so go ahead and take that at bit.ly/thyroid-tools.
And you can take the adrenal dysfunction quiz. Really, you could take any of the quizzes that <laugh> that you like, but these are great tools to come back to after you've been working on something over time and see if your symptoms are starting to resolve. So you can get the Adrenal dysfunction symptom assessment at Bit.ly/thyroid-tools. Just a few short online questions, and then you'll kind of get your results there and how it's intended to help you identify the symptoms that are keeping you from feeling good as you move through your days.
Welcome to the Natural Thyroid Fix. I'm Sarah Geisinger, a holistic lifestyle and nutrition coach and former hypothyroid mom who has reversed her thyroid disease using a natural approach to thyroid health. Trust me, I know what it feels like to move through life in a brain fog, needing a nap by mid-afternoon and constantly be cleaning the hair you've lost outta the shower drain. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're here, I bet you do. So if you're ready to reject the notion that this tired hypothyroid life is as good as it gets and start implementing simple natural strategies to live a vibrant symptom-free life, then this is the podcast for you. Let's dive into today's show.
The Personal Journey: Navigating Adrenal Dysfunction in Real Time
Hello there. So I am excited to share this episode with you today because it is one of those things that I am currently doing myself, I'm currently working on. A lot of times when I prep these episodes, these are things that, you know, I've worked on in the past or I've kind of moved through and I'm on the other side of, and while I have worked on resolving adrenal issues in the past, these are the kinds of things adrenal dysfunction can pop up again, if you don't keep doing the things that you know help you, which I don't know about you, but that happens to me a lot. <Laugh>, I wish it didn't, but it does. Anyway, I, so I, I don't necessarily feel like I'm in adrenal dysfunction right now. However, you may or may not know this. I've kind of shared little bits of this as we have been moving through it, but my family has spent the past almost 18 months traveling around the United States.
So we sold our house and then we bought an rv and we have been traveling ever since. And so my husband works temporary contracts at, he's a physical therapist, he works temporary contracts at various hospitals and outpatient facilities filling in for them. And that has allowed us to live in various parts of the country, visit what feels like a million different national parks and historical sites and cool cities and family and friends and all kinds of cool things. Anyway, it's been cool, very cool. And we are winding that down and heading back in about three weeks to our hometown in Pennsylvania where we are buying a house again that we have not even seen, but we'll buy it before we even get there. <Laugh>, it's gonna have some renovations we need to do. Half of my kids are going back to public school, half of them are staying home.
So we've got those transitions. We're gonna be living with my parents for a little bit while we're getting reestablished. And my husband is staying behind in New Hampshire, which is where we are right now for an extra month. So for the next month, I'll be doing all that by myself. Yeah. And so the reason I say that is that I was just thinking about stressful seasons that I've gone through in the past and how I have the tendency to just burn the candle at both ends, just head down, push through it. It doesn't matter how tired I am or stressed I am, I just, you know, do what needs to be done. And that is great. There's a real good place for that sort of mentality. I can kind of move through things, move through hard things fairly well. However, I also can get to the end of seasons like that and just be totally fried.
And I do not want that to happen this time. And so, as we are transitioning from our life of traveling around the country to stationary, I know it's gonna be stressful. I mean, everything I just said there is, doesn't that all sound stressful? It's all like major. All the major life transitions all happening for us in the next couple weeks. And so as I just started thinking about that and as we're making plans, one of the things that I am being intentional about doing and planning and just kind of trying to dial in some habits around is habits and routines to help support my body, specifically my adrenals and my stress response, because I know that I have the tendency to burn the candle at both ends, and I wanna make sure that I am supporting my body in that stressful season. And so that's what we're gonna get into today, is supporting your body in stressful seasons so that you can support your adrenals.
And one, if you are in like adrenal dysfunction land right now, I've been there. But, so doing these things is something that you should be doing if you are currently dealing with adrenal dysfunction. And if you're not sure, I would encourage you to go to take the, the adrenal dysfunction symptom assessment quiz that I have. That's just a really quick way to, to gauge where you're at in terms of how your adrenals are doing. You can do that at bit.ly/thyroid-tools. I also, it linked down in the show notes anyway. So if you are in adrenal dysfunction, these are things that you should be doing right? And if you are heading into a stressful season, then you should know that those, those times are usually when adrenal dysfunction pops up, when it starts when we are not managing our stress responses well, we're not sleeping well, we're not nourishing ourselves well, we're not prioritizing self-care, especially in supporting our adrenals.
Unpacking Adrenal Dysfunction: Causes, Connections, and Complexity
So I'm gonna talk about that because that's where I kind of fall right now. Before we dive into that, I wanna talk just briefly about adrenal dysfunction. I have a couple other episodes that you could scroll back. I will link those in the show notes as well and listen to. So I'm gonna kind of give a brief little primer about adrenal dysfunction in case this is the first time you're tuning into this episode. So you, and maybe it's the first time you're really thinking about adrenal dysfunction, period. So I wanna talk about that briefly and explain what it is, how it's connected to hypothyroid issues and why you should work on it. <Laugh>. and then I have some suggestions of things, self-care, habits and routines that you can start to implement and prioritize and figure out to support your adrenals in stressful times.
So if you have a thyroid issue, which I'm gonna go ahead and just assume that you do because I don't know why you'd listen to a podcast focused on hypothyroid issues, especially for women if you didn't have a thyroid issue. But if you have a thyroid issue, then you probably have an adrenal issue as well. And there are quite a few studies that have demonstrated that somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% of hypothyroid patients actually have adrenal dysfunction as well. Adrenal stress, adrenal adrenal dysfunction, h p a axis dysfunction. These are all different ways of saying the same thing. Your adrenals are tired <laugh> and they're not working correctly. And so your adrenals are two little glands that sit, if you put your hands kind of on your back, they sit right on top of your kidneys. And they are largely responsible.
They're largely responsible for, for really lots of different hormones. They're responsible for like your sex hormones. They're responsible for probably the one that you know the most or have heard of the most is the stress hormone cortisol, which we'll talk about. So that's what they do. These little tiny glands have a big impact on lots of different aspects of our health and wellness, especially as women. Let's see, what else do I wanna tell you? I've got all my notes here, but I don't wanna dive too deep. Adrenal adrenal fatigue and adrenal dysfunction in general is sort of one of those things that there's a lot of experience that people have a lot of symptoms, people describe that all can fall into this category. However a lot, there are also a lot of doctors who don't really believe that adrenal fatigue exists. And this can be really frustrating.
So if you would go into your doctor and describe all your symptoms, and they all kind of fall in the category of what I would say or most functional practitioners would say is adrenal dysfunction, or you've got something going on to your adrenals, they're not kind of operating correctly. They in, in some instances this is changing. I don't wanna be like super rude to <laugh> so many doctors who are learning and engaging on this topic because it's such a problem. But basically this very, very serious form where your adrenals are not working at all is called Addison's disease. And so from a kind of traditional western medicine perspective, Addison's disease is like the only thing possible where your, where your adrenals are just not working at all. And so you don't have any cortisol response, you don't have any, you know, any of those hormones that are necessary.
And that's, you know, pretty serious because the adrenals are just too weak to work. But from a functional perspective, there is the belief in a lot of evidence that there is kind of a middle ground before the adrenals are totally shot. They can exhibit signs of dysfunction where they're just kind of not working well, <laugh> not giving the right hormones at the right times, but they are still producing those hormones not in the right way. They're capable of producing the stress hormones at the right times in the right doses, but they're just not doing it because of the dysfunction that's going on. Basically what happens is there's a communication breakdown between what's happening in the brain and the hormone producing glands that actually need to produce the materials that the brain is asking for. So if you're looking for this on, you could, I mean, you could go to PubMed, there's lots of research out there, and sometimes what happens is it's described differently.
So it's just know that, that it is something that is <laugh> that the medical community is sort of divided on, which is okay, that's okay. Especially because it's fine. I, I mean, I am a person that, and maybe you were like this as well, I'm a person that I do not need every single medical practitioner or every single bit of evidence to kind of verify me deciding to take care of myself in a way that serves my body. So anyway, let's see. The adrenal dysfunction issue comes from anything that sends kind of danger signals to our body. Some of the top reasons that you can land yourself in adrenal dysfunction is sleep deprivation, not eating enough calories and having those calories not be really quality nutrient dense foods working a high demanding job, being involved in relationships that aren't healthy, not having boundaries, even just the, the, even the issues that are like regular modern stressors.
I mean, stress is something that our bodies are built to handle. But the problem is modern life presents such, such stress in various forms that our body has a difficult time sometimes discerning what are actual, like life-threatening stressors that require an increase in the stress hormone cortisol to keep us safe and save our lives, versus just getting a frustrating text from your mother-in-law or whatever. <Laugh>, our body has a hard time telling the difference. And so we need to instead of allowing our body to constantly receive these danger signals where that, that kind of come compels it to shift into survival mode, we need to constantly be sending safety signals that our body is okay so that we can override that survival mode that we get into. And on that whole list of things that can land us in adrenal dysfunction, sleep deprivation is probably the fastest way to trigger adrenal dysfunction.
I know for myself, again, I'm heading into a stressful season. Maybe you are heading into a stressful season or maybe you are in a stressful season, or you've been there where, you know, in you know, maybe you're taking care of a loved one who is ill. Maybe you're moving, maybe you are going through some relationship challenges, whatever the case may be. Even just you know, we're heading into the fall, heading into the school year. It just transitions into different seasons from summer into the school year. That can be a stressful time. And so I would encourage you in those times to really focus on some of these extra things that we can do to make sure that in stressful seasons, we give our body the tools it needs to be able to be to, to, to do well with the stress. Okay?
So what happens a a lot of times is our, our, when we get into adrenal dysfunction, we've got a problem with our hypothalamus, our pituitary gland and our adrenals kind of are connected. This is called an axis that they work together. Basically the hypothalamus in our brain, it puts out the call for a specific hormones for cortisol for, you know, there's a stressful situation where maybe in a life-threatening situation, we need more cortisol so that we can have the, like, adrenaline and energy to be able to save our life. And that immediate stress, when the hypothalamus senses that immediate stress, it sends off this, this hormone cascade that leads to activating our fight or flight response. And so as part of that response, the adrenals pump out extra hormones and our bodies go from the state of relaxing and digesting and healing into a survival state.
And so that spike in hormones like cortisol and adrenaline is what triggers that. And our body's energy then shifts from activities that are not essential to survival, like growing beautiful long hair or metabolizing nutrients into energy or making hormones or digesting and repairing yourself like the muscles. Well. and instead it focuses on resources that are needed to meet the great demand for, for cortisol, for the stress-induced cortisol and adrenaline. And so it's like a shift in resources. Again, when we're talking about like a primitive scenario, these instincts are really important. You know, when you need, when you, when you've got a, I don't know, a bear chasing you, you've got a bear chasing you, your body sends these signals, you get a burst of a cortisol and a burst of adrenaline that allows you to like run super fast and climb a tree so that you can be safe and then you're out.
Or, or even if you're trying to get out of the way of oncoming an oncoming car that's gonna hit you, you get that same thing would happen. You'd get a surge of cortisol, sort of a surge of adrenaline that he, that gives you like the energy to like burst across the street and be able to save yourself. <Laugh>. however this is good in in kind of more sporadic instances, but modern life we have these constant stressors. And so we have a constant demand for cortisol. And when we have a constant demand for cortisol, the adrenals eventually just that chronic stress means that the h p axis becomes overwhelmed. They're kind of desensitized to that usual feedback loop, and it just stops sending messages to the adrenals. And <laugh>, I kind of like to think of it as like an exhausted crossing guard who's just kind of like, whatever, go, just go.
Fine, let go. And that is not maybe taking their job super seriously because they're just fried. With the demand, this process directly affects the thyroid. High cortisol eventually slows down thyroid hormone production. And so that means that chronically elevated cortisol levels has a huge impact on thyroid function. And in the early stages, high cortisol increases antibody production. So the immune system creates more antibodies, the more stress it is with higher cortisol levels, that, and then those antibodies go and attack the thyroid. And so this is very problematic. Living in a high stress state all the time, consistently really is detrimental to so many things because the adrenal dysfunction in and of itself has a long list of symptoms. One of those things is an impact in your thyroid hormone, which again, every single cell in our body does something, has something to do with thyroid hormone, which is why the laundry list of symptoms when you don't have enough of it, is so extensive, right?
So this is very problematic if we live in high stress all the time, now it's life, right? We're gonna live in stressful scenarios, that's life. It goes in, comes in waves. And so we want to make sure that when it does come in waves, that we have some of, like the big things in place, some big habits like the big rocks. I always like to talk about, like, you know, some anchors in place that are gonna ensure that we have one, the nutrients that we need to be able to support our adrenals in stressful situations. Two, the habits that we need to have in place to be managing stress on the regular prioritizing sleep, because those are the most important things when it comes to creating adrenal dysfunction, which we don't want. And so we have habits in place that are gonna do that so that we're able to kind of meet the need for the stress hormone well and not have it totally tank the rest of our bodies, which I don't know about you, I am not interested in that sort of thing.
Strategic Self-Care: Proactive Habits to Support Adrenals during Stressful Seasons
So self-care is important, all the, but I find that in particularly stressful seasons, I really do need to dial in and focus on supporting my stress response with like a little extra. So here are some ways that I do that. Here are some things that as I am moving into what I know will be a stressful season, here are some things that I'm focusing on. So the first one is nutrition and meal prep and meal planning. Now, I, truth be told, hate meal planning. I don't know why I have no explanation. I mean, it always does make my life easier and yet I resist it. Anyway, meal prep, meal planning is so important because when you don't do that, you end up just eating whatever, right? And whatever is usually not the most nourishing thing for your body. I'm just gonna say like, I, even when I like, make sure that I have like healthy stores of whatever, like I, it's not really a good idea to just live your life on handfuls of almonds, <laugh>, which are easy to grab and, you know, not necessarily a bad for you food, but they're not providing you a nice well-rounded nutrition.
Nourishing Nutrition and Meal Planning for Adrenal Health
So self-care in, in form, in the form of feeding your body, nourishing foods that sends your body safety signals through food that you're good, you might be stressed out, but you've got food, you've got nourishing food. And that's an important part of adrenal healing. It's an important part of supporting the adrenals through stressful seasons. I would encourage you to, even if you are moving into a stressful season, make a plan for what you're going to eat, what you're gonna meal plan. Now, I love the app plan to eat and in fact, I'll put a link to my plan to eat below. So you could even go and steal all the recipes, steal all my recipes and plan to eat. But it's an app that just, you can, you can save your recipes, you can import them from websites, you can enter them manually, and then you just plug them into the calendar for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.
You can even add extras. And it's just great one, it takes the mental guesswork out of it. Sure, it takes a few minutes each week to kind of figure out what you're gonna do, but it saves you so much time and figuring that out. Additionally, it will take all of your like, recipes that you've planned for the week and make you a grocery shopping list. Super cool. Anyway additionally going along with that, I would encourage you to push the easy button <laugh> for some meals. And the way that I often do that, the way I push the easy button is a few things. Number one, I have a couple like convenience foods that I will buy, and we don't do a whole lot of like frozen foods or anything like that, but there are a few things that I will purchase, like from Costco.
There's a brand that is called Kevin's. They make, it's like a paleo meat that comes in sauce. I'll do that. And some frozen vegetables, cook some rice, done dinner. Make it so simple, I don't have to like even chop anything. And so is that something that, first of all, it's a little more expensive. It's not something I wanna do all the time, but to be able to get something quick and easy on the table to eat in a pretty simple way, so worth it. And so find those, those foods that one work for you and that are available in your area. And, and stock up on them. Not only stock up on them, write 'em down so you know when you're gonna eat 'em. The second thing is, is I increase the number of smoothies <laugh> that I have. I love smoothies.
There ain't nothing I won't throw in a smoothie. I usually pack a smoothie full of protein powder and fiber and healthy fats and anything, any vegetables that aren't gonna make it taste super weird and go for it. And so we will have smoothies for dinner. We will have like smoothie bowls where we put different toppings on it, like nuts and seeds. We will drink. We probably will have a smoothie every day, <laugh> in some way, shape or form, either for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. And so just lean into that additionally. So I would encourage you if you, I love my Vitamix. I'm a big fan because it's so easy to just whip up one smoothies and two soup is really easy. So same thing, I have some good recipes for just like roasted veggie soups where you roast all the veggies on like a sheet pan.
You throw 'em all into the Vitamix with some broth, whip it up, and it's like the most delicious super nourishing veggie soup. We'll do that some days. Figure out what meals are simple for you, it's gonna look different for you. For me, that's super easy. I can like easily chop things up, throw 'em on a pan, roast 'em, blend them done. If, if for you buying more convenience, foods from the store is great, just be mindful of like highly processed ingredients. I like to keep the processed ingredients in prepared foods really to a minimum. And so there are definitely brands that you can do that you just need to look. But I would not recommend just like going and buying like, I don't know, frozen lasagna. That's not gonna be nourishing for your body because usually there's tons of processed ingredients, but there are things out there that you can do.
You just need to do a little bit of hunting. I will link some of my favorites in the show notes and in the email that I have. This week there will be lots of different recipes, <laugh> and different links. You're gonna wanna make sure if you're not on my email list, it's a good week to get on there because we've got a lot of things linking up there. You can do that by going to bit lease slash thyroid tools and you'll plug your email address in. You'll have access to all of that. So I would highly recommend doing that. Smoothies, convenience foods, a couple other like easy buttons that I haven't tried yet, but I am going to, heading into this next stressful season. There's a meal delivery service called Paleo on the Go. And it's kind of like the HelloFresh and things like that, but it's all like paleo autoimmune protocol friendly meals.
And so they're all things, all foods that are, are kind of on my list of foods that I like our families to eat. And so we're gonna give that a try this in this little season. Additionally, things like getting foods delivered, I I think that Instacart is great. And so if Instacart works for you, then great. That's then, then <laugh>, make sure you're, you're getting that lined up with foods that you're kind of stocking and available. Having available snacks that are nourishing. And so I also love a company called Paleo Valley Snacks. And they have a lot of like beef sticks, Turkey sticks, easy protein. I will be eating quite a few of those just to make sure that I get enough protein. And thrive Market is another one that I am, I just got a membership to. And it allows it has a, they have a ton of healthy food at really affordable prices and they deliver.
So that's pretty cool. So some of that, whatever you can do to make it easy, to be able to have food available to you and to have a plan, I would highly recommend recommend doing that. Additionally, when it comes to food, I always make sure that I am getting enough sea salt because it has so many healthy minerals that support the adrenals. And so make sure that you're getting enough sea salt. I put it in my water, I cook with it, I put it in everything. My, my <laugh>. I even will like lick my finger and dip it into the sea salt. So it's just really supportive. It balances your electrolytes, it is helps, it really gives you so many minerals that you are oftentimes lacking. And because you're the in, in stressful seasons, those things kind of get burned up pretty quickly.
Okay, another thing that I love to incorporate is what I would call like adrenal supporting beverages. <Laugh>, to keep kind of the reliance on caffeine at bay. I will be painting a house, renovating a kitchen, moving un unpacking a storage unit, probably starting some homeschool stuff in the middle there and getting the other kids situated in public school. That's gonna be a lot, right? So I know that the tendency will be to have another cup of coffee at like two or three o'clock, and I get that now in, I, I understand that dependency on caffeine, it's not really a cause of adrenal fatigue. It's really a symptom of it when you feel like you're just too fried, that you cannot go on without having caffeine, that's a real big sign that you are, that your adrenals are really struggling. And so reducing your caffeine intake can be helpful in helping to heal, heal your adrenals, but it's not mandatory.
And so I, I do love though, to have some thyroid and adrenal friendly kind of energy supporting options. The things that I would recommend, number one, top of the list is electrolytes, making sure that you keep your electrolytes balanced and you stay hydrated with good electrolytes. That could be just a pinch of Celtic sea salt or using like an electrolyte blend, which again, my favorites are linked at bit.ly/thyroid-tools. Those things, keeping electrolytes in balance is super important for adrenal function. And so I cannot <laugh>, I like beating this drum here of hydration and electrolytes are, they resolve so many things in our body. So make sure that you keep those things forefront of your mind. Additionally, I have a few drinks that I like to mix up that are focused on supporting the adrenals rather than just kind of keeping my energy up with a continuous stream of coffee.
And so I'm gonna talk about them here real quick, but I will also be sending out the recipes in my weekly email. So if you're not on that list, bit.ly/thyroid-tools and you'll be able to get all these recipes in your inbox. So one that I love is a MAA latte. So MAA is an adaptogen that supports our stress response and the adrenals. And so a maa latte in the afternoon is a great replacement for just an afternoon cup of coffee. And so it's maa powder and coconut milk and cinnamon and hot water. You can put some stevia or your favorite sweetener of choice, and then you blend it all up and it's so good. It's like a latte. It's delicious. There's that one. This next one is called an adrenal kickstart cocktail. And so this is tasty. It's kind of like an orange Julius, or like a creamsicle.
It's vitamin C. Your adrenal's love vitamin C. So eating more vitamin C, the, the whole time you're in a stressful season is really helpful. But it combines vitamin C, healthy fats and and then a little bit of sea salt. And so it's a combination of orange juice, coke and nut milk, and some Celtic sea salt all blended together. It's delicious. I also have things linked like four sigmatic and mud water, which are just things you can either mix into tea or they can be, they're like standalone drinks too that are just packed with adaptogenic herbs. And so adaptogens are really helpful in supporting stress response. So this is a great time if you've never tried them, that you can pick them up. A lot of health food stores, you can order 'em online. I will link them in the show notes.
I mean, usually every day I'm gonna have some kind of adaptogen drink, right? And that is, those are really handy. Okay, so that's like the nutrition thing and the food thing. And food and beverage <laugh>, I guess thing.
Stress Management Strategies for Adrenal Healing
The next thing I wanna talk about is supporting stress. This is critical. Anytime you're talking about adrenals, you've gotta have a plan in place to help support stress because reducing and eliminating stress is just a huge part of the adrenal healing journey. It's also then a part of preventing yourself from landing in adrenal dysfunction in a stressful season. So some of these tools have kind of helped to support me as I have done a better job at self-care over the years and just managing stress every day. And that is the key, is that you have a strategy for reducing stress every single day, particularly during a stressful season.
Okay, so the first one, which I am not great at, this is one of the areas I wish I were great at. This is using a meditation app. So stress is a trigger for adrenal fatigue, and that can increase the, the symptoms of hypothyroidism as well. There are so many studies, like I can't even, <laugh> can't even list the number of studies that demonstrate the benefits of meditation in terms of stress management, reducing cortisol levels, balancing hormone levels, like all the things. So starting a meditation, a meditation practice can be challenging. And again, this is an area that I am not the best at, but I have found that apps make it easier. And so there's a couple apps that I've tried, calm, breathe, Headspace there's a couple others that I will link below that I've tried that, that are just really helpful for kind of giving you, like, forcing you to take a moment, breathe, sit, and just quiet your mind.
And again, the benefits are off the charts. So this is an area that I am going to try to incorporate because it's a challenge for me. Maybe it's a challenge for you. Something that's a little easier for me is going for a daily walk outside. This is something that I, I will do every day. Get outside without, sometimes with music I'll listen to something just like quiet music. Sometimes I won't, depending on, you know what, probably depending on whether my phone is charged with some music available. But getting outside every day for a walk is incredibly helpful for balancing cortisol levels. There are a few things that I love to supplement with for supporting stress. And so the first one is supplementing with magnesium. So we are, you are probably magnesium deficient, like just about everyone in the western world. And so you can do it one of two ways.
Well, there's a couple ways. One, you could take it like you could take it internally in a capsule. Topical magnesium is actually really effective in just absorbing through the skin directly into the bloodstream. And especially if you know you have some malabsorption issues, that might be your best way to go. So you can get some topical magnesium, which again, I will link at bit.ly/thyroid-tools and you just apply it topically and that's a great way to do it. The second thing you can do is Epsom salt baths. So Epsom salt is high in magnesium, so the bath part too is good 'cause that's a good way to relax and de-stress. And so soaking in Epsom salts is probably one of the most effective means for getting your body getting magnesium into your body. One, because you are relaxed and your body does a better job absorbing things when you are relaxed in a bath and the magnesium can just absorb through your skin.
So that would be a good way to do it as well. I have another whole episode on saunas and how saunas are so good for so many things, one of which is managing stress. And so I will be eager to get back to my consistent sauna usage. And I would encourage you, if you are in a time of stress, it'd be a good time to start up a sauna practice. Additionally, I've got two of my absolute everyday favorite supplements that I will make sure that I have plenty of in stock <laugh> for as I head into a stressful season, is one supplement called Mito Tomax. And Mito Tomax is a combination of herbs that basically helps to promote a t p in the mitochondria of the cells. It helps your mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell to produce more energy, which I'm gonna need. It also has acetylcarnitine, which is a primary ingredient that helps mitochondrial function, helps increase circulation to the brain.
It enhances stamina. It contains ashwagandha, which is supports immune system, while also helps to support your mood and improves sleep and stress. It's just a really powerful blend of adaptogenic herbs that has helps to support healthy energy without any stimulants and helps to support energy and, and the, the stress response. So there's the mito to max, and then the second one that I will not be without is adaptive capsules. And so the adaptive capsules contain a blend of essential oils that are known to support stress. So it's lavender, coriander, wild orange and fennel essential oils. And then they also has lium, gaba and AHI flour. And so lium comes from South Africa and it's a phytochemical that is known to bring a feeling of alert serenity. Now, I don't know about you, but I wanna live my life with alert serenity. And so that's what Lium does.
The AHI flower is also kind of like a supercharged plant omega that helps to omegas help to calm down and nourish your brain. So in addition to taking my like regular multivitamin routine, which I will add in a little bit extra of the omegas because I know that, that it, it helps to support your brain and the stress response, I will be taking this as well. And the last thing that's in the adaptive capsules is gaba. And so GABA is, has been studied it's a, it's a quieting neurotransmitter. And so it's been studied to and demonstrated in the studies that it promotes relaxation. It has a, a calming effect. It's oftentimes called the breaks on the brain because it just kind of lowers the crazy activity of neural cells in the brain and the co and the central nervous system. And so that can kind of shift the brain into a lower gear.
And when you are in a state of stress, a lower gear is really good. So that basically inhibits neural activity. So GABA's really, really good for calming things down. So the adaptive capsules, miona max electrolytes, I will be using my favorite electrolyte drinks and also putting just pinches of Celtic sea salt into my water to balance electrolytes. Those are things that I'll be doing consistently as well. And I would encourage you to do the same. I also will dial in my essential oil protocols. So I love my essential oils for supporting lots of different things, but specifically in this case, stress and sleep is where they're gonna shine. So the first oil that I love is copaiba essential Oil. And so copaiba, it comes from trees <laugh>, it comes from a tree in, in the Amazon. And so they tap the tree kinda like maple syrup.
And then I like to put a few drops underneath my tongue. So yes, it tastes like a tree, but it is so calming. It has effects on the body very similar to C B D oil, but it does not have any T h C or any of the psycho whatever effects <laugh> that you get with T H C. So I love that it's incredibly calming. I will also be using the adaptive essential oil blend applied topically. I'll put that over my heart probably multiple times a day. I'll probably keep the roller bottle in my pocket or maybe the peace blend. Those are two that I love, love, love for helping bring calm. And also frankincense. I'll put frankincense underneath my tongue with copaiba every day as well for the same thing for the calming effects. So essential oils will be on in my toolkit. These will all be things that'll be in my bag consistently.
Enhancing Sleep Quality for Adrenal Recovery
All right, so that's the stress section. The last thing I'm gonna talk about is sleep. So <laugh>, like I mentioned at the very beginning, one of the fastest ways to induce adrenal dysfunction is through sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is actually what scientists use to induce h p a access dysfunction in lab animals so that they can study it. They just don't let them sleep. So getting lots and lots of quality sleep is critical for allowing your body to heal from adrenal dysfunction. It's critical for keeping adrenal dysfunction at bay when you're in a stressful season. So a few tools that help me to get great sleep, which I will continue to prioritize even in a stressful season. The first one is just getting serious about sleep routines and sticking to it, deciding that I'm gonna be in bed by no later than 10 o'clock, and kind of having a plan for being off my phone an hour before that, not getting started down the rabbit hole of some project late in the evening, that's gonna keep me up late.
Having a couple things, you know, a, a routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, applying oils, filling the diffuser, all of those things. Maybe reading and then sticking to it and then trying to wake up at kind of the same time every day. That's really helpful to those sleep routines. Some supplements that I love to kind of in keep into that routine is the calm magnesium blend. It's a powder that you mix in warm water and drink it, and it's kind of fizzy and there's different flavors. I like the unflavored, but I will drink that in the evening and that help, that magnesium helps to just calm everything down, supports my magnesium levels and all of that. So the calm magnesium blend, that's one thing. The second is serenity capsules. So Serenity capsules are a combination of essential oils. They have lavender essential oil, Melissa, passion, flower, chamomile, all real calming essential oils.
And then they also have L-theanine, which is really helpful for getting the body to calm down and head off to sleep. So I will take two Serenity capsules every night. In addition, I will use Copaiba essential oil again under my tongue before bed, very calming, and then apply some oils topically and also make sure that I have my diffuser running. And so those, the oils that I will use for that are, I mean, there's so many sleepy oils, you kinda have to choose what works for you. I love the Serenity Blend, vever, sandalwood, lavender Peace, I love Spike Ard and Cedarwood, there's so many great sleep combinations, but making sure that I have that set up and running and supporting the sleep habit, <laugh> is going to be at the top of my list as well. So I have all of these things linked that I'm mentioning at Bit.ly/thyroid-tools.
So you can head there and either pick some of those up yourself, kind of check them out a little bit further. If you have any questions, you're welcome to send me an email. You can find my email linked in the show notes. Okay, so I wanna just give you a few things that you can do to today to start moving the needle in this adrenal area. If you are in adrenal dysfunction, if you've taken the adrenal symptom assessment and you're kinda like, whoop, that's me, then those are things you're gonna wanna focus on. If you're not there, but you know, you're heading into a stressful season, let's try and make sure you exit that stressful season with your adrenals intact. Wouldn't that be great? So again, these aren't gonna be all you need to do or have massive impacts, but the deal is with approaching any sort of health issue from a holistic perspective, our winds come as a culmination of small steps combined together to create a massive impact.
Okay? So the first thing is, I always tell people, if you have hypothyroid symptoms, then assume you have an adrenal problem and give it some attention during the stressful season. And so that's just what the research su suggests. And so again, you can take the adrenal dysfunction assessment and kind of get a better handle on how significant that might be. There is some blood work that you could get done if you're really curious, but quite honestly, it, you can get blood work that will tell you what your cortisol level is. You can get markers of how your cortisol levels do. But if you have, so a long list of the subjective symptoms, quite honestly, you will benefit from doing some of these things of supporting your adrenals regardless of what the blood work says, right? So anyway, that's why I just say too, assume you have a problem, because if you have hypothyroid symptoms, anyone and everyone can benefit from supporting their stress response and their adrenal glands.
Number two, I would say, if you focus on nothing else, I would say to focus on stress management. There are so many ways to approach this, but if you can just put into place some consistent daily practices that are gonna help you encounter stress better, like a daily walk, journaling, breathing exercises, limiting phone or social media time, taking up meditation or prayer, using an essential oil over your heart and taking some deep breaths, like putting some boundaries around your time and energy. Maybe find, maybe you need to find a professional counselor to work through issues with. Choose like one or two doable things that you can do to support how you navigate stress. And I promise you, it will help not only your mental health <laugh>, but it will help your physical health as well, because stress has physical implications on your physical health because mental health is physical health, it's all connected.
You can find some of my favorite tools for this at bitly slash thyroid tools. I'll also note to make sure you sleep and all of this stuff comes back to planning because if you don't make a plan, if you don't start to, you know, if you don't make a plan for what you're going to eat, if you don't make a plan for how you're going to get good sleep, then you won't, you won't, you'll just let the stress kind of continue to hit you. The, you'll let life continue to just dictate how you're living and that can land you in a pretty rough spot at the end of it. All right, so there we have it. Go ahead and don't forget to click the link in the show notes or go to bit.ly/thyroid-tools to take the quiz, the adrenal dysfunction quiz, and grab some of the recommended products and resources I have linked up there for you at bit.ly/thyroid-tools. You'll find all of that there. Okay? So I hope you're able to apply some of these things. If you're heading into a stressful season, know that this too shall pass, but I hope that in that time you're able to make shifts towards feeling healthy and good even in a stressful season. Because I believe when you do it that way, when you focus on the doable lifestyle shifts, living a symptom-free life, even if you have hypothyroidism, is totally possible. And I want that for you.
Real quick before you go, if this show has helped you in some way, then I know that it'll help others too. So please head over to iTunes, subscribe, and then leave a review so that more women can find health and healing too. And do you know that you can have an incredible impact on the women who deal with thyroid issues in your circle? Yep, that's right. All you have to do is take a screenshot of this podcast, tag me at Natural Thyroid Fix, and post it in your stories. Let's light a path for all the other hypothyroid mamas looking for hope and healing, and to just feel like themselves again, I'll look forward to connecting with you over on Instagram until next time on the Natural Thyroid Fix.