Dr. Nastasia Irons, ND, is a fellow naturopathic doctor and CCNM class of 2014 graduate. She also completed a 2-year residency program, furthering her training in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, cosmetic acupuncture, and herbal medicine. She has a special interest in hormones, skin, and digestion, but has a passion for fitness and movement and is a prominent fitness advocate within our naturopathic community. She is a spin instructor and inspires everyone (particularly women) to build mental, emotional, and physical resilience by lifting weights and building muscle.
Dr. Nastasia Irons discusses her transformative journey into fitness and its integration with her work as a naturopathic doctor. She shares how fitness helped her during a challenging breakup and highlights the importance of mental health and strength training, particularly for women. Dr. Irons offers practical advice for beginners, emphasizing consistency, accountability, and addressing misconceptions about strength training. She underscores its long-term health benefits, especially for women, and shares her personal experiences with resilience through fitness. The conversation concludes with an invitation for listeners to engage and find joy in their movement.
Speaker1: [0:02] Hey welcome staz dr nastasia irons yes either one’s fine we look so similar i know i think an ex of yours like thought i was you there was like a drama do you remember there was something about this i don’t know i
Speaker0: [0:24] Don’t remember Dory from Finding Nemo so yeah but I think yeah there is that
Speaker0: [0:30] in this world people have told me that before too.
Speaker1: [0:32] Yeah it’s good it’s like
Speaker0: [0:34] On the same in the same neighborhood.
Speaker1: [0:36] Yeah that’s true yeah you work like near High Park right which is where I um I live kind of the opposite end of the park but in the same area yeah wow yeah so we’re here I wanted to talk to you guys I was just saying for a while um because you’ve been posting a lot of really cool stuff on your Instagram very inspiring about, I don’t know what you would call it, like a fitness journey.
Speaker0: [0:59] Yeah.
Speaker1: [1:00] Yeah.
Speaker0: [1:01] Just like I got into the fitness world a little bit after I became a naturopathic doctor. And the combination of the two for me has been really nice. Like from a personal journey, it was something that helped me get through some darker emotional times. Like when I was going through a really bad breakup, I actually found a spin class, tried it for the first time. And it just allowed me to feel like me again, almost. And then I did that for years. And I still teach spin. But then I got into strength training a year ago more seriously. And that’s when I realized that this is a huge part of women’s health that we’re not taught a lot about.
Speaker0: [1:42] And it’s probably one of the best things you can do for your body long term. And so I want of focus a lot of my practice now, which is a lot of my patients are actually women, not all of them, but just teaching people how to incorporate nutrition and strength training into their everyday life.
Speaker1: [1:59] Yeah, this is so cool. It’s such a big thing now. I don’t know what you would say, maybe in the last, it seems like five years, maybe 10, where now women are interested in and building muscle and strength training. And how did you find your way into it? Like, so it was for your mental health and then.
Speaker0: [2:19] Yeah, fitness was, I used to be a dancer. So before I became a naturopath, I was a competitive dancer. And then when I moved to Toronto, I didn’t have a community anymore to, that felt like the same as my dance team. So I started going to the gym, I joined a few gyms here and there, but I still also felt like I was just walking around by myself. And I was really lost in terms of what to do. So I stopped working out. And then when we became students at CCNM, I think that just took over my life. And I lost like, that other side of me that I think was part of my life since I was a kid. And it wasn’t until I became an ND that I decided to explore fitness again, I think, because we finally had time. But spin was one of those moments that it was life-changing for me from my first class till even now. I just taught a class this morning. I had this moment in the room where I felt like myself or part of my personality came back. And it’s like when you go through a lot in life, you sometimes lose yourself a little bit in that. And when you’re in a job where you give energy out to people all day, you, again, don’t have a lot of time to hear your inner voice or really connect with who you are. For some reason in the spin room, I did. I had that moment where I was like, oh, this is missing in my life and I feel better. So I want to be able to do that for other people.
Speaker0: [3:41] And so I did that for years. But then last year I was noticing, OK, like I’m in my late 30s now. So why is that not working for me? Like my fitness seems like it’s getting thrown off, even though I’m doing so much. And I think I hear this story all the time from my patients where they’re like, I’ve been doing the same thing my whole life, but all of a sudden now it’s not working. And so I started to really explore, okay, like what’s going on with our hormones? What’s going on with our body composition as we age? And why is cardio not enough
Speaker0: [4:12] for people and like maintaining body composition? And that’s when I looked into strength training and started incorporating it for myself as like an experiment to see, okay, if I do this, what happens? And then it started to work. I was feeling better, stronger, noticing that my muscles were growing. And then I realized, oh, I’m going to teach women how to do this. And so that for a year now, I’ve been strength training a few times a week and learning how to teach others. And I might become a personal trainer too. I’m just trying to find time. That’s cool.
Speaker1: [4:44] That’s good. Yeah. Because personal trainers are great people to refer to because like how did you maybe you can explain kind of your journey and getting into it because I feel like it’s daunting for people to know where to start how to begin like you know what exercises do I do how do I put a plan together like you know specifically
Speaker0: [5:02] Yeah I think that um, Obviously, nowadays, we have a lot of resources online. So if you have internal motivation to get yourself to the gym or if you have a gym in your condo or weights at home, you can start on your own. But I find that the biggest hurdle for people is just the day one. Like, when do you start? What does that look like? And if you walk into a gym and you feel kind of like you don’t know what you’re doing, it doesn’t feel very fulfilling. And strength training is different than going in and doing a cardio class because it might not feel like as sweaty or as intense, but the reality is, is what’s happening in your body is really beneficial. So it’s about the long game and learning how to stay committed and keep yourself consistently going for about six months. Then you start to really feel different. But the best way to get started is to either get yourself set up with a personal trainer. So if you have money to pay someone just to watch you work out and help you a couple sessions at a local gym would be really helpful. If that’s not in your budget, then I would say the next best thing to do would be if you have a naturopath or someone you work with on your health team who could design a plan for you, they could design a plan that has like, okay, let’s start with two times a week, upper body and lower body, four workouts each time. And here’s a link to a YouTube video on how you could do it. So I do that for people.
Speaker0: [6:30] Then you can actually in the visit, go over like the workouts with them, make sure they understand. If that’s still not in your budget, that’s okay too. You can honestly just go online and like type in what you’re looking for. There’s a lot of apps that exist now that you can use to design your own plan or you can pay for like a yearly membership, which is usually pretty affordable to something like the sweat app or Marcus Philly has a bodybuilding app and they go through whether you’re a beginner intermediate or advanced they’ll design a plan for you and then videos and everything to take you through it so how to do it is actually getting easier and easier these days the the getting yourself there and starting I would say has to come from within so there has to be some desire to do it and then it’s all about whether you can get yourself there or if you maybe set a plan with a friend or someone you do it with and go with them. That’s another way I help, you know, get people to motivate themselves or stay motivated. Um.
Speaker0: [7:29] Oftentimes I find like booking yourself in with a trainer or a class or getting started by like putting it in your calendar and making yourself like Tuesday at 7 a.m. This is what I’m doing. And that it’s like booking a class like the morning of if you canceled, you would have to pay $30. So maybe incentivize yourself somehow to like take $30 out of your bank account and put it somewhere else if you don’t do the workout. I mean, I don’t know. You have to find little ways. But I think once you get started, then it’s much easier to keep going. It’s just about that, like, first couple weeks.
Speaker1: [8:03] Yeah, you find, like, you’re, yeah, the scheduling it in, like, I recently started doing that because I was doing a whole course on insulin resistance, and a huge part of that is, like, strength training. And I was like, I don’t, I’m, like, preaching how to support your insulin levels. I’m like, I don’t think I do strength training twice a week. I randomly sprinkle it in. So I started actually scheduling it like, okay, Tuesdays, Thursdays, lift a kettlebell, like, you know,
Speaker0: [8:29] Even if you have to.
Speaker1: [8:30] Yeah.
Speaker0: [8:31] I have a lot of patients who just have their own dumbbells at home and just have to do a couple different workouts. That’s getting started. And people are always like, oh, well, if I don’t go to the gym and put an hour in, then I’m not going to go. But honestly, 15 minutes is great. Like wherever you can start. And there’s a lot of free videos on YouTube that you can use to just watch and learn. Um and we can link them after if people want some idea yeah yeah yeah and i think um, we can we’ll talk about this later but like with strength training there’s a lot of options even if you only have um like a couple dumbbells you can do more than uh just use heavy weights you can use like slower movements to help gain muscle for example um and like do a couple tricks so that you’re slowly building muscle and not staying the same, even from what you have access to at home.
Speaker1: [9:24] Yeah, that’s a good point. There’s somebody I follow I’m thinking of who taught me a lot just from kind of following her. She’s just an Instagram influencer built by Becky.
Speaker0: [9:34] Oh, cool.
Speaker1: [9:35] Yeah. Have you heard of her? Yeah. So she, one of the things I learned from her is just like how long it takes to, for the body recomposition. Like she’s like, I’ve been doing this consistently for four years. So we think we’ve been kind of coached or taught to think that it’s like, 10 weeks or two weeks or lose 10 pounds in half a day.
Speaker0: [9:59] Honestly, I think that’s my biggest problem with like some fitness influencers online right now. They’re selling products like here’s my eight week total body shred program. Okay. If you look at my Instagram, you can see from a year ago, I started this journey and I said on end, I was like, okay, it was like July 8th. So I’m coming up on almost a year. And I told everybody, I’m going to do this like 10K a day walk, 10K steps a day walk. I’m going to do strength training. And in eight weeks, I’m going to check back in and show you what happened. And obviously we’re all different and like everybody’s story is different. And I did start with a bit of an active background already, but you can see like in those eight weeks, your body composition can change a tiny little bit. Within 12 weeks, you can see some muscles start to show. Like there obviously is change. People always want to know like how long will it take. I mean, within 12 weeks, body composition will change, but noticeable long-term changes to things like your measurements, stepping on the scale, seeing a change there, which we can talk about later, but like that’s kind of a useless one. But measurements and muscle growth, really we’re looking at six months and then check back in in a year. You will be shocked at how your body looks. It will be different. I suggest that people take a picture of like one picture of in their underwear, keep it for themselves, but do it every four weeks.
Speaker0: [11:21] If that triggers you maybe only every like once every four months like every quarter but, it should help you see that maybe what you feel on the inside is like you’re not changing at all or the scale is going up or like all these things that people are afraid of like or they’re going to get bulky what you’ll actually see is the the what you see it first of all in your own picture is probably better than what you think it’s going to be even from that first one and then as you go along you’ll see the change to your body more than what like if I just asked you if you feel different that’s a harder thing but when you look in the pictures you’ll start to see the definition and the muscle growth and it’s pretty amazing yeah.
Speaker1: [11:59] That’s cool and to like think of it as like a long game like a long game
Speaker0: [12:02] Yeah like every year every year if you stay consistent and it seems really it seems like so much when you’re just starting I get that it’s like looking up at a mountain thinking oh my god I have to hike that whole thing but one day you get to the top and you’re like, okay, I did that. Right. And then if you look back, it doesn’t feel that long. So it’s just getting started.
Speaker1: [12:22] Yeah. It’s like four years goes by anyway. So you might as well look shredded at the end of it.
Speaker0: [12:27] And then honestly, like the benefits are incredible. So it’s worth it. Even if, um, if you’re doing it for a purely just look changing the way you look, that’s one thing, but the benefits to gaining more muscle on your body go way beyond how you look.
Speaker1: [12:42] And we’ll talk about that too but I also want to say just to acknowledge what you said before about you can do kind of slower more intentional movements not necessarily using like huge weights and that’s another thing i learned from the build by becky like her whole style was just to do like pulsing like very intentional very slow very mindful um movement using like dumbbells basically at home and that was the whole plan so yeah that’s a good point that it doesn’t have to be like you know huge barbells where you’re squatting like your body weight or more you know
Speaker0: [13:18] Like definitely if the weights are heavy you’re going to see more change especially as you get into like perimenopause um when your estrogen levels start to change a little bit we have less of that tissue response to build muscle that anabolic response so you are going to get more results the heavier you can lift but that’s not necessarily like humongous humongous um barbells it’s just that your um the two ways to stimulate muscle that are really going to help you are one time under tension. So what we talked about, like going a lot slower and with the purposeful movement, focusing on your form. So for example, if it’s like a bench press or something and you’re pushing the dumbbells out, you’re going to push out for one and then you’re going to pull in for three long seconds. And so that time that your muscles are under all that tension is longer than if it was just like one, one, one, one, and that’s going to build muscle. So you can, a lot of times when you do it slower, the weight feels way heavier. So it’s okay to use lighter weights. And then you also want to use progressive overload technique. So over time, those weights are going to feel a little easier and you should be stimulating the muscle a little more by going up a couple pounds, go up a couple pounds. It doesn’t have to be huge jumps, but if you’re training properly and eating enough protein, your body should be feeling like it can handle a little more. And that progressive overload is going to get you bigger muscles too.
Speaker1: [14:44] That’s good. That’s really good tips. Yeah. So yeah, the longer, it’s not about like maybe as many reps as like, yeah. And then, um, and then yeah, like slowly adding more weight, which if you’re just starting, you could maybe start with body weight or resistance bands and work your way up. Yeah.
Speaker0: [15:02] And the other thing too, is that, um, what feels like a nine out of 10 when you’re just starting is going to be different than one year in. And one thing I think, especially women, um, what holds us back a lot is our feeling of confidence when we go to the gym or when we’re going to lift a weight. It’s like, oh, I don’t think I can do that. I’m going to push, use 10. I see women all the time. They’ll choose 10 for themselves, but by the time they’ve worked with me once, they’ll take 30s when they’re doing a chest press because you actually can lift a lot more than you think. It’s your head that keeps you back. So your true nine out of 10 feeling means like we talked about this in the gym a lot. It’s like nine RP. So what does that mean? It means that you probably could do one or two more probably only one if I asked you to but you couldn’t do three so if if you can still do more reps and you’re not getting to that eight or nine out of ten and like you could do another six it’s not heavy enough for you uh-huh.
Speaker1: [15:56] Yeah so you’re like you should be able to kind of like really
Speaker0: [15:59] Yeah I guess with.
Speaker1: [16:00] Good form get one more in yeah
Speaker0: [16:02] Yeah yeah so keep your form good right because if you have to totally change your form to try to get that rep in probably it’s too heavy but but if you can keep good form and and do three more then maybe you can go up in your weights a bit so that that feeling of a little bit of a struggle when you’re getting that last couple of set reps should be there for if we’re looking at true strength training that’s.
Speaker1: [16:24] I think like the beauty of having a trainer is having somebody kind of like helping you get out of your head and like no i know you can do it like let’s give me one more And then that extra rep is probably making a huge difference in progress.
Speaker0: [16:39] And that’s what you learn. So when I started the journey last year in June, July, I was doing it on my own using an app and just going to the gym and trying it. And that was fun. It felt really like empowering. And I was getting stronger. But then I started working with a trainer a little at this gym called Strong. His name is Callum. He’s amazing. And he was like, pick a heavier weight, Jazz. And every time he made me go heavier and heavier. And I thought like, is this what it’s supposed to feel like? It’s trembling. I thought it was going to throw up a little, but it’s just calmly like, you know, pushing me beyond where I would normally keep myself. And then I got stronger way faster. I learned to have confidence in my own ability at the gym and I learned what a true nine out of 10 is. So now I can push myself on my own to that limit. You still will always work out a little harder with a trainer, but that experience having someone just look at you and help you do a little more and give you the right confidence and form recommendations at first is.
Speaker1: [17:39] Really valuable that’s a good yeah that’s i love that like oh is this what it’s supposed to feel like and then you’re basically gonna puke but i don’t okay and then yeah then then also like this part about like one thing i don’t do at the gym enough i think is like resting between sets and yeah okay
Speaker0: [18:00] The thing this is a really cool fact okay so because typically uh women do a lot more cardio than men at first. Yeah. When you go to the gym and you start doing strength training, your cardiovascular ability is usually pretty high. So when you’re lifting weights and they’re not maybe as heavy yet, you might feel like you don’t really need to take breaks. Like, you know, when you see people at the gym and they’re like, and like, they’re kind of making weird noises and they’re taking time and you know, a minute goes by and then they go back. I always used to think to myself, that’s taking so much longer. Why don’t you just push the reps So like, let’s go get in, get out.
Speaker1: [18:37] Phone, get out, get back on it.
Speaker0: [18:40] When I talked to my trainer about this and he was like, you know, I think women at first don’t feel like they need the break because their cardio is better than their strength. Once your strength starts to get there and you’re doing that split squat and you’re like, you have, you do eight and then you like, I need the break in between. I almost feel like if not, I’m not going to feel well. Like you should be feeling a little bit like, like your heart rate’s picking up enough that you actually need to take a minute to breathe. The other purpose is just allowing your muscles to refill with blood and get like rested enough so that you can push again and get a true 9 out of 10 experience again. So you’re not just like failing at five because then your body just needs a little bit of time in between each one to recover, to get the most out of the workout.
Speaker1: [19:24] Yeah. And I’m also just thinking too, the nervous system, like when you’re at that point where you’re pushing so far beyond kind of like what feels like a limit or I mean you’re really at your limit I guess like you’re nine out of ten it takes some time to kind of like recalibrate that all like with your nerves even you know
Speaker0: [19:41] And like normally feel like a tiny bit dizzy you know pushing it really hard and that’s the goal uh and then you take a minute everything kind of settles and you try again and then a couple of those and you know on to the next workout or call it a day like whatever that workout time is for you make make the most out of it but definitely do it heavy enough that you need to take a little bit of like I would say like a 60 second to 90 second break between each one yeah.
Speaker1: [20:10] So all this sounds unpleasant
Speaker0: [20:13] Yeah I know it’s selling it am I you’re.
Speaker1: [20:20] Just like yeah you should be like vomiting and like you’re dizzy and you want to died but and i guess you know there’s like we can get into like the mental health benefits of even that repeatedly like entering into that experience where you’re like pushing yourself into an uncomfortable place then you’re overcoming that like repeatedly like you’re doing that multiple times in a set in a workout and then you’re doing that a few times a week and like you know the effects on your mind and body of just being able to push yourself feel uncomfortable and survive it and get stronger from it
Speaker0: [20:57] Yeah oh it’s such an amazing thing to learn I feel like that probably was the reason for why I loved spin so much and it got through a lot of um let’s say like challenging times in my life one being like the grief I experienced right before finding the spin class and then feeling like I could yeah push myself through the times that were challenging I also experienced five years into my teaching spin journey and being an ND I was riding my bike home one night.
Speaker0: [21:28] And I got hit by an Uber while I was riding my bike. And so I had a fully broken femur inside the hip joint. So like broke my hip. I had to spend time in the hospital. They obviously had to like put the titanium rods in my hip to hold it all back together. I was in a wheelchair for a while and had to learn kind of the basic things like walking again and balancing. Thing my legs turned into like spaghetti noodles like oh I lost all my muscle and this was the day after I had auditioned for a really big spin job in Los Angeles so my life would have taken a very big turn and then it didn’t and it seems kind of sad but in that moment I mean I actually felt really loved because I could all my friends came to the hospital and like I really saw you know, this you have this feeling of feeling really loved and supported once you’re going through something but then as time goes on you’re you still feel alone again in that journey it can get dark again because um you’re still going through it but maybe like the the shock of what happened to you fades for everybody else around you yeah.
Speaker1: [22:36] So it’s in
Speaker0: [22:36] Yeah those are the moments where your own self-resilience needs to come back up so a lot of times I explain this to people like it’s like a feeling of darkness inside of you or maybe there’s like a little light like a little tiny like flame from a match whereas before maybe it was a big bright light so you feel lost you have to try to find that and then it will grow inside you again so like that light can become bigger it’s just about you know going through what you have to go through and then also finding resilience so knowing that the light is there is a big thing and I talk about this in a workout too so like when you’re having a moment where you want to give up or you find it very challenging it’s the same as when you’re going through grief and you just kind of want to lay in bed all day. We’ve been there. It’s very hard. There’s times where you have to be okay with that and let it happen. And then there’s moments where you’re like, okay, I’m going to get out of bed now. I’m going to take some steps. I’m going to have a piece of bread. And then that’s like, you know, in the gym, you make choices to continue to push, even though you’re uncomfortable. That’s the same thing that you can take out into your real life. And that’s for me, like the mental health strength that we gain through feeling
Speaker0: [23:44] uncomfortable in a workout yeah.
Speaker1: [23:46] Thanks for sharing that that’s cool yeah it’s like that finding that flame it’s not completely out it’s just a lot dimmer than it might have been before the accident before the grief whatever you’re going through and then you’re trying to like okay what is it telling me to do is it you know I just rest today and don’t get out of bed or is that spark kind of asking me to push a little bit whatever that means you know yeah
Speaker0: [24:14] Sometimes hard to hear and then there’s times like I when I went through a really bad breakup during COVID this was after the accident so like six months later I actually had tried out for the spin studio again I got the job after everything and then everything shut down in the world and like it all got taken away from me again is what it felt like and then I went through a big like huge breakup there was a lot of infidelity and like emotional abuse I was probably in the darkest place I’ve ever been in my entire life and I was all alone um in Canada at the time like my family wasn’t there so I had no one to really help me through it and so I had to my family would facetime me to try to get me out of bed to like walk to the kitchen and eat but it was hard I spent two or three weeks just in my bed under the covers. Like it was a dark time.
Speaker0: [25:04] And I remember just feeling like you use what you can. So like the little FaceTime calls or like going for a walk maybe and trying to be listening to podcasts to make me feel better, trying to read a book, like little things, but like that flame was basically dead. And then one day I started going for a bit of a longer walk, which turned into like a little baby jog. And that turned into like a 2K run. And then it was a 5K run. And then all of a sudden I was running 13K in the winter and like feeling like myself again. And it was, it was that feeling of, okay, like wherever you’re at in your life, if you can come back to maybe, maybe fitness or any kind of movement, then maybe that’s the way to like bring that light back if you feel like you’ve lost it. So I feel like throughout the past decade in different part times that I’ve had, my journey with fitness has always helped me through. So that’s what I want to try to help people learn so that they can do that too.
Speaker1: [26:00] Yeah that’s beautiful yeah I mean and it’s I think really important because if we were like to pull up your Instagram right now it’s like it’s probably like you’re at the gym like you’re really fit you’re healthy you’re happy it’s like oh wow like Staz has something like one might think like Staz is something I don’t have like that’s a different person it’s a fit person so for someone who’s looking at that not just you Like anyone who’s kind of in the fitness world or the health world, somebody who’s like, I’m currently like, can’t get out of bed and I don’t even have the strength to like eat anymore. You can like kind of disidentify or feel alienated from that. But to know that it’s like you’ve been there and and maybe a background in fitness gave you that connection where you’re like, I know that this helps or I know that this is part of my identity. Um but it is possible to like build up from like like starting over completely physically but also mentally emotionally like coming back from heartbreak just being in like a total rock bottom and like building yourself up from there you know so and that’s i
Speaker0: [27:10] Think that that’s a really important thing that you brought up and i want people to know that i just want people to know that I know what it’s like to start over and to really bad place and to try again. And I, and multiple times it’s been very hard. And I would say that, yeah, looking at my Instagram now, if you don’t know that about me, or when you come to a spin class and you don’t know that you might just think, Ooh, that’s an unattainable level of spin. Like I can’t do that. Or I can never get there. Like it’s annoying that she’s doing pull-ups. Like I’m here. But I just, yeah, and it’s okay if it’s triggering because that like the fitness wellness world can be but i i want people to know that wherever you’re at in your journey whether it’s like you’re considering strength training or you don’t even know what what that would look like for you there is a space for you and there’s someone who can help you get there and i would be one of those people totally.
Speaker1: [28:05] Yeah because it’s like i you know i know what that’s like or you know yeah you’ve been there and the bleakness of like I’m sure that in those moments when your family is like okay go get something to eat you’re not thinking about you know, like a few years later when you’re going to be like, yeah, doing pull-ups or something like you’re, you’re just taking it one moment at a time, not even a day at a time, probably.
Speaker0: [28:31] Yeah. It was more like every, maybe if I could fill every hour, try to get through the hour, then maybe the next hour would feel better. I, there was a time back then that I would try to sleep in as late as I could so that the day wouldn’t be long. And then I would go to bed as early as I could so that I wouldn’t have to be awake for a lot. Like that was the worst time. So I’d probably try to wake up around lunchtime and go back to bed around six. And within that six hours, I’d go for a couple walks, cry to my family on the phone and like try really hard to eat something, but mostly couldn’t. Like it was bad. yeah um but like anything in life it doesn’t last even though it feels like it will you know like sometimes you can feel like whatever situation you’re in right now is going to be like that forever but it it doesn’t last and time does keep moving so if you can learn to just like yeah take one step in front of the other whether it’s going for a walk again or doing something that makes you feel good. That’s always a way to get through stuff. Fitness doesn’t have to mean going to the gym and lifting weights. It can just be moving your body in a way that feels good.
Speaker1: [29:45] Yeah. My life is like walking in the park. Just go outside.
Speaker0: [29:50] Yeah. I love that. I know. Just that. And then the gym doesn’t have to feel like this big scary place. You can learn so much. Just pair yourself with someone who knows or have either a mentor, an Instagram account, a health provider, anyone, a trainer, and then you can start and then that confidence will come.
Speaker1: [30:10] Yeah. It’s also making me think too of like, you know, coping mechanisms. Like we all have a variety of ways that we cope and that we can like, in a dark place, you start kind of reaching for it. So it’s like… In your psyche, in your identity, you have fitness. And so there are probably people out there, maybe listening who have not like, don’t identify at all with fitness. Like they’ve never really been athletic. They’ve never really gone to the gym. Maybe they did like cardio machines or something. So in that case, it can be something like you’re starting like a totally new thing, you know, not just kind of starting over, but it’s, this is like completely foreign thing that you’re even contemplating so um but I think the spirit is is similar where it’s like okay like then in that case maybe it’s helpful to reach out to a guide or someone that can introduce you to the world you know
Speaker0: [31:04] Or take a class where you know that um maybe like an instructor if this is something you want to try like through class pass or something or they can help motivate you and like you can become part of a family so for me it was like the community building of being at a spin studio or something like that really helped me make friends as an adult and then love fitness again and then from there you can start to get more confidence to go to the other gyms yeah so maybe it’s that that helped me yeah.
Speaker1: [31:33] That’s actually yeah that’s cool that’s a cool thing about spin that there’s like it’s it has it’s more than just a workout it has like kind of a spiritual like mental health components like a therapy session like a motivational thing you know
Speaker0: [31:46] Yeah and that’s there’s really cool research on that which you’re probably really already aware of but uh like different parts of your brain that light up when you’re doing physical activity versus just talking and where we store trauma is different parts of our brain but definitely in the posterior section versus like the frontal lobe and when we’re just talking the frontal lobe will light up and we’re definitely talking about you know our experiences and our traumas but then And when you’re actually activating the back of your brain through working out and then you’re having maybe a positive message come in or you’re processing some things, I think that’s where you can start to target some deeper information. Stored thoughts, maybe memories, maybe, you know, any kind of PTSD that they’re the same thing. Like there’s research, I think, on like different types of hallucinogens and the ways that that can activate your brain. Exercise has a similar effect. So in a spin room, you’ve got someone saying maybe some motivational things as you’re struggling on the bike, but it’s not just about that moment. Maybe it’s helping you through other things that you have processed in your brain.
Speaker1: [32:51] It’s like rewiring stuff. And actually, that’s a good point that I didn’t really put together because you have EMDR, right, where you incorporate like very basic movements, just bilateral movements, like whether it’s eye or you’re tapping bilaterally. But if you’re spinning or walking like you’re doing this bilateral kind of rhythmic thing that yeah you’re like liberating or like kind of moving stuff from other regions of the brain to like allow it to be processed and then your brain’s rewiring because it’s intense exercise and you have all this blood flow and so it’s like yeah you’re putting your body in this different physiological state you’re also like activating your nervous system in a way that like you’re you’re comfortable in kind of that fight or flight space you know yeah and
Speaker0: [33:37] That’s that’s really a very important thing for especially the type of like world we’re living in now to be able to notice when maybe your nervous system’s coming up and you’re feeling like a higher heightened feeling of stress and being able to notice that and still like stay grounded in that experience.
Speaker1: [33:54] Yeah yeah that’s one thing definitely like higher intensity exercise or like strength based exercise like can do it’s like yeah you’re comfortable like your nervous system expands to hold more of that stimulation and more of that stress and tension and then it almost like lowers your baseline activation you’re like okay like you know I brought it up to a nine out of ten and now it’s back to like a three whereas maybe I was living at a six all the time you know
Speaker0: [34:24] Yeah, totally. And that’s actually one really cool thing about saunas too. So you can incorporate heat after a workout. And for women, that’s been shown to be really beneficial for like improving blood flow, increasing our stress tolerance and increasing our temperature tolerance too. So helping with things like dehydrating the muscle more and getting more results at the gym, but also reducing your experience of hot flashes if that happens to you as we get older and your tolerability to hot environments. So like the summertime and not feeling as like heated, saunas help with that.
Speaker1: [34:58] Yeah, I’m a huge sauna lover, especially in Canada. It’s kind of like, you know, a necessity. I think everyone needs one.
Speaker0: [35:08] I agree. I’m like, just need to save up some money and get myself. Yeah. A lot of gyms have saunas. So that’s a benefit.
Speaker1: [35:15] Yeah. We need more communal saunas and cold places. Maybe. Yeah. Like we need more of these spaces, I think. And, and so let’s talk about some more of the benefits of like muscle building and, you know, for somebody who’s like, I don’t know, I don’t want to get, you know, I hear this less and less, I think, but I’ve still, I’ve heard it in the last year, let’s say like patients being like, I don’t want to get bigger. Yeah. I want to be smaller.
Speaker0: [35:41] And people are afraid that it’s going to cause them to like look bulky, that word. It’s definitely something we have to coach people through because it’s scary at first when you’re coming to see someone for body composition goals. Let’s say that patients are like, I want to lose weight. What should I do? And then I start talking about strength training. And then everybody’s like, oh my God, is that going to make me bigger? So one, no. Two, muscle is called lean tissue for a reason. So it’s definitely going to cause a change in your body size that will most likely look smaller, even though you’re building muscle, because muscle is an expensive tissue to keep on your body. So it costs a lot of energy for your body to hold it there, which means the more muscle you have, the more calories you actually need to eat to stay that way. So it’s kind of like if you want to talk about building your metabolism or increasing the fuel you’re burning, more muscle equals more calories you can consume just and just be a human living on this earth and have a higher metabolic rate. So more muscle equals more calories, more metabolic activity.
Speaker0: [36:45] In addition to that, it helps with your cholesterol levels, your blood sugar levels, blood flow to the brain, your mood. But from purely just building muscle and having that change your body, what’s going to happen is you’ll most likely, because you need to all of a sudden eat more calories to keep it there, your body starts to actually lose fat the more muscle you burn. So that’s a way to actually change your body by still eating a lot, still loving your life, build more muscle, and then your metabolism comes up. So it’s slower because you’re not going to just be cutting and cutting and cutting, which by the way, doesn’t work. You just lose all your muscle.
Speaker0: [37:21] By the same way that I explained like if your muscle is expensive and you have to eat a lot to keep it there if you’re not eating enough it’s the first thing you lose so if you’re losing weight by not eating enough you’re actually losing muscle first which you don’t want because of all the things I said about like your insulin and your cholesterol and all those things that need muscles you don’t want to lose all that so anyways building muscle will actually cause your body to one day like work more efficiently a little bit slow but that eventually tips over you build and then your body starts to shed the fat. So as fat like comes off the muscle tissue around your body, then you actually look a lot leaner. And I always tell people who are afraid of looking like huge after a workout, like if you do a strength training workout, you’ll see your muscles look bigger in the mirror after, right? Like your body has more veins, a little bit more like blood flow to everything. So if you look in the mirror right after that workout, that’s the extent of how big you’re going to get. Like your muscles fill, that’s what they look like. Then a day later, all that’s gone. And then you’re still like, you know, looking the exact same until your body starts to change. So there’s no bulk effect.
Speaker1: [38:26] Yeah, like, it’s pretty hard to get that like huge. Like you probably take testosterone.
Speaker0: [38:35] And we would have to so like bodybuilders will take creatine, but they’ll take like 18 times the amount we recommend on a daily basis for people. And then they will work out constantly and eat a lot and then do things to change right at the end so that all their muscles show. But we can only gain a couple pounds of muscle every year with consistent working out. So think of how long it would take to change.
Speaker1: [38:59] Yeah, that’s actually a good frame, right? Where like, yeah, I heard that like, like one pound a month is like massive. Like that’s like really crazy. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So one or two pounds a year that I didn’t even know that.
Speaker0: [39:13] I would say like five pounds a year would be pretty amazing. Yeah. And that’s the thing too. So when your body at first, when you’re working out and eating and like people are chopping on a scale, like, and they’re not seeing it come down, there’s, there’s a lot of changes going on in your body though. Even though you haven’t seen and movement in the scale, like water retention, water flux in and out of the body, your progesterone levels change throughout the month, which can affect like carbohydrate intake and how your body processes water again. And then also over time, you might see the scale like go down a little and come up a little as you’re building muscle. That’s not really a marker of your progress. And I think people should just use the scale as a way to just, I guess, like look at consistency, but then you should do it pretty much every day and take an average of the whole year. So like, it’s not really that important. Even if you only dropped a couple pounds in the year, what you might notice is your circumference. So your measurements around your arms, your waist, your legs, that will change way more. Even if the scale goes up, that’s a better marker for your body size changes. And then pictures. So like photographic evidence is your best friend.
Speaker1: [40:23] Yeah, and those things are slower to change than we expect the scale to change. But yeah, I agree, because I think this like really hit home for me. One time I weighed myself. And then I was like, Oh, I don’t like that number. Then I weighed myself the next day, seven pounds difference from who knows what, seven pounds.
Speaker0: [40:44] I’ve had that after like a night of going out for like Vietnamese soup and having rice noodles. And then I think I ate like an entire loaf of sourdough that week. Think of all the water you’re bringing in. Yeah. And I stepped on the scale and I was like, what? And it is, it had changed again. Or with Callum at the gym, we were doing my measurements and the scale kind of went down a little at first, then it went back up and I was really mad because it always gets to us. Yeah it’s like we’re human but measurements have consistently dropped so it’s just like if you use the scale and it stops you from reaching your goals because you feel like you’re not meeting them um and it’s it can be just discouraging when in reality your body is actually changing a lot and the scale is a really bad tool yeah.
Speaker1: [41:32] It’s yeah it’s funny too like i think i just had a conversation with um the person who filmed my course he was like really into fitness and he He was like on this fitness journey and he was, he was like, He’s like, you know, I’m not losing weight on the scale. And he’s like, but my measurements are going down. And I just like pause to see if he would like. But even in his brain, like he just needed someone to be like, OK, no, it’s fine. Like you’re losing fat.
Speaker0: [42:00] Yeah. But we all need it. I step on the scale all the time at work because there is one at my clinic and for measuring like people’s height and weight. And I’ll randomly be like, you know, I’m curious. It does not move ever. But I’ve been on this journey for now, I think, yeah, eight months, nine months, my body has changed a lot. The scale has barely budged. So I’ll talk about that when I do a, I’m going to do like a one year post and I’ll talk, I’ll show all the measurements just so people can get an idea of like in a year, body weight stays the same, but look at the changes. There are some, but even if, even if they’re minuscule, it’s still a very positive experience overall. And learning how to lift weights is so important and for women as we age and our bone mass can get like it can decrease because our estrogens decrease bone mass gets preserved the more muscle you have and the more you strength train and increase resistance on that body so like you want your bones to get stimulated to keep growing throughout life they start to decline a lot in our 60s and 70s so our muscle mass drops a lot then too so you want to try to hit
Speaker0: [43:09] a peak in your 40s and 50s if you can strength training is really for everyone but yeah.
Speaker1: [43:16] Yeah I’m happy that there’s a lot more attention like for women especially in like perimenopause menopause for strength training and it’s not just about being as tiny and like you know and
Speaker0: [43:29] You know.
Speaker1: [43:30] The the scale also reflects like how much how heavy your bones are so seeing weight go down is a good thing
Speaker0: [43:37] And then with muscle yeah like losing lean mass like your like your muscles and your bone mass is dangerous and we don’t want that and we also that’s something that goes down a lot with the popular medications that have been coming out now for weight loss they have really good benefits for your insulin levels and body fat but you’re also going to lose a lot of lean tissue and over time that’s dangerous for your body. So if you are doing anything like that, you want to also make sure you’re strength training to try to preserve your lean mass as much as you can.
Speaker1: [44:09] And smoking back protein because you’re not, they work by reducing your hunger. And so it’s hard to eat chicken breast when you’re not hungry or don’t want food.
Speaker0: [44:19] Exactly. So I know that’s the other thing too. And that’s one important piece is like making sure no matter who we are, no matter what medications we take and our journey with our body, we do need to focus more on protein and fiber and carbs and stop villainizing carbs. Like carbs are important for muscle recovery and for our mood. And as women, like if we have a menstrual cycle, then our lining of the uterus needs carbs to get nice and nourished every single month. So from like ovulation onwards, your body’s going to crave more carbs because progesterone is telling you to put more nutrients into your uterus. So you need it. That’s why we can be meaner during that time, especially if you’re eating low carbs. Don’t ever do that.
Speaker1: [45:06] Until I’ve had my sourdough,
Speaker0: [45:08] Yeah, sourdough toast. But then also, yeah, protein is another like important target when you’re strength training and just making sure you’re kind of getting close ish to your body weight and then you’ll be okay.
Speaker1: [45:19] Yeah. In grams.
Speaker0: [45:21] Grams. Yeah. So if you weigh 150 pounds and try to eat like 130 to 150 grams of protein every day and use things, if you’re not that hungry, protein powders can help. Otherwise just finding ways to add protein, like greek yogurt is really good um lean meats can be really good um and then um i like egg whites i add that sometimes to things and, I use protein patties, though, too. I have to. Or else how do you eat? I couldn’t eat it all.
Speaker1: [45:50] Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think, yeah, it’s interesting that it’s become kind of controversial. It’s gone both ways. It’s gone like I, you know, as an ND, like there’s different like trends or things that we talk about, then everyone talks about them. And I like to think the NDs kind of lead the charge on things. And then then, you know, but so it like starts off with like, oh, you know, people are not eating enough protein. And that’s what you keep coaching patients to do. And now it’s like everybody knows about protein. And now there’s this whole marketing thing around protein where people are like, okay, you know, you want me to have protein pasta, so I’m going to eat protein cereal and protein bread.
Speaker0: [46:26] And then it’s gone. They’re like, I’m so constipated. Yeah. Cause you don’t eat any fiber. Yeah. It is about keeping a balance for sure. And trying to get your food from whole foods and, and get your protein from real sources first. And then you need to, you can supplement like with anything.
Speaker1: [46:45] Yeah and i think i just interviewed so in this topic of kind of insulin resistance and what we should be eating for that and even the the idea of carbs like one thing that i don’t yeah one thing i think maybe was missed in uh so if anyone’s listening and listen to the conversation on the low insulin lifestyle where it’s more about like you know having foods that don’t spike insulin, when you’re strength training, you do want there to be insulin because insulin is anabolic and it tells you to store fat, but it’s also important for muscle synthesis. So, you know, this idea of like, there’s different contexts in which we find ourselves with our health and that our nutrition supports. So, you know, there’s You know, you can kind of reduce your insulin resistance a number of ways. Like you can do it purely through diet. You can do it through resistance training, adding more muscle. You can do it ideally with a combination of both of those things, you know.
Speaker0: [47:51] Yeah. And going too much to one extreme can then obviously butterfly effect. It then hurts your body in other ways. So you definitely, that’s a really good point. So we don’t want to have no insulin or no cortisol because obviously that’s not, We’re not going to feel like we can grow any muscle and we won’t have a feeling of being alert throughout the day, right? So like there’s times for these things to come up and times for the hormones to come back down. And for some people, it’s that they’re never coming back down or our body stops responding well to the signals that are there. And it’s about just improving that. That is one thing that muscles, having more muscle on your body will help with. So that’s something I tell my patients a lot. Like our insulin receptors are on muscle cells. The more cells you have, the more receptors that come to the surface and help us with that. So we definitely want to keep that issue alive.
Speaker1: [48:44] Yeah, basically, yeah, the more muscle, like the more you soak up your carbs, like you can absorb.
Speaker0: [48:51] We love carbs.
Speaker1: [48:54] I had a glorious like foray into just eating bread again for a while. It didn’t work ultimately, but it was fun while it lasted.
Speaker0: [49:01] I convinced myself that sourdough, I mean, it is, it is like, it’s better for you less like, you know, the ingredients are pretty minimal. The gluten levels are lower. And I was like, I’m just going to eat this and I’m going to be fine. And then I was like, well, I have an itchy rash all over my body. Oh yeah. I can’t really have gluten. But if you’re going to, it should be a beautiful piece of sourdough or like an off-roissant.
Speaker1: [49:21] Yeah. Or just, yeah. and just yeah it’s all this it’s balance you know it’s all about how do we just how do we make it last forever like for the next 30 years 40 years like if you’re not gonna do this for the next 40 years then don’t make it like a plan because it’s you know you’re it’s not gonna be I mean it it by definition is not sustainable then um yeah yeah so yeah like what else about motivation I’m thinking just about like like you mentioned having people to inspire you having friends having kind of that accountability the the family like having um you know classes that you go to where and i think that’s huge actually if i think of patients who have really gotten into strength training they’ve joined gyms where it’s like whether it’s all female and there’s this like community people that check in like you know it’s okay if you’re not coming in but just wanted to make sure you’re okay like that’s so powerful yeah the
Speaker0: [50:20] Biggest thing is just making friends as an adult is so hard and so when you’re in a group like a like a fitness class or a strength training class or um class pass like studio hopping but you see you go with people or you meet people there it’s a really fun way to just build your community back um when you’re not school anymore but the the motivation i would say for me like a huge motivator is honestly if you book yourself into of these things ahead of time, then even day of, if you don’t feel like it, canceling, you lose money. So then you just go. It helps keep you consistent. When I was first starting, the best way for me was I had a friend who also started to like spin. So she would sign us up in the morning and I would wake up that morning and be like, oh, no, like, no, it’s way too early. And she was already on her way there. So it’s not like I could cancel and be that one person who didn’t show. So I started just dragging my body there because we had already signed up and I had a friend doing it with me. I think with the trainer too, like they book you in and you’re paying for it. So you’re motivated to see change. When it’s on your own, I do see a lot of patients who life gets busy and stuff happens. And then the first thing that a patient will drop usually is their self-care and their gym time because other things get in the way.
Speaker0: [51:39] So really being consistent with finding a to schedule it as if it’s a class like as if it’s something you can’t get out of and uh, I would say like sticking with that as much as you can and start to build a community within your friend group. So if you’re telling people, oh, I’m going to start working out, do you guys want to do this with me? Anyone want to do like a class here or a sauna session here? Or just talking about it out loud is also a way to get other people on board and to support you.
Speaker1: [52:09] Yeah, that’s good. It’s like almost like capitalize on your people-pleasing obligation like book it in and and that’ll hold you kind of accountable like an appointment that you don’t want to disappoint people but in the end it’s serving you and your self-care it’s a good idea yeah we
Speaker0: [52:28] Have these things in our life that we know are non-negotiables like brushing our teeth um like drinking water otherwise you start to feel bad i think the the the working out thing feels like a a negotiable for a lot of people because they’re like, well, I don’t have time or I just, but over the span of your life, being active and having muscle and moving is so important, especially for the later years where we’re going to try to still maintain everything, but we need to be mobile and healthy to do that. So if you can turn it into a non-negotiable, like just like all the other tasks that we know we have to do for our health, I really think that movement is one of those, but we don’t see it that way enough. So instead of thinking, okay, how do I motivate myself? Like, do we need that much motivation to brush our teeth? A little, but it starts to feel weird if you don’t, right? If you’re like, oh, like you forgot your toothbrush and you’re camping, you’re like, oh God, my teeth.
Speaker1: [53:23] Can’t wait to get my toothbrush back.
Speaker0: [53:26] Yeah. Like we’re disassociated with what it feels like to not move when we haven’t done it in a long time, if we didn’t grow up doing it. But I think once you get into that pattern, it does start to feel weird when you don’t whether it’s like going for a swim surfing in lake ontario like going for a walk anything if your body can move and finding something you like to do starts to become a habit because your body likes it and then it’ll feel weird when you don’t.
Speaker1: [53:51] Yeah it starts to like set like a new base like i’m thinking just about surfing i haven’t surfed for like for forever it just hasn’t been and you feel like this it’s like a depression kind of feeling like if you’re like a withdrawal of something and then you kind of forget you misplace it and then you’re you surf again you’re like oh wow oh right okay now I feel corrected like something kind of switched back on but it’s yeah if you don’t have that you’re just like yeah life is just kind of you know so you can get it through like other forms of activity but yeah like it it feels like something’s missing or something there’s like a baseline thing that’s not there you know yeah
Speaker0: [54:34] And I think like being in tune with ourselves and knowing um once you start moving and seeing the results and like seeing how good you feel maybe seeing a little bit of like a muscle start to show that gets addictive and that becomes a pattern too like, way you feel, how you feel good about yourself or whatever that feeling is for you starts to feel good enough that I think it becomes a pattern we like. And just like how when you have, you know, you go to bed at a certain time and like your body gets used to that certain time. It’s the same thing where if you stopped doing that or you went to bed really late for like a month, it would be hard to go to bed early. It’s like we, if we stop working out for like five years, it’s hard to get back into it but once you start it starts to feel good again it’s like this self-perpetuating thing so it’s all about just starting even if you really don’t want to and then allow yourself to like it again because it’ll happen.
Speaker1: [55:27] Getting through that yeah I like too what you said because we talk about motivation but it seems like it’s it’s like booking in whether it’s like booking it in or like being accountable or declaring something with a friend or like having a community that’s kind of yeah like encouraging you to do it it’s like transcending motivation it’s actually maybe not even about relying on our like how do I feel today do I feel like working out and vomiting no obviously so it’s more about just it’s scheduled it’s happening and then over time you build those neural connections where you like it but you probably still don’t like the vomiting part you like what how you feel after you like that the accomplishment that you did it or like the overall feelings you get,
Speaker0: [56:13] You know, or like, if you like feeling strong, cause you’re going to feel stronger, like whatever it is that you start to like helps you get over that hurdle of like the part where you’re like, man, I’d rather sit and not do that. Or I have so many things I can’t do that. It’s just that initial like barrier. That’s the hardest part. And I think that’s why working with someone like an ND or your trainer or just having someone keep you accountable, whether it’s your partner or your friends,
Speaker0: [56:40] that gets you through that initial phase. And then the rest is a lot easier for anyone.
Speaker1: [56:47] Yeah, that’s, yeah, it’s a good point. Because it’s interesting, like this top, like this idea of motivation where there’s almost like a like it’s almost like an either or when it comes to like self-compassion and just like it’s okay to lie on the couch and eat ice cream and like don’t feel bad about yourself for that or this like how much should we push or kind of encourage and how could that still be compassionate and you know I think maybe the maybe the topic is like the shame that comes in when we feel that sense of obligation, or we feel like, oh, I should be doing this, or I didn’t go to the gym again, you know, so yeah,
Speaker0: [57:31] Yeah, there’s a lot of that there, too. And like, if you’ve got that feeling of, oh, I didn’t do it. And I know I should, or is this person going to judge me because I still haven’t done what they said, or the internal shame that comes with maybe knowing it’s good for you. Like I said, it’s like should be something like brushing your teeth, but then you just still don’t do it. I think a lot of people struggle with that. And it’s maybe a bit more of a silent struggle for them. And I think that there’s a lot of room there to explore that and to just talk about it and be open with that experience too. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that working out and strength building is not easy and it’s not something that everyone loves to do. It is good for your body. So there’s just got to be a way to find something that feels fun first and see what happens if you try to add maybe some strength to it. Or if that’s the thing that’s fun, then see what happens if you just start. I think a lot of that shame will start to go away and the joy will come and then we can build from there.
Speaker1: [58:34] Yeah. Then you start to feel better about yourself and what you can do. And even having the experience of having pushed through something uncomfortable, like builds that feeling of, okay, like I can do that maybe I can even apply that to not wanting to work out like I can kind of yeah through that feeling too
Speaker0: [58:51] And to take a whole like the body composition side of it all and just think of it as like moving for medicine like moving to help your body feel good that’s the initial step just to have more blood flow to change your mood a little bit to help everything feel better in your body digestion even your skin health and then from there we can look at what to do next but like take away the shame and the body stuff and focus more on moving so that your body can feel a sense of calm and happiness that comes with it and then move up from there yeah.
Speaker1: [59:27] That’s good that’s good advice yeah What about supplements like creatine? I know you’ve talked about that before. I’ve talked about that. I was scared of creatine, but yeah, I started taking it for like the cognitive benefits more. Yeah.
Speaker0: [59:43] So if the body has storage forms of creatine and like our brain tissue loves it and stores it, our gut health, so our gut lining, and then also our muscles are areas where creatine can build up. And it’s something you get from eating meat.
Speaker0: [59:58] But you can take it as a supplement because it’s going to give you more than like eating like six beef livers that day. And the dosage is around three to five grams for most people. And that’s way, way, way below the like bodybuilding dosage of creatine. So this is just like general maintenance, really important for women because women store less of it than men. So they’re going to get a bigger response from taking a little bit extra.
Speaker0: [1:00:23] It helps your brain. So there’s a lot of research coming out on creatine and depression and helping with mood, helping with preventing memory changes as we get older and memory loss. Um and really cool research on ibd so like Crohn’s colitis and celiac and and having some intestinal health improvements from taking it because it’s stored in the gut too and then yeah for your muscle specifically so it’s going to help prevent that like, fatigue sensation from coming in too quickly. So creatine is a way that our body makes energy, just it uses this creatine phosphate pathway. So instead of making ATP, make this, and that’s a way to substitute when your body runs out of ATP. So like set eight, you might be like, okay, I’m done. My muscles are done. My body is shaking. You need to sit down. With creatine, your body might have like two more reps in that set. And then that means your muscles are going to get a bit stronger because you’re able to push a little more and your sensation of exhaustion is a little less. So over time, you just recover better, you feel better. And then one other cool thing it does is it brings water into the muscle, which can actually cause the scale to go up a little. So you would see like weight gain traditionally on the scale, but it’s not fat gain or anything like that. It’s like muscles will look juicier in the mirror. So you’ll have like a little bit more definition, which is really nice.
Speaker1: [1:01:41] Yeah. And it’s hydrating to your muscles too. Yeah.
Speaker0: [1:01:44] Can cause a little bit of dehydration though. I find some people get like dry lips and headache a headache at first usually within the first month it’s just a bit of like your body’s taking more creatine in and then it will get full and so then you just have to maintain so you just have to get used to that first little bit and obviously like because it gets broken down into creatinine that marker in your blood work will look a little different so your body might should be showing signs of the kidneys changing it’s not actual kidney damage or any problems there. It’s just that you have a bit more creatinine breakdown in the tissues.
Speaker1: [1:02:18] Yeah. So that, yeah, that number can go up if you’re like well-muscled, if you just had a heavy workout, you’re taking creatine. So yeah, people ask about that a lot.
Speaker0: [1:02:27] It’s not damaging your kidneys. And if you stopped that, it would come back down.
Speaker1: [1:02:32] And people ask about hair loss too, but I believe there was just one I don’t even know if it was like a full study, but there was some connection with it and increasing testosterone or DHEA. Yeah.
Speaker0: [1:02:45] I haven’t really seen any research on it anymore. Like there’s, creatine has been studied so much in probably more than most supplements. Actually, it has tons of research on it. I don’t really think, I think if you have a high, high sensitivity to androgens and you’re experiencing hair loss from that, creatine theoretically could worsen it, but I don’t think they ever have ever seen that really in research so I wouldn’t be too worried about that everybody is different though so there are some people who just really don’t tolerate they’ll take it they don’t feel good and then they stop but I would say that that is definitely like very much the.
Speaker1: [1:03:21] Minority yeah it happens like with any supplement that’s like we’re like everyone should take this like magnesium like there’s handfuls of people throughout the years who are like magnesium does this for me or I got like a pain in my wrist from it or whatever and all of that I guess is possible but yeah I think generally it’s a safe supplement like it’s like been proven over years that it’s you know well tolerated and and I did not know that about the gut health like the IBD connection that’s really cool really
Speaker0: [1:03:51] Awesome I think like it’s been life-changing for a lot of people in my community and so I feel like it’s worth a shot.
Speaker1: [1:03:59] Talk to talk
Speaker0: [1:04:00] To your naturopath about.
Speaker1: [1:04:01] It yeah ask yeah ask your naturopath everyone book an appointment use your benefits of let’s yeah yeah and the thing with the the car i saw a study um of it improving iq in people age 65 and older like seniors essentially so i i bought some for my parents and i’m like take your creatine like are you you have to load for a month like take a scoop every day like prevent your routine
Speaker0: [1:04:29] Too i have her on i need to talk to my dad about that.
Speaker1: [1:04:32] And then there’s another uh i think it was a study um that if you’re sleep deprived so not to necessarily encourage that but if you take like even uh double or quadruple the dose of like something like 10 to 20 grams like a high dose of creatine after sleep deprivation it like mitigates the cognitive dysfunction from being sleep deprived. So that’s interesting. Yeah. So I was doing that when I needed to like function and I didn’t feel rested or I didn’t really feel like my brain was on. I just took a high dose of creatine and I think it helped. I, you know, it’s hard to say, but I didn’t feel like dumb.
Speaker1: [1:05:12] So it’s really cool because everyone’s looking for like nootropic or like what can I take for brain health or cognitive health so you just use your creatine that you already have yeah
Speaker0: [1:05:23] I’d say try to go back to the basics like what feeds your brain before you start doing the herbs and everything else yeah.
Speaker1: [1:05:31] Very cool any other supplements that you tend to recommend for like muscle health or muscle building or this yeah
Speaker0: [1:05:39] Well obviously protein and creatine are like big ones I depending on the person I would say maybe some fish oil and magnesium can be helpful too for like inflammation and muscle recovery. But in like the strength world, then you have L-glutamine for muscle recovery and electrolytes. Again, same thing to replenish kind of what you’re losing in your sweat, depending on how much you’re working out and how many saunas you’re taking. So just like maybe even salt and squeeze a lemon can be really good for people. Just get some salts back in. There’s also a bit of research on beta alanine and helping with endurance and reducing that fatigue response and a bit on L-carnitine as well. I don’t do that as much. And obviously this is like patient specific because those can be harmful for some people and not for others. So the two biggest ones would probably be protein, creatine, and then electrolytes.
Speaker1: [1:06:38] Yeah, those are good. Yeah, those are good. Yeah. Electrolytes has become a big thing now. And I think like for this kind of like adrenal fatigue or that dip in the afternoon and just like hydrating a little bit more completely like
Speaker0: [1:06:53] I’ll yeah like.
Speaker1: [1:06:55] Yeah like when you’re drinking tons and tons of water and you feel like it’s just draining through like you actually
Speaker0: [1:07:01] Dehydrate yourself from from that right because your body’s like sodium system is then getting more depleted the more diluted it is so then bring a bit back then it can help you feel more alert and more hydrated.
Speaker1: [1:07:12] Yeah like i know on hikes like a couple years ago i was doing a lot of like Bruce trail hikes and everybody in that kind of community was like oh my gosh Talia’s always talking about bringing salt with you and it it like you drink your water and you’re like yeah I guess that tastes okay and then you drink your water with salt you’re like oh that’s delicious yeah like
Speaker0: [1:07:32] Your body like saves it yeah.
Speaker1: [1:07:34] Yeah just it tastes so much more it tastes smoother it tastes more watery than water you’re like oh this is the best like but then if you’re not dehydrated that and you try it you’re like oh this is horrid it’s like salt yeah yeah
Speaker0: [1:07:47] Yeah I know it’s a weird thing it’s i always tell people what their body’s really craving is often a sign of something so like you’re like i really want chips you’re actually probably dehydrated because your body’s wanting the salt.
Speaker1: [1:07:57] Or if you’re
Speaker0: [1:07:58] Craving chocolate it’s probably a magnesium.
Speaker1: [1:08:00] Thing some nutrients
Speaker0: [1:08:02] I mean it’s also just chips and chocolate are delicious but yeah like hence craving is usually a sign.
Speaker1: [1:08:07] Yeah that there’s something specific that you’re looking for that you you’ve learned over time that you can kind of get from that food yeah yeah yeah um and then And what is like the the regime that you would recommend people do or like and obviously I know it’s individual, but like how many times a week and what does that kind of look like for? Yeah.
Speaker0: [1:08:30] Well, I think like first strength training is are we talking about that specifically?
Speaker1: [1:08:35] Yeah.
Speaker0: [1:08:35] I would say like two times a week is a really great place to start. Definitely giving yourself like a day or two to recover in between. And then if you could do three, I think then you’re in a nice, like, you might start to see results a little faster. You have a day, basically like, let’s say you walk every day. The days between your strength, you’re doing a little bit more walking. And then you have like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or something like that, where you’re pushing heavier weights. And then you give your body a nice day to recover and then you do it again. That would be ideal. Once you get really good at it and you feel great, you could probably go up to five and honestly like still get incredible benefits and you’re not too tired but I think at first you want to find this media happy medium between allowing your body to recover and build and then also having a day where you can push hard and it’s actually true nine out of ten and not just because your body’s exhausted yeah.
Speaker1: [1:09:29] That makes sense
Speaker0: [1:09:30] Three a week would be like pretty good three to four is, perfect yeah you’re starting zero uh one two two would be a beautiful thing to do for the next couple months and then maybe try to add like.
Speaker1: [1:09:45] Maybe like i think you said like four exercises a session or you know
Speaker0: [1:09:51] So like you could in two a week you could do like a whole body both times, uh you’re doing four a week you could do like two uppers two lowers maybe and but but really what you want to do is pick like a couple movements that are going to use more of your body than just like a bicep curl. So like something like pull up, for example, which people don’t love, but a pull up is going to use your core, it’s going to use your arms, your chest and your back. So that’s a lot of muscle groups. Or something like a split squat where your one leg’s in front of the other and you’re dipping down and coming back up uses more than just, well, for one reason, and you’re doing it on both legs, you’re getting more out of that workout. And you’re using like a lot of key balancing muscles. Again, you’re using your pelvis, your glutes, your quads. So you’re getting a lot from that movement. And if you’re holding weights while you do it, you’re also doing a lot for your upper body too. So it’s like a compound movement, a deadlift. So that’s where you take weights and you bring them down in front of you. And then you use your butt and you squeeze it and you bring it back up. That’s using your lats, your arms, your legs. So there’s just so much, so, so workouts like that, instead of just like, um, one muscle group are going to give you a little bit more for that movement. And then if you pick a couple of those and do them each session, then yeah, that’s good enough.
Speaker1: [1:11:11] Yeah. That’s it. What, um, you know, I forget which trainer talks about this, but he’s like, he’s like, yeah, you’ll, you’ll follow workouts and there’ll be like these kinds of interesting things people do. And he’s like, but like most of it is going to be split squats, squats, deadlifts, pull up, like the basics, you know, it’s going to be those same exercises over and over again and heavier weight yeah
Speaker0: [1:11:32] Yes press pull up split squat and then a deadlift just do those yeah.
Speaker1: [1:11:38] That’s yeah that’s great yeah because sometimes that’s where i stumble sometimes i’m like what am i doing today like am i doing you know i want to do something interesting and then yeah but it’s easier to just yeah just go back
Speaker0: [1:11:52] Kind of walk around and be like what should i do today but then i started just following up okay for these four weeks or five weeks i’m gonna do this this day and this this day and my partner always talks about this but like weightlifting like the traditional just like showing up at the gym and doing your workouts is kind of boring because it’s very similar it’s the consistency that makes the change in your body and and you don’t need to always change it up I mean you obviously want to increase the weight so little and um you can do like every four to five weeks a slightly different movement to not create injuries but it’s very just consistently like pushing pulling use weights do a little bit party at the end and go home yeah.
Speaker1: [1:12:34] Like lifting pushing yeah
Speaker0: [1:12:37] But it it is for what it’s doing in your body yeah.
Speaker1: [1:12:41] And it’s just yeah it is just kind of those movements over and over in the same muscles and yeah um yeah and then what else did I want to ask you Yeah. So a couple of times a week, up to four times. Yeah. I mean, I think too, I noticed like when you’re just starting out, you do a workout and then you’re sore for like a few days after. So it just makes sense to not do another workout the next day. But then you’re saying, yeah, as you get better at it, as your body gets used to it, your recovery time is probably faster. Faster.
Speaker0: [1:13:15] And you might feel like a little sore, like a little bit like, oh, that muscle got worked. But you actually shouldn’t feel like, you know, and you roll around in bed and you’re like, ow, ow, everything hurts. It can barely walk. That happened when you first get started because it’s new. And that is a discouraging moment for people because they’ll be like, this is horrible, but it will not last. Now you want to feel a tiny, maybe a little bit sore, maybe, but it’s actually normal if you don’t. And it doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard enough. It’s just your body has gotten really used to this type of thing where if you’re eating well, you’re rebuilding your muscle and then you’re breaking tissue down again and then you’re building. So that feeling will not last. It is just the initial phase. I used to get this every year as a, as a dancer, when you take this, you kind of take the summers off after a competitive season. And then in the end of the summer, you go back to your intensive training before the year starts. And like that first week, I’d always be like, Oh, all the little baby muscles in my legs and everything. It’s like, I could barely walk yeah so if you’re new to the fitness journey this happen just drink a lot of water and know that it will pass and get dense you know work with your again your naturopath or acupuncturist or RMT and then you eventually will that will go away even with spin like that feeling of like your pelvis hurting because you’re sitting on the bike that goes away yeah that’s.
Speaker1: [1:14:38] Good to yeah that’s good to to remind people i remember i like i walk into like a body pump class at good life years ago and somebody was like just don’t pick as heavy as his body pump style it’s like you’ll do one muscle group for an entire song so it’s like a lot like a like high rep you know and um they’re like just go lighter than you think especially on your first try like here I could barely go up this down the stairs afterwards yeah
Speaker0: [1:15:06] Yeah those few I remember that I’ve been there and like those days are how we were like oh these muscles like hello there they are like you feel them that feeling is intense um but it it that’s only like at first then your muscles get very used to it yeah.
Speaker1: [1:15:24] And it’s also good to know like to not rely on that as a sign of the quality of your workout either like i think
Speaker0: [1:15:30] I never get that.
Speaker1: [1:15:32] Anymore yeah you’re like yeah
Speaker0: [1:15:34] If i did a really hard workout i might i might have like a like some sensation of a soreness for the day in one muscle group maybe or two but it’s much milder um if i’m starting a whole new set maybe of of stuff where i haven’t worked that muscle group in a while i might get that like, it hurts to go down the stairs feeling. But again, it’s very, very, very uncommon once you get to a place where your body’s in, it’s conditioned. It’s just at first. So that’s why being motivated, having friends, having a plan set in place for when you start will help you with your consistency because it’s always in that first. People will feel really motivated. They’ll get started and something causes them to stop. So having a plan B for when that happens and to help keep you there is going to be good yeah.
Speaker1: [1:16:20] How do you kind of get back on to it yeah I think that’s the thing I’ve seen a lot over the years too whether it’s whatever health plan it is whether it’s dry supplements whatever people are doing they’re like I went I went on a cruise and then I you know I then I took a few months off and it’s more about just kind of how do you get yourself back you know like if you drift into the ditch when you’re driving like you don’t just like spiral off you know like you know gently coax yourself back on the path and like it’s okay and avoiding that all or nothing thinking
Speaker0: [1:16:55] Yes there’s so those videos now on tiktok or like instagram people are like what you know this same mentality would be like if you dropped one sock in your pot in your laundry and then you’re like oh and you throw it all in that one you spill some water then you’re like well then you dump all the rats yeah that doesn’t need to happen just because you missed a couple weeks doesn’t mean you’re off the gym schedule now or you know like you’ve fallen off track because you ate whatever it is like that just
Speaker0: [1:17:21] enjoy your life and then join again go back to what it is like pick up the sock and move on yeah.
Speaker1: [1:17:27] And yeah what were the tools that got you on it and try and reach for those again and yeah
Speaker0: [1:17:33] One thing that really helped me when I was first starting was outside of taking a class and going there, that was helpful. But the other thing was when I would go outside on like my runs, or walks, having a specific podcast or specific playlist I made for myself just so that I could with the songs I loved. And I would only let myself listen to it when I went to do the workout or whatever it was. So I would actually wake up and be like, I want to hear all I want to hear my playlist. I love that song that like set of songs. So I would go outside just to put the playlist on. And it kind of tricked me into like doing this little jog around the block.
Speaker1: [1:18:12] I actually, I think I remember you just talking about that in school. And I remember being like, that’s genius. And I’ve told patients about that. I’m like, you know, I have a colleague and she.
Speaker0: [1:18:22] I actually did talk about that in school. I think that’s when I started this because I really didn’t want to work out back then. And I think I wrote like an article on a website once about it or something. But I used that. And I think I have days too where you would, again, wouldn’t know if you just saw my Instagram. But like there’s days where I don’t want to do anything. And that’s okay. those are just those days and then other days where I loved it and I want to go and I’m motivated but I wasn’t always like.
Speaker1: [1:18:47] This yeah I think it’s I think it’s actually like a like even for people the other way who are like I don’t know how I’m gonna listen to like I want to listen to this podcast on something that’s important for me but I don’t have time it’s like well just listen while you’re doing something else that you don’t want to do like pair two things together yeah but I love the yeah I love the like okay like I want to hear my song well I only listen to my song on whatever it is the spin bike or when I’m walking or when I’m running or when I’m working out and so then you’re like you’re kind of pairing this exciting thing with something that you maybe aren’t as excited about yet yeah like the gateway to doing the thing yeah it was my
Speaker0: [1:19:27] Playlist was the gateway for me.
Speaker1: [1:19:28] That’s a good yeah that’s great you’re like and and then you associate that song with working out and so you’re like you kind of like working out or you have positive associations with it i
Speaker0: [1:19:40] Have there’s one playlist i mean for myself it was called like 5k run during covid when i had like the big grief episode and then was just taking myself for walks and i remember i’d get to the end of the like little jog or eventually like the 13k run or whatever and i would get that song and it was like i think i would start to yell at and scream it in the streets and like i just remember doing this and just feeling free and like my mood i could feel my mood finally like waking up and that playlist is it’s still here there’s so much power when you combine music with your mental health and the movement you’re doing.
Speaker1: [1:20:16] Yeah that’s really great because it’s also like you know how songs can get tired and you’re like oh it doesn’t have the same meaning but because you’re like kind of containing the experience of it to be paired with like all those positive endorphins from your workout and like this all
Speaker0: [1:20:32] Together if i hear that song now i remember there’s two songs there’s green light by lord.
Speaker1: [1:20:38] And or
Speaker0: [1:20:39] Is all saints like if those to come on it’s the start of that run in the end and i and it’s that feeling of like oh i’m gonna be okay me again like it was powerful and i still have it and that was from four or five years ago now.
Speaker1: [1:20:54] That’s cool yeah that’s cool it’s like when you smell fragrances from a certain time era and you’re yeah but music yeah that’s cool that’s really that’s a good tip for anyone listening like think about yeah how can you make it a
Speaker0: [1:21:10] Good tip so yeah and all the way to.
Speaker1: [1:21:14] The end yeah i remember andrew huberman saying something about how it will like lower the dopamine of so if you if you like working out and then you pair your workout with something else that you really like it like you kind of lower the dopamine you get from the workout but what we’re talking about is like you already don’t really want it or you need encouragement you want to get a dopamine rise so you’re like pairing something that gives you dopamine yeah yeah and
Speaker0: [1:21:43] Then you learn and I wouldn’t say that like now I can like turn music off and just go for a run I still want the playlist but it allows me to get excited for that.
Speaker1: [1:21:52] Yeah totally yeah and yeah it’s like there’s no harm in listening to music every time you work out I mean and I’m sure that if your thing was broken you would still do it it’s just you know yeah exactly but because you’ve built that habit and you there’s enough of a reward from exercise whether it’s just even finishing in the workout um yeah you’ll still do it yeah that’s great yeah anything else does like anything you’re up to that you want people to know about or me I
Speaker0: [1:22:25] Mean I yeah like I’m I talk a lot about fitness but I am still seeing patients regularly as a naturopath and this is like my biggest passion in life but using fitness maybe as a combination and just teaching people if they’re interested in that aspect of their health and lifestyle is another little like adventure I’m taking now and in my clinic time but I also teach spin outside of all of this and that can be really fun if you ever want if you’re looking for a class to join you can just come take mine I can guest people I can teach you the like, you know how to do it on the bike and feel like make it make cardio fun again yeah but where.
Speaker1: [1:23:06] You work where’s the it’s
Speaker0: [1:23:08] Sweat and tonic i teach for swim sweat and tonic cool yeah um yeah you can come anytime i find i just taught a dance hall class this morning yeah that’s.
Speaker1: [1:23:20] Cool it’s like pairs the love of dance and like fitness and like you can yeah
Speaker0: [1:23:24] Totally yeah sweaty and feel good i feel like it’s really an important journey for your mental health more than anything else in there. And then, yeah. And you can find me just like working out of the gym. So if anyone wants to go to a gym and like have someone to work out with, I’m there too.
Speaker1: [1:23:39] Cool. Yeah. And then you’re working at?
Speaker0: [1:23:42] Dallas Park Medical. Yeah. So High Park. Yeah. And I work there pretty much every day. My patient population is really varied because it’s a medical clinic that’s integrated. So we work all together with chiros and psychotherapists and medical doctors. But probably the patient population I see the most often will be people who have PCOS or some fertility goals or who are reaching perimenopause, menopause, and they’re wanting to learn about how to optimize their health. Those would be my main areas of focus. I do a lot of acupuncture too. So I find that that’s a really beautiful thing to kind of pair eastern and western medicine all together.
Speaker1: [1:24:26] Yeah that’s cool yeah all right everybody check out stress where there’s a spin class an antropathic my back puncture session or workout that’s
Speaker0: [1:24:37] Like i do i guess i do a lot if i say it all out loud like that.
Speaker1: [1:24:40] That’s good though all
Speaker0: [1:24:42] In the same world.
Speaker1: [1:24:43] You know on the health space it’s good to kind of yeah like bring in more modalities and like expand beyond our like naturopathic education which is pretty comprehensive but there’s always like more tools that you find you need to accumulate as you work with people so it’s cool
Speaker0: [1:24:58] Yeah and sometimes somehow it all just kind of comes to you you know like I’ve found all of this because I of what I was going through and this is how it helped me and I want to share it that’s usually that’s my passion when it comes to anything related to our bodies is just to like educate and eliminate fear and to help make it an empowered, joyful experience.
Speaker1: [1:25:22] Yeah, it’s fun to get healthy.
Speaker0: [1:25:25] Yeah.
Speaker1: [1:25:26] I tell people, it’s like a meaningful pursuit in life because so much aligns when you’re pursuing health, like, you know, because it encompasses your relationships and your life purpose and creativity, like all the things that are important to you. Like on a health journey, those things kind of align, you know. so and what
Speaker0: [1:25:45] Better thing to learn about than how our body works like we’re living in it we should learn how it works and how to what it means like what a menstrual cycle is and like what happens during it or like what our digestion system is meant to do and I think we should all learn that from a young age when I don’t think taught that enough so that’s probably my favorite rule.
Speaker1: [1:26:05] Yeah I love that yeah it’s so true it’s like you know there’s yeah something extremely empowering about just understanding your body from that kind of knowledge level but like how you kind how you interpret that to interpret the signals of your body what it’s like to live in your body and you know cravings like we were talking about or that desire to work out or even identifying that flame that you were talking about too like that burning flame of motivation or that spark like you know yeah yeah thanks dad this is great this
Speaker0: [1:26:41] Was so fun thanks for inviting me.
Speaker1: [1:26:43] Yeah thanks for thanks for taking the time and for talking to me and we’ll put links and where people can find you in the show notes and yeah
Speaker0: [1:26:52] Yeah yeah if anyone has any questions just reach out to me and then we can talk about anything that you learned today.
Speaker1: [1:26:58] Yeah if anyone has questions let me know and i can we can send them to staz or contact her directly we’ll put your instagram and everything up, too.
In the winter of 2019 I took a surfing lesson in Costa Rica. I fell in love–the sun and salt water on my skin, the beautiful view of the beach, the spray off the back of the waves, the loud crashing of translucent turquoise, and the feeling of power, ease, flow and grace as I stood on a board, using the energy of the earth to fly across water.
The problem was, however, I would be going home in a week to a landlocked part of the world that spends a lot of its months covered in ice.
It was depressing.
Then I met a girl from Toronto, a psychotherapist who worked at a clinic just down the street from my old one.
“You can surf in Toronto, you know”, she informed me.
Where? I thought, astounded.
“On the lakes!” She exclaimed.
I was flabbergasted–perhaps I could be a surfer after all. The beach bum lifestyle, the rock hard abs, the zinc oxide cheek bones, the chronically wet hair, watching the winds and tides and slipping out for a sun-soaked hour during a work break. Could this be true–could you surf the Great Lakes?
“The thing is,” she continued, “the surf season is from October to March”.
Oh.
Winter surfing.
It was still interested, though.
Back in Toronto, I waited for the next strong February East wind and headed to a surf spot I’d heard about on Lake Ontario. I was met with a crowd of black neoprene-clad surfers, soaked by water, wind and sleet. The elements were harsh. The stoke, however, was infectious.
Ok, I could do this, I thought.
My next stop was the surf shop. I purchased gear and the rest is history.
Not a lot of us are built to slip into near-freezing water during the frigid winter months to catch a few waves. Lake waves are harder to catch, the currents are strong, ice chunks are a thing to watch out for, and… it’s friggin’ cold! But, surfing is surfing. The lakes provide beautiful landscapes, just like the ocean, and the feeling of catching a wave and riding it is the same.
There’s also the benefit of body hardening.
We modern humans are very different from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Our genes may be the same, but our lifestyles couldn’t be further apart. Down-filled jackets and central heating protect us from the discomfort of the elements. In a sense, our lives are temperature controlled.
However, our incidence of chronic degenerative disease has never been higher.
Body hardening practices involves exposure against natural stimuli, such as intense cold, that results in increased resilience–resistance to disease and improved health.
A 1998 study in QJM: an international journal of medicine looked at antioxidant production in German winter swimmers.
Winter swimming, just like winter surfing, is a thing. As of the 90s, there were 3000 Germans who participated in winter swimming clubs. They were known to experience a 40% reduction in respiratory diseases compared to the rest of the population, debunking the notion that if you exposure yourself to cold you’ll “catch a cold”.
The study looked at 23 male and 13 female who had been members of a Berlin winter swimming club for more than two years. On average they swam for 5 to 10 minutes on a weekly basis in water between 1 and 5 degrees celsius. Their blood levels of glutathione were compared with that of 28 healthy men and 12 healthy women who had never participated in cold-exposure body hardening therapies such as winter swimming.
Glutathione is our body’s main antioxidant. It protects us from free radicals (reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species, ROS and RNS, respectively) that are harmful to our cells. It is produced from three amino acids: glycine, cysteine, and glutamine.
Glutathione reduces oxidative stress produced by these free radicals that occur in cells as a result of their energy production, as well as toxins, pollutants and other stressors. A deficiency of glutathione is associated with an increased risk of cancer, accelerated aging, and other diseases, such as metabolic disease like diabetes and cognitive diseases like Parkinson’s. It decreases as a result of aging, chronic disease, toxin exposure, and chronic stress.
Elevating glutathione status has been shown to improve conditions like insulin resistance, autoimmune diseases, cognitive and mental health conditions, fatty liver and cirrhosis, autism, and respiratory diseases.
It was found that after cold water exposure, blood levels of antioxidants like glutathione decreases, indicating that cold water exposure induces oxidative stress on the body. However, after a period of time, glutathione levels rose higher than that of baseline.
Baseline blood levels of glutathione were higher in cold water swimmers, indicating that their bodies were more efficient at producing glutathione in response to the temporary oxidative stress imposed on them by the cold exposure.
In essence, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
This is called hormesis: when temporary stress is imposed on our bodies, we respond with adaptive measures, such as increased glutathione production to combat that stress. However, our bodies are smart. They figure that if we’re exposed to some cold stress, there might be more coming. Therefore, it might be a good idea to invest energy into hardening, preparing for more of that same stress in the future and, in essence, becoming more resilient. And so, when exposed to a stressor, we often produce more antioxidant than is needed to simply overcome that stressor, and this results in an overall net benefit to our health and well-being.
Just like lifting weights makes us stronger for the next time we lift weights, we become stronger and more resilient at our baseline as we prepare for the next hit of cold, heat, exercise, or stress.
The 1998 study also revealed that cold water swimmers had more enzymes that combat free radicals such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase, meaning that their cells were better prepared to ramp up antioxidant production quickly and neutralize free radicals at a moment’s notice, if needed.
Cold water swimmers also produced four times more norepinephrine after their cold exposure. Norepinephrine is part of our fight or flight response, but is also associated with increased energy, mood, motivation and well-being. Imagine a hit of caffeine–that’s a bit what cold burst can do to you via norepinephrine. Heart race increases, and we’re filled with an excited euphoria.
Norepinephrine is part of the reason why cold therapy has been touted as a remedy for depression. Cold exposure provides a much-needed burst of mobilizing chemicals to kickstart feelings of well-being and motivation for people who are struggling with low mood and arousal.
Cold therapy also increases dopamine by 250%, according to a 2000 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. Dopamine gives us the sense of motivation and meaning in pursuing a goal. It fills us with purpose and drive. So many of us are starved of dopamine and therefore so much of our culture involves trying to increase dopamine: scrolling social media, consuming sugar, playing video games, and so on.
The problem with many of these attempts to boost dopamine is that they come with a cost. We get a hit of pleasure from consuming sugar, for example, followed by a dip in our baseline levels of dopamine. Overall, we’re left feeling empty, foggy, purposeless, and addicted. We experience cravings that need to be filled.
Even supplements like Macuna pruriens and l-tyrosine, designed to boost dopamine levels, result in crashes 30 to 45 minutes after they peak.
Cold exposure, however, gives us a hit of dopamine that remains elevated for hours without a resulting crash. This provides an intense boost to mood, motivation, cognitive function, concentration, focus, purpose and drive. Like norepinephrine this can also contribute to cold therapy’s anti-depressive effect.
It seems that if we engage in something hard and uncomfortable, something that requires effort–like cold exposure–our body rewards us with an increase in mood, motivation and drive through the enhancement of dopamine production in our brains.
Winter surfing has been an immense gift to my health and well-being. It’s given me purpose, community, exposure to nature, and a wonderful outlet for body hardening. If I go more than a week without a surf session I start to feel a bit of withdrawal. There is nothing more therapeutic than hours spent checking the forecast, and driving to chase waves in order to end up floating in the middle of a beautiful lake, surrounded by nature and friends.
With regular winter surfing I feel invigorated, energized and fit–the mood-lifting effects of the cold exposure is comparable to nothing else.
This winter my message to everyone is: get outside. Exposure yourself to cold. Expose yourself to nature. Use the elements and the changing seasons as tools to enhance your health.
There are incredible mood-elevating, immune system-boosting and anti-aging benefits to becoming more resilient. While it may be uncomfortable, cold adaptation is a sign of your improved vitality and disease resistance.
Nature’s harshness evolved us. Temperature extremes helped to shape our DNA. Our genes contain codes for amazing mental, emotional, and physical resilience. They are waiting to be turned on at a moment’s notice, if only they’re given a reason.
Cold exposure flips the on-switch to your body’s incredible superpowers. Let’s explore the potential of this beautiful vessel in which we all live.
References:
Šrámek, P., Šimečková, M., Janský, L. et al. Human physiological responses to immersion into water of different temperatures. Eur J Appl Physiol81, 436–442 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004210050065
W.G. Siems, R. Brenke, O. Sommerburg, T. Grune, Improved antioxidative protection in winter swimmers, QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Volume 92, Issue 4, April 1999, Pages 193–198, https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/92.4.193
I talk with Dr. Kara and Dr. Dave of That Naturopathic Podcast, rated in the top 6 Canadian Medicine podcasts, about taming the tiger of anxiety. Click to learn about your HPA Axis, the stress response and how we can “tame the tiger” by providing our body and mind with the assurance that we’re safe. Listen on Spotify.
Hannah Hepworth, of the Anxiety Revolution Podcast, and I team up to discuss a natural and functional approach to managing anxiety.
In our talk, featured in her 2019 Anxiety Revolution Summit, a series of talks with integrative mental health practitioners and experts, we discuss circadian rhythms, the body’s stress response and the HPA (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal) axis, and blood sugar, and their role in anxiety.
Click the link to listen to this 30-minute interview. Let me know what you think!
Gorf is a man of his age, which, in his case, happens to be the Stone Age.
Yes, Gorf is a caveman.
And, perplexingly, Gorf suffers from insomnia.
Gorf wakes up sluggish, long after the sun has risen, wishing he had a snooze button to smash.
He struggles through the day, exhausted. In the early afternoon, he sucks glycogen from the raw meat of a fresh kill to get an extra blood sugar boost.
Gorf prays for someone to discover coffee and refined sugars so that he can join the ranks of modern zombies getting through their 3 pm slumps with artificial pick-me-ups.
When the sun sets, Gorf feels depleted, but also restless and wired. He frustratedly tosses on his bed of mammoth skins beside the dying embers of his campfire while his family snoozes on.
Wide awake at 2 am, Gorf knows that the next morning he’ll begin the cycle again, his body completely out of sync with the Earth’s rhythms. Such is the cursed life of a Prehistoric Insomniac.
If this story seems preposterous, it’s because it probably is. Whatever we imagine prehistoric humans to be, insomniacs is not high on the list.
Those of us who have spent a night outside—whether it was a weekend camping trip or longer—might remember how deeply we slept under the darkness of the starry night sky and how refreshed we woke when the sun began to warm our faces in the early morning.
The closer we get to nature, the better our bodies seem to align with the Earth’s light and dark rhythms.
Now, if we took poor Gorf, dressed him in a suit, and dumped him in a desk chair in an office building in any major modern city, we might believe his claim to insomnia.
Now that Gorf is one of us, his eyes are exposed to bright lights at night as he slogs away at his computer, answering emails, or surfing social media pages into the late hours.
During the day, Gorf now spends his time indoors, where light exposure is 400 times less than that of a bright sunny day.
On bright days when he has a chance to get outside, Gorf protects his fragile eyes with dark glasses.
Welcome to the modern industrial lifestyle, Gorf. Don’t forget to help yourself to the coffee and cookies.
Our Body’s Circadian Rhythms
Our body runs on a 24 hour clock, which is orchestrated by an area in the hypothalamus of the brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (which we will refer to as “the SCN” from now on).
Our organs, body tissues and cellular processes, from our digestive function, hormones, mood, body temperature, metabolism, sleepiness and wakefulness, cellular repair, to detoxification, among others, have different objectives for certain times of day. The SCN coordinates these functions with the Earth’s daily cycles.
The SCN runs without the aid of outside influence, however several zeitgebers, German for “time givers”, or environmental cues, tell our internal clock what time of day it is to sync our internal and external worlds. The most important zeitgeber is light, which directly activates the SCN through a pathway that connects the retina in our eyes to the hypothalamus (the retinohypothalamic tract).
In our bodies, timing is everything. The more we are able to sync our cycles with the environment, the better our body organs function. Working against circadian rhythms by engaging in activities like sleeping and eating at the wrong time of day can negatively affect our health, decrease our lifespan, and make us miserable (like poor, sad Gorf in his dimly lit office).
The digestive system, for example, is wired to break down, absorb and convert food energy into fuel during the day and repair and regenerate itself at night.
At night, the pineal gland, located in the brain, releases melatonin, a hormone produced in the absence of light, to help us sleep. However, exposure to bright lights before bed can impede the natural release of melatonin, preventing restful sleep.
Science shows that healthy circadian rhythms equal optimal metabolic health, cognitive function, weight, energy levels, cardiovascular health, immune function, digestive health, coordination and mental health. Regulating our circadian rhythms can increase our health-span.
Our Liver, Muscles and Adrenal Glands Also Have Clocks
While the SCN is the chief executive officer of the circadian cycle, other organs, such as the liver, muscle and adrenal glands, help regulate our body’s rhythms through peripheral clocks.
These clocks register cues from the environment and report back to the SCN.In turn, the SCN tells the organs what jobs they are supposed to be performing according to the time of day.
Dr. Satchin Panda, PhD, a researcher at the Salk Institute, is discovering how important our eating times are for setting our circadian clock.
The first bite of our breakfast tells our liver clock to start making the enzymes and hormones necessary to digest our food, regulate our metabolism, and use the food we eat throughout the day to fuel our cells.
A few hours later, our digestive system requires relief from food intake to invest its resources into repair rather than spending precious resources on digesting food.
Dr. Panda found that restricting a “feeding window” to 8 to 12 hours in mice and human participants (for example, eating breakfast at 7 am and finishing dinner no later than 7 pm), allowed the system to digest optimally, left time for the system to repair itself at night, and also acted as a powerful circadian regulator.
New research suggests that food is a potent zeitgeber, which has the power to regulate our circadian rhythms. This suggests that eating at the right time of day can heal our adrenal glands and sleep cycles.
Fasting for 10 to 16 hours at night, or “Time Restricted Eating”, helps optimize health and increase lifespan in mice. In human participants, it improves sleep and results in modest weight loss.
According to Dr. Panda, we become more insulin resistant at night, which means that late-night snacking makes us more likely to store the calories we consume as fat.
Consuming calories in a state of insulin resistance can also predispose use to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
In addition to light and food intake, rest and movement are important zeitgebers. Therefore, engaging in these activities at the right time of day has the potential to promote physical and mental health.
Circadian Rhythms and the Stress Response are Tightly Connected.
If the internet is any indicator, it seems that everyone is suffering from the modern illness of “adrenal fatigue”, or HPA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis dysfunction
Because of the stress of our modern lifestyles, our adrenal glands and brains are no longer able to regulate the stress response.
This leads to a host of symptoms that wreck havoc on the entire body: fatigue, anxiety, sugar cravings, and insomnia. It also negatively impacts digestion, hormone production, and mood.
Our adrenal glands make cortisol, the “stress hormone”, a hormone involved in long-term stress adaptation but also in wakefulness, motivation, reward, and memory.
Deficiencies in cortisol signalling can result in issues with inflammation and depression. Too much cortisol floating around in the body can cause weight gain, cardiovascular issues, such as hypertension, and metabolic syndrome.
Cortisol has a circadian rhythm of its own. Our cortisol levels rise within an hour of waking; 50% of the total cortisol for the day is released in the first 30 minutes after we open our eyes. This rise in cortisol wakes us up. It allows us to perform our daily activities in a state of alert wakefulness.
Cortisol levels decline steadily throughout the day, dipping in the evening when melatonin rises.
A flattened or delayed rise in morning cortisol results in grogginess, brain fog and altered HPA axis function throughout the day. Elevated cortisol in the evening cause us to feel “tired and wired” and affect sleep. Waking at night, especially in the early morning between 2 and 4 am can be due to cortisol spikes.
Our adrenal glands help regulate our circadian rhythms through the production of cortisol. Both the adrenals and the SCN communicate with each other as early as 2 in the morning to ready the system to generate the waking response a few hours later.
Psychiatrist Dr. Charles Raison, MD says, “The most stressful thing you do most days is get up in the morning. Your body prepares for it for a couple of hours [before waking by activating] the stress system. The reason more people die at dawn [than any other time] is because it’s really rough to get up.”
Waking up is a literal stress on the body.
However, we need the stress response to get through our day effectively and healthy HPA axis function and optimal mood and energy are a result of properly functioning circadian rhythms.
Without these rhythms functioning properly we feel tired, groggy, tense, and depressed. Like Gorf, we need sugar and caffeine to help us through the day.
Circadian Rhythms Affect Our Mental Health
In nearly everyone I work with who suffers from anxiety, depression, or other mental health disorders, I see disrupted circadian rhythms and HPA axises.
Many of my patients feel exhausted during the day and wired at night. They have trouble getting up in the morning (or stay in bed all day) and postpone their bedtime. Most of them skip breakfast due to lack of hunger, and crave sweets after dinner, which further throws off the circadian cycle.
Lack of sleep can disrupt circadian rhythms leading to obesity, depression, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Even two nights of shortened sleep can affect cortisol production and the HPA axis, worsening mood and energy levels.
Depression severity on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) falls by 6 full points when sleep is restored, which is enough to bring a patient from moderate/severe depression to mild. In comparison, the standard medication SSRIs, like cipralex, only drop the HDRS by 2.
Bipolar disorder is particularly affected by a misaligned circadian clock. In an interview, Dr. Raison claims that a single night of missed sleep has brought on episodes of mania in his bipolar patients. Their moods level once the sleep cycle is restored.
Our mood is tightly connected to our circadian rhythms and sleep.
Circadian Rhythms and Chinese Medicine
Thousands of years ago, the Chinese developed the Theory of Yin and Yang to describe the dynamics nature, including the cycles of night and day.
Yin and yang (symbolized by a black-and-white circle with dots) represent the process of change and transformation of everything in the universe.
Yang, represented by the white part of the circle, is present in things that are hot, light, awake, moving, exciting, changing, transforming and restless.
Yin is present in material that is cold, dark, soft, inhibited, slow, restful, conversative, and sustaining.
Yin and yang are dependent on each other. Yin feeds into yang, while yang feeds and transforms into yin. Everything in nature consists of a fluctuating combination of these two states.
The circadian cycle transforms the yin night into the yang of daytime.
Yang zeitgebers such as food, light, and physical and mental activity, help stimulate yang in the body, which helps us feel energized, light and motivated.
Before bed, yin zeitgebers like darkness, rest and relaxation help our bodies transition into the yin of night, so that we can sleep restfully.
Lack of sleep and relaxation can deplete our body’s yin energy, causing yin deficiency. Individuals with yin deficiency feel fatigued, anxious, and hot, experiencing night sweats, hot flashes, and flushed skin. Conventionally, yin deficiency can look like burnout compounded by anxiety, or peri-menopause.
Out-of-sync circadian rhythms can result in yang deficiency resulting in morning grogginess, an insufficient rise in morning cortisol, and a failure to activate yang energy throughout the day.
Yang deficiency is characterized by the build-up of phlegm in the body, leading to weight gain, feelings of sluggishness, slow digestion, bloating, weakness, and feeling foggy, pale and cold. Yang deficiency symptoms can look like depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, IBS, estrogen dominance, hypothyroidism, or obesity and metabolic syndrome.
In Chinese medicine, the organs have specific times of activity as well.
The stomach is most active from 7 to 9 am, when we eat our breakfast, the most important meal of the day according to Traditional Chinese doctors. The spleen (which in Traditional Chinese Medicine operates much like the Western pancreas) is active from 9 to 11 am, converting the food energy from breakfast into energy that can be utilized by the body.
According to the Chinese organ clock, the liver is active from 1 to 3 am. Individuals with chronic stress, insomnia and irritability, sometimes called “Liver Qi Stagnation”, frequently wake up restless during those early morning hours.
Entraining our circadian clock with environmental cues can help us remain vital by balancing the flow and transformation of yin and yang energies in the body.
Healing the Circadian Clock:
When I work with patients with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions, or hormonal conditions such as HPA axis dysfunction, one of our goals is to heal circadian rhythms.
This involves coordinating our internal rhythms with the Earth’s night and dark cycle by setting up a series of routines that expose the body to specific zeitgebers at certain times of day.
How to Heal Your Circadian Rhythms
Morning Activities: Increasing Yang with movement, light and food:
1. Expose your eyes to bright light between the hours of 6 and 8 am. This stimulates the SCN and the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, which boosts mood, energy and wakefulness in the morning and can help reset the HPA axis.
2. Have a large breakfast high in protein and fat within an hour of waking. The intake of a meal that contains all of the macronutrients wakes up the liver clock. This activates our metabolism, digestive function, blood sugar regulation, and HPA axis.
Consider eating 3 eggs, spinach and an avocado in the morning. Or consume a smoothie with avocado, MCT oil, protein powder, berries and leafy greens.
Eating a breakfast that contains at least 20 grams of protein and a generous serving of fat will help stabilize blood sugar and mood throughout the day while obliterating night-time sugar cravings.
3. Move a little in the morning. Morning movement doesn’t necessarily have to come in the form of exercise, however, it’s important to get up and start your routine, perhaps making breakfast and tidying, or having an alternate hot and cold shower (1 minute hot bursts alternating with 30 seconds cold for 3 to 5 cycles).
Muscle movement triggers another important peripheral clock that helps entrain our circadian cycle with the day.
4. Turn on lights in the morning, especially in the winter time. Spend time outside during the day, and avoid using sunglasses unless absolutely necessary so that light can stimulate the SCN. Consider investing in a sunlamp for the winter, particularly if you suffer from seasonal affective disorder.
5. Consume most of your supplements in the morning, with breakfast. Taking adaptogens (herbs that help reset the HPA axis) and B vitamins can help promote daytime energy and rebalance our morning cortisol levels. This, of course, depends on why you’re naturopathic doctor has recommended specific supplements, so be sure to discuss supplement timing with her first.
Night Routine: Increasing Yin with dark and stillness:
1. Maintain a consistent sleep and wake time, even on the weekends. Retraining the cycles starts with creating a consistent routine to get your sleep cycle back on track.
2. Try to get to bed before 11pm. This allows the body to reach the deepest wave of sleep around 2 am. It also allows for 7 to 8 hours of continuous sleep when you expose your eyes to bright lights at 6 to 8 am, when cortisol naturally rises. Of course, this sleep routine will vary depending on personal preferences, lifestyles and genetics.
It’s important to first establish a routine that will allow you to get at least 6 hours of continuous sleep a night. If you suffer from chronic insomnia, working with a naturopathic doctor can help you reset your circadian cycle using techniques like Sleep Restriction Therapy to get your body back on track.
3. Avoid electronic use at least an hour before bed. Our smartphones, tablets, computers and TVs emit powerful blue light that activates our SCN, confusing all of our body’s clocks. Blue light also suppresses melatonin release, making us feel restless and unable to fall asleep.
For those of you who must absolutely be on electronics in the late hours of the evening, consider investing in blue light-blocking glasses, or installing an app that block blue light, such as F.lux, on your devices. These solutions are not as effective as simply turning off electronics and switching to more relaxing bedtime activities, but can be a significant form of harm reduction.
4. Fast for at least 2 to 3 hours before bed. Avoid late-night snacking to give the body a chance to rest and to signal to the peripheral digestive clocks, such as the liver clock, that it’s now time to rest and repair, rather than digestive and assimilate more food.
Avoiding food, especially carbohydrate-rich food, at night can also manage blood sugar. A drop in blood sugar is often a reason why people wake in the early hours of the morning, as blood sugar drops spike cortisol, which wake us up and off-set our entire circadian system.
5. Engage in relaxing activities in dim lighting. Turn off powerful overhead lights, perhaps lighting candles or dim reading lights, and engage in at least 30 minutes of an activity that feels restorative and relaxing to you. This might include taking an epsom salt bath, reading a book while enjoying an herbal tea, doing yoga or meditation, or cuddling with a partner.
Taking this time helps us step out of the busyness of the day and signals to the body and its clocks that it’s time to sleep.
6. Take nighttime supplements before bed. I often recommend sleep-promoting supplements like prolonged-release melatonin (which is a powerful circadian rhythm and HPA axis resetter), magnesium or phosphatidylserine, before bed to help my patients’ bodies entrain to the time of day. Talk to your ND about what supplements might be right for you.
If you suffer from chronic stress and mood disorders, do shift work, or are dealing with jet lag, you may need to engage in these routines diligently for a few months to get your circadian cycles back on track.
These practices can also be beneficial at certain times of year: daylight savings time, periods of stress and heightened mental work, and the transition of seasons, especially early Spring and Fall.
Finally, consider working with a naturopathic doctor to obtain and individual plan that can help you reset your body’s rhythms.
In order to make sense of the world, people create stories. It is our greatest gift and most fragile weakness.
Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they encounter difficulties that they eventually overcome. It brings them closer. They live happily ever after—the classic love story.
Stress has a classic story too: cortisol, the “stress” hormone, is released during stress. It wreaks havoc on the body. Lowering stress helps lower cortisol.
However, when it comes to human hormones, telling stories in a linear narrative is impossible.
Hormones are signalling molecules in the body. They are produced by endocrine organs, such as the adrenal glands, the brain, and the ovaries. They travel through the bloodstream to impact the expression of genes on distant tissues, which impacts how our bodies function.
Production of norepinephrine in the adrenal glands as a response to stress can make your heart race, your pupils dilate, your hands to shake, and your senses become hypervigilant—when a perceived threat or danger activates the release of this hormone, your entire body pulsates under its influence.
Hormonal stories are hard to fit the human desire for narratives. Their relationships with our genes, bodily systems, receptor binding sites, and each other make their actions too complicated to be described linearly. Instead they act like webs, or tangled networks of intricate connections.
When hormone levels rise in the body, beyond our delicate homeostatic balance, a phenomenon, called “resistance”, can occur. With resistance, cells reduce their responses to the hormones that interact with them.
When telemarketers keep interrupting your dinner at 6pm, eventually you stop answering the phone.
When certain hormones continue to call at the surface of cells, stressing the body’s capacity to respond, our cells simply stop answering.
Many of us ask, “what happens when I pull this thread here?” when learning about one hormone that we’ve blamed all our woes on. We tug the thread, without considering the entire web of connections, and our actions affect the entire system.
Our hormones exist in an ecosystem where everything hums and flows together, as a unit. It’s impossible to lay out explanations for their actions in a linear fashion.
Hormone stories flow like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel—a hallway with many doors that snake down long corridors and meet again, and interconnect.
Go through the door marked “estrogens”, and you encounter serotonin, cortisol, progesterone, insulin, thyroid hormones, leptin, BDNF, dopamine, norepinephrine, and many others.
Hormones are the conductors of your body’s personal orchestra, composed of thousands of musicians, a complex musical score, highly-trained arms, fingers, and mouths manipulating instruments: a million moving parts working together in harmony.
The best we can do to understand the entire interplay is to slow down the action, take a snapshot of it, and to try to understand why these symptoms are occurring in this individual.
Symptoms of Hormone Imbalances
Because hormones affect absolutely every system of our body, I am always attuned to the possibility of hormonal imbalances in my patients.
It helps to look at hormones in terms of their symptom patterns rather than how any one hormone affects us in particular.
Common signs of hormonal imbalance are:
Fatigue, low libido, restless sleep, depression and anxiety, waking at 2 to 4 am, a high-stress lifestyle, and brain fog might indicate cortisol imbalance.
PMS – and the more severe related condition, PMDD – infertility, fatigue and low libido, missed and irregular periods may be related to fluctuations in the hormones estrogen and progesterone, or low estrogen and progesterone levels. Many of these symptoms could also be related to estrogen dominance, in which estrogen is either high or normal, and progesterone is low.
Endometriosis, a family or personal history of female cancers, anxiety and panic attacks, heavy and painful periods, frequent miscarriages, infertility, fibroids, fibrocystic breasts and weight gain around the hips and thighs can indicate estrogen dominance.
High levels of male sex hormones like testosterone, irregular periods, weight gain, acne, and hair loss may indicate a female hormone condition called PCOS.
Fatigue, brain fog, difficulty losing weight, puffiness, constipation, dry skin and hair, and low body temperature can be signs of hypothyroidism.
Symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia, such as feeling dizzy, anxious and shaky between meals, sugar cravings, weight gain around the abdomen, difficulty losing weight, and low morning appetite, night-time carbohydrate cravings, and binge eating can all be related to insulin resistance and poor blood sugar control.
In my naturopathic practice, I see common patterns of symptoms that indicate certain hormonal imbalances.
These patterns often represent vicious cycles where our body is stressed beyond a capacity to balance these interconnected webs of chemical interactions, causing further imbalance.
Cortisol
Speaking of stories, here’s one I hear often.
You wake up in the morning, exhausted. Your brain is in a fog and you don’t feel alive until a cold shower or double espresso knock you out of your stupor.
Things get a bit better once you get moving, but you wonder why your energy never fully bounces back.
You used to play sports in university, you think to yourself. Now just thinking of sports makes you tired.
Is this what getting older feels like? You’re in your 30s.
The days at the office stretch on forever. Concentration and focus are difficult. You see a coworker whose name, you realize with horror, can’t be brought to mind.
You’ve known her for a year. Cynthia? Sylvia? Your brain hurts.
In the afternoon you think longingly of napping, but instead take your place in the long line for coffee and something carb-y like a cookie.
When it comes time for sleep you are either out like a light or find it hard to turn your mind off; you’re tired, as always, but also wired.
Sleep doesn’t feel restful, and you often wake up, sleepless, at 2-4am in the morning.
When your alarm rings a few hours later, the cycle begins again.
Cortisol, one of our stress hormones, has a circadian rhythm. Its levels are highest in the morning, about an hour after waking. Cortisol promotes energy, alertness and focus. It is also a potent anti-inflammatory hormone.
Cortisol is what makes us feel alive in the morning, bouncing out of bed like Shirley Temple and her curls.
Throughout the day our cortisol levels slowly dwindle (unless a major stressor causes them to spike abnormally). They are lowest in the evening, when melatonin, our sleep hormone begins to rise, inducing feelings of sleepiness, preparing us for a night of rest.
Our modern day society, however, calls on cortisol to perform more than its fair share of work. Cortisol is around when we’re hauling ourselves out of bed after an inadequate night of rest.
Cortisol fuels gym workouts, gets us to our meetings on time, allows us to meet deadlines, tolerates traffic jams, responds kindly to tyrannical bosses, and makes sure the kids get to all their after-school events.
Cortisol is made in the adrenal glands, two endocrine glands located on each kidney, in response to signals from the brain that perceive stress in our environments and bodies.
When stress hormones levels are too high we experience a “tired and wired” feeling. During this time we might feel we thrive better under stress: workouts boost our energy, we have a hard time quieting down and we rarely feel hungry.
We might still struggle with weight gain, however, especially the abdomen and face, where cortisol tends to encourage fat deposition.
We might feel tension—tight muscles and shoulders, and body pain, as muscles clench up, preparing to fight or flee.
Chronic stress is associated with high levels of cortisol. We work long hours, late into the night. We go, go, go. This may give us a “high” or it may feel exhausting and depleting.
Many of us can exist in this state for months and even years. Sometimes a compounded stressor such as a divorce, accident, or loss, can tip us over the edge into a depleted, burnt out state.
Burnout, often following a period of prolonged stress, can be associated with low cortisol signalling. Our bodies have simply stopped being able to produce the stress hormones necessary to meet the needs of our daily lives, or glucocorticoid receptors in the brain and body cells, have stopped responding to cortisol.
Just as cell can be become resistant to insulin, they can also become resistant to cortisol. Too much (or even too little) of a hormone can cause cells to start ignoring their signalling, resulting in symptoms of low levels of the hormone in some areas of the body and high levels of the hormone in others.
Cortisol is a complicated molecule. It both encourages the stress response, but also turns it off, when levels reach a certain point.
Often, cortisol levels that are too low result in an impaired stress response, preventing our fight or flight system from properly shutting off—cortisol resistance can lead to further stress hormone disruption.
The result of an imbalance in cortisol, otherwise termed Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) Axis dysregulation is weight gain, fatigue and brain fog, inflammation and immune system activation, digestive issues, restlessness, impaired sleep, decreased cognitive function, and mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression.
When cortisol levels are low, the body makes adrenaline and noradrenaline to meet our needs, which often leads to anxiety and feeling shaky and nervous, contributing to symptoms of anxiety.
Cortisol also influences the function of our sex hormones, thyroid hormones, and our blood sugar. Imbalances in any of these other hormonal systems can be a result of an impaired HPA axis.
Cortisol Testing
The two main ways to assess the body’s levels of cortisol are through serum (blood tests) and saliva.
A study found both tests were equal when it came to diagnosing Cushing’s disease, a condition of highly elevated cortisol.
One of the advantages to salivary cortisol testing is the ability to obtain multiple samples in one day to be able to view a patient’s cortisol curve, in which cortisol peaks approximately one hour after waking and declines throughout the day.
The cortisol curve is measured by assessing 4 samples of salivary cortisol taken at 4 key points during the course of one day. It measures free cortisol, which may only represent about 5% of total cortisol in the body.
While salivary cortisol levels can be a good starting point for assessing the cortisol curve, it doesn’t tell us everything about the health of the glucocorticoid receptors or HPA system as a whole.
High cortisol levels may be seen in patients with low cortisol signalling, such as depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. Errors in obtaining salivary cortisol samples (such as not taking samples at the right time) can lead to falsely low cortisol readings.
In my opinion, this makes symptoms and health history the most valuable tools for properly assessing HPA axis function.
Cortisol and Melatonin
Melatonin, our sleep hormone, also operates on a circadian rhythm. It is released by the pineal gland in the brain and induces sleep. Its release corresponds to a drop in cortisol levels at the end of the day.
That release is impeded by artificial light exposure at night, lack of daytime sun exposure, alcohol, stress, and HPA axis disruption, among other lifestyle and environmental factors.
Melatonin, like other hormones, can be tested for in blood, urine and saliva, but I find more value in assessing for sleep quality and quantity by taking a thorough health history while also restoring a patient’s sleep hygiene and HPA axis regulation.
Many patients with sleep issues can benefit from a trial of supplemental melatonin to see if that helps their sleep. Taking it 2 to 3 hours before bedtime to coincide with the body’s natural melatonin surge and taking a prolonged-release version to promote sleep maintenance are two strategies I use for helping patients sleep better.
Working on sleep and circadian rhythms is also beneficial for restoring HPA axis functioning.
The “Female” Hormones: Estrogen and Progesterone
The most prevalent female sex hormones are estrogen and progesterone. These two hormones eb and flow in distinct ways throughout a woman’s monthly cycle.
Estrogen creates an “M” shape, rising at the beginning of the cycle to its first peak around ovulation, half-way through the cycle. At this time women typically experience their best mood, energy, and motivation, perhaps noticing a rise in libido.
After ovulation, estrogen dips a little bit and then rises, peaking again about a week before a woman’s menstrual cycle is due.
After this, estrogen takes a nosedive, reaching low levels around the time that menstruation begins: Day 1 of the menstrual cycle.
Progesterone, on the other hand is largely absent the first half of the cycle, before ovulation. Then, it begins a steady climb to peak with estrogen, about a week before the arrival of the next period.
After peaking, just like estrogen, progesterone then takes a dip, which stimulates the uterine lining to shed, resulting in menstruation, in which the entire cycle begins again.
PMS and PMDD
My practice is populated by women who experience various forms of grief at different stages of their monthly cycles.
Many of my patients experience PMS, and the more severe PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)—which is characterized by intense mood swings, irritability, depression, or anxiety, panic attacks and psychosis in the most severe cases— up to two weeks before their periods.
The mood changes in PMS and PMDD are associated with fluctuations in the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which can wreak havoc on our brain chemistry.
Estrogen has a beneficial effect on mood, increasing dopamine and serotonin action in the brain. Dopamine and serotonin are two antidepressant, feel-good neurotransmitters.
Estrogen also increases something called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) a chemical that stimulates the growth of brain cells. This can boost memory, concentration, and cognition, as well as positively influence mood.
Progesterone breaks down into a chemical called allo-pregnenolone, which acts like GABA, a calming neurotransmitter, in the brain. Bioidentical progesterone therapy is often used as a treatment for anxiety and insomnia.
When estrogen and progesterone levels surge and drop suddenly, drastic fluctuations in mood can occur. Cravings for sweets, crying, lack of motivation, or severe anxiety can all occur when hormones drop right before a period is due.
However, elevated levels of estrogen can also be problematic. Estrogen stimulates dopamine, which typically makes us feel good, gives us energy, and helps to motivate us. In genetically vulnerable women, elevated levels of dopamine can cause excess irritability, low stress tolerance, and even mania or psychosis.
Estrogen also slows the recycling of the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine, which can lead to symptoms of acute stress and anxiety, when dysregulated.
This means that dramatic rises and falls in estrogen throughout a woman’s cycle can cause her to feel irritable and anxious one week and unmotivated and depressed the other.
Smoothing out hormonal ups and downs can be a key factor in regulating a woman’s menstrual cycles and soothing her mood and emotions throughout the month.
Perimenopause and Menopause
Perimenopause is characterized by a declining production of the ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone.
Estrogen levels tend to rise and fall dramatically throughout a woman’s remaining cycles, while progesterone levels tend to stay low.
The result of these changes are symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, fatigue, and depression when estrogen levels suddenly tank, and increased stress and anxiety when estrogen levels abruptly spike.
During this time, cycles may become irregular. Some of my patients comment that their periods are incredibly light one month and the heaviest of their lives another.
Some get periods every few months and some notice increased frequency, even spotting between cycles, or have a full-blown period every two weeks in more extreme cases.
Weight gain tends to drift from the thighs and buttocks to the abdomen. Once pear and hourglass-shaped figures begin to resemble apples.
Fatigue is a common symptom. Women may experience poor sleep due to night sweats from estrogen deficiency, and anxiety from insufficient progesterone.
What a joy, right?
Many of these perimenopausal symptoms are a relatively modern phenomenon, stemming from a dysregulated HPA axis.
After cessation of periods, it’s the job of the adrenal glands to take over sex hormone production. However, if the HPA system is preoccupied with organizing a stress response, this can affect the production of other hormones.
Impaired Estrogen Clearance
Many women struggle with symptoms that are related to relatively high levels of estrogen, often caused by impaired estrogen clearance.
These conditions include heavy and painful periods, fibrocystic breasts, or conditions like fibroids or endometriosis.
Chronically elevated estrogen levels also include a risk of certain hormone-associated cancers, such as breast cancer.
These women may experience irritability and anxiety through estrogen’s interaction with stress hormones, and also from a relative deficiency in progesterone.
A relatively high level of estrogens compared to progesterone is termed “Estrogen Dominance”.
Estrogen is normally cleared through the digestive system: the liver and intestines.
A sluggish and congested liver causing a slower rate of hormonal clearance (think of it like a clogged drain), an increase in environmental toxin exposure, or an overconsumption of alcohol, can slow the liver’s ability to regulate estrogen levels in the body.
Constipation and a dysbiotic gut can also impair estrogen clearance.
Symptoms of estrogen dominance include stubborn weight gain, typically around the hips and thighs, heavy and painful periods, tender and painful breasts, fibrocystic breasts, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, acne, cyclical mood swings, especially premenstrual anxiety and panic attacks, and irregular menstrual cycles.
Low Progesterone
Aside from impaired estrogen clearance, another pattern of estrogen dominance is low progesterone.
In this case, estrogen levels are normal or even low (as in the case of menopausal or perimenopausal women). However, an even lower progesterone level still results in a pattern of relative estrogen dominance.
This can cause some of the same symptoms as excess estrogen (anxiety, irritability, heavy and painful periods, weight gain, PMS, fibroids, fibrocystic breasts, etc.).
Low progesterone can also be a culprit in unexplained infertility or early term miscarriage, as progesterone maintains the uterine lining in pregnancy.
Progesterone is released from the ovaries after ovulation. Lack of ovulation, therefore, is a primary reason for low progesterone levels. Anovulatory cycles can occur in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, women with high levels of physical and emotional stress, or women entering menopause.
Some progesterone, however, is also made in the adrenal glands, where it can be eventually turned into cortisol, aldosterone (a steroid hormone involved in salt-water balance in the body) and androstenedione (a male sex hormone), eventually making testosterone and estrogen.
Women with high cortisol demands due to chronic stress may shunt the progesterone made in their adrenal glands to producing other hormones that support the stress response.
Not only can stress alter ovulation and fertility through various other mechanisms, it can also rob the body of progesterone, directing any progesterone made towards cortisol production.
Testing Estrogen and Progesterone
Estrogen and progesterone can be tested reliably in saliva, blood and urine.
Month long salivary hormone testing of estrogen and progesterone can be an easy and effective way to track the eb and flow of these hormones throughout a women’s menstrual cycles.
In this test, women obtain a saliva sample every 3 to 5 days for the duration of the month to track how estrogen levels corresponds with progesterone and how both hormones rise and fall.
In my practice, however, I often start by running blood tests. I test hormones on day 21 (of a 28-day cycle) to coincide with progesterone’s peak. This can help us calculate the progesterone to estrogen ratio and establish whether the cause of estrogen dominance symptoms is high estrogen or low progesterone.
Blood tests offer the option of looking at estrone, which is a more problematic form of estrogen, as well as estradiol (the most common, metabolically active estrogen in the body). In blood we can also look at LH and FSH, two hormones produced in the brain and ovaries that orchestrate ovulation.
FSH tends to be high in women in menopause or perimenopause, while LH tends to be elevated in women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).
Dried urinary metabolite testing, or DUTCH, is an effective way to understand how hormones are broken down and processed by the body. Looking at the entire hormone breakdown pathway provides a more in-depth look at the complexity of hormones in a woman’s cycle, and can guide treatment in specific, useful ways.
The “Male” Hormones: Testosterone
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common causes of infertility (and the most common endocrine disorder) in women of reproductive age. It affects about 10% of menstruating women.
PCOS is a collection of various symptoms and complex hormonal causes. However, it is characterized by missed periods, anovulation, male-pattern facial hair growth, especially on the upper lip, chin, breasts and abdomen, and the presence of cysts on the ovaries.
Other common symptoms of PCOS are weight gain, estrogen dominance, male-pattern hair loss (on the crown of the head), insulin resistance, infertility, and acne, especially hormonal cystic acne on the jawline.
PCOS is characterized by elevated levels of testosterone, a male sex hormone, or “androgen”, on blood work.
Acne, weight gain, infertility, and hair loss are the main symptoms that bring women with PCOS into my office.
PCOS is a complex process that involves an overproduction of testosterone in the ovaries coupled with insulin resistance. Therefore, balancing blood sugar through diet and lifestyle can have a major impact on symptoms.
The conventional treatment for missed or absent periods is oral contraceptives, which of course doesn’t treat the underlying cause of anovulation. That’s why women with PCOS often seek naturopathic and functional medical solutions to treat the root cause.
Testing for PCOS
When I meet a new patient with PCOS, I often test her blood for estradiol and progesterone levels at Day 21 of her cycle. A very low progesterone level may indicate that she has not ovulated that cycle.
We also test LH and FSH. A high LH:FSH ratio can be indicative of PCOS even if cysts are not present on an ovarian ultrasound.
Other important tests that are often ordered are free testosterone and DHEA-S, another male hormone made in the adrenal glands.
Glucose control and insulin resistance can be assessed by looking at fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin and HbA1c (a marker that looks at long-term glucose control).
Prolactin, another hormone released by the pituitary gland, can sometimes be elevated in anovulatory women with PCOS.
A 4-point salivary cortisol test may be useful in women with PCOS who are also experiencing symptoms of cortisol dysregulation, which can contribute to insulin resistance and affect ovulation and hormone regulation, particularly progesterone production.
Prolactin
Prolactin is a hormone released by the pituitary gland to promote milk production after child birth.
However, some women will have elevated levels of prolactin in blood, despite not currently pregnant or breastfeeding.
Called hyperprolactinemia, elevated prolactin may be a cause of anovulation, mimicking some symptoms of PCOS and menopause, including hot flashes, absent or irregular periods, infertility and even milk discharge from the breasts.
Hyperprolactinemia may be caused by low calorie diets, liver issues, hypothyroidism, and issues with the pituitary gland itself.
Prolactin can be tested in blood. If levels are elevated, an MRI must be conducted to rule out a physical issue with the pituitary gland, such as a tumour.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain and secreted by the pituitary. It aids in childbirth. Also termed the “love hormone,” it’s associated with feelings of intimacy and connection.
While high and low levels of blood oxytocin can be possible in men and women who are not pregnant or breastfeeding, the clinical applications of it are not fully known.
Thyroid Hormones
The thyroid, a butterfly-shaped gland on our neck, is the master thermostat of the body, controlling heat and metabolism. It pumps out thyroid hormones T4 and T3, which tell cells to burn fuel, creating energy and heat.
Because our thyroid hormones interact with the cells in every body system, symptoms of hypothyroidism, or low thyroid function, can be incredibly diverse.
Common symptoms of hypothyroidism are weight gain or inability to lose weight, fatigue and sluggishness, brain fog, hair loss, low body temperature, constipation, dry skin and hair, puffiness, infertility, and altered menstrual cycles, such as missed periods or heavy periods.
Aside from autoimmunity, other causes of low thyroid function can be HPA axis dysregulation and chronic stress, a very low calorie or very low carbohydrate diet, sudden weight loss, a deficiency in nutrients needed for thyroid function such as iron, zinc, iodine and selenium, and a body burden of environmental toxins such as heavy metals.
Testing Thyroid
To assess thyroid function, conventional doctors will test a hormone called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, or TSH. TSH is not a thyroid hormone, but a hormone made in the brain that urges the thyroid to pump out the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. It gives doctors an indirect measure of thyroid regulation.
When TSH levels are high, this suggests that thyroid function is sluggish; the brain needs to send a louder signal to get an unresponsive thyroid to work.
However, TSH is only a periphery marker of total thyroid function, not giving us the whole picture. Also, TSH ranges on conventional lab tests may fail to pick up some cases of subclinical hypothyroidism or impending cases of autoimmune thyroid conditions, otherwise termed Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, which is the most common cause of hypothyroidism.
To properly assess thyroid function in someone with symptoms of thyroid dysfunction, a slightly elevated TSH, or a family history of Hashimoto’s, I will order a thyroid panel: a blood test measuring TSH as well free thyroid hormone (T3 and T4) levels.
It’s also important to assess for autoimmune thyroid conditions by testing for anti-thyroglobulin and anti-thyroperoxidase antibodies. Both of these antibodies, when elevated, suggest the presence of an autoimmune thyroid condition.
Insulin
Some of the most common hormonal dysfunctions I see in my practice are insulin resistance and reactive hypoglycemia: blood sugar imbalance.
These issues often lie at the heart of other hormonal imbalance patterns, such as irregular menstrual cycles or HPA axis dysregulation.
When we eat, glucose enters our bloodstream, providing fuel for our cells. Insulin helps our cells access this hormone, spiking with each meal.
The higher the meal is on the glycemic index (i.e. the more sugar or refined carbohydrate it contains), the higher our post-meal blood sugar and insulin spikes will be.
Without insulin, we would slowly lose energy and die, unable to get precious glucose into our cells. Individuals with type I diabetes cannot make insulin. They must inject it daily to keep their cells fuelled and blood sugar stable.
For the rest of us who do make insulin, large blood sugar spikes after a meal can be problematic.
Insulin is a storage hormone. It helps energy get into cells, and it helps build muscle and brain cells, but it also blocks the breakdown of fat cells, blocking weight loss.
Insulin also drives down blood sugar levels. When blood sugar rises too quickly after a meal, a large insulin response can drop blood sugar levels too drastically, causing reactive hypoglycemia, or feeling “hangry” (hungry, angry, irritable, tired, light-headed, weak and dizzy) in between meals.
Individuals who experience hypoglycemia feel irritable, shaky, dizzy and anxious between meals. They often suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, and feel hungrier at night.
They may wake up in the middle of the night, as their bodies are unable to go 8 hours (the length of a decent night’s sleep) without food. This causes them to wake up, restless and perhaps anxious, in the early hours of the morning.
These individuals, paradoxically, rarely feel hungry at breakfast time.
I often see anxious patients wake from a restless sleep and toss back only a coffee in the morning, skipping breakfast due to slight morning nausea.
At 10 am, feeling ravenous and shaky, they might scarf down a high-glycemic bagel or croissant. Later on, they’ll enjoy a light lunch—maybe a sandwich—often feeling foggy and lightheaded after eating it.
At 2 to 4 pm, they may feel like an afternoon nap, instead indulging in a coffee and sweet treat to buy them some energy for the remaining hours of the work day.
Finally, after enjoying a larger dinner once they get home, they find themselves snacking all night long. Their bodies are finally urging them to ingest the nutrients they were lacking throughout the day.
They then fall into bed, feeling full, restless and wired, and the cycle begins again.
When our blood sugar falls, we not only feel hangry, weak, and crave processed carbs, our HPA axis also gets stimulated.
Cortisol, a glucocorticoid, can help our body control blood sugar, bringing it into the normal range after insulin sends it tanking too low.
This drop in blood sugar, therefore, needlessly triggers a stress response from the adrenal glands, which can further worsen anxiety, HPA axis dysregulation, and glucocorticoid resistance.
When blood sugar and insulin are spiked repeatedly for days, months, and years on end, cells stop responding attentively to insulin’s signal. Like our response to a pesky telemarketer, cells eventually stop picking up the phone when insulin calls.
However, cells still need insulin. More and more insulin must be released to trigger the same response from insulin resistant cells. This makes cells even more resistant, as they require even more insulin release the next time blood sugar rises to get glucose into the cell for fuel. And so the cycle becomes vicious.
Elevated insulin levels cause inflammation, fat gain, fatigue, depression, reactive hypoglycemia, and HPA axis dysregulation. The more resistant our cells become to insulin, the more cortisol must be called on to maintain blood sugar levels.
PCOS is also characterized by higher insulin levels. This prevents ovulation, causing infertility and female hormone imbalance.
When insulin resistance persists, type II diabetes, where the body is no longer able to keep blood sugar in a safe range, develops.
Type II diabetes is characterized by chronically high blood sugar—which poses a danger to small blood vessels, and is a potent inflammatory condition, increasing the risk of heart disease—and elevated insulin.
It affects almost 10% of the adult population and is the 7th leading underlying cause of death in North America, costing 350 billion dollars a year to manage in the United States alone.
Insulin-related weight gain can affect female hormones, as fat cells make estrogen in the body, leading to estrogen dominance.
Insulin also interacts with a hormone called leptin, which is created by fat cells in response to calorie intake. When body fat levels get too high, cells can become leptin resistant. The body no longer senses dietary calorie intake, leading to increased hunger. This exacerbates the problem of weight gain and insulin resistance.
Testing for Insulin Resistance
When I meet a patient who is presenting with stubborn weight gain, estrogen dominance and stress, I assess their blood for insulin resistance by looking at blood levels of fasting insulin and fasting glucose.
With these two values a calculation that measures insulin resistance, called the HOMA-IR, can be performed. This can give us a baseline measure of how well the body is compensating to control blood glucose.
I also run HbA1c, which looks at glucose levels over 3 months. I will often run a blood cholesterol panel, and inflammatory markers, such as CRP.
Insulin resistance often puts all of our hormones on a rollercoaster, which becomes very difficult to get off of unless we prioritize the diet and lifestyle interventions that address blood sugar control.
Assessing Hormones
When presented with a patient suffering from a complicated symptom pattern, I begin by taking a thorough health history in which we investigate:
Energy levels,
Sleep quantity and quality,
Mood and mental health history,
Period health history,
Family history,
Dietary intake and exercise,
Health risk factors like smoking, alcohol use, and past health history.
Depending on how clear the patient’s symptom picture presents, we may opt to make some changes before testing, to gauge their body’s response to an increase in nutrient intake.
Then, if necessary, I will order a comprehensive blood work.
Blood testing might include a thyroid hormone panel, and an in-depth look at female hormones, fasting insulin and fasting blood glucose, and other markers that help us assess health, such as cholesterol and inflammatory markers, or nutrient levels.
Patients requiring a more comprehensive view of their cycles may opt for month-long salivary testing. Others may opt for a dried urine test that looks at hormonal breakdown in the body.
A Sample Case
Jenny (name changed for privacy) came to me feeling fatigued and anxious.
She had suffered from anxiety periodically as a teen, but now at age 46 she was experiencing bimonthly panic attacks that seemed to occur cyclically; the panic would come around ovulation and premenstrually.
It was hard to tell, however, because Jenny also claimed that her periods were “all over the place”. One month they were heavy and painful, causing her to take time off work, crouched on the bathroom floor in agony. Other months she barely noticed them, experiencing some light spotting, if anything at all.
Very troubling to her was her major mood volatility, which she described like a “switch” that would suddenly flip on or off, causing her to breakdown at work or pick fights with her family.
Then, almost as suddenly, the cloud would lift and she would be her cheerful, friendly, loving self again.
It was maddening, both to her and those living with her during these darks times, she said.
She also noticed disrupted sleep and weight gain around the abdomen, which seemed to ignore her intense workouts and strict dietary regime.
Jenny was highly accomplished at her high-pressure job and commented that she thrived on being busy and achievement oriented.
I tested Jenny’s blood estradiol, estrone, progesterone, LH, and FSH levels one week before her next expected period, had her fill out a weekly diet diary, and gave her some recommendations about sleep and supplement intake.
Jenny’s blood revealed elevated FSH, indicative of impending menopause (FSH encourages the ovaries to ovulate, as TSH encourages the thyroid gland to make thyroid hormone). She also had low estradiol, and low progesterone, but elevated levels of estrone, the more problematic of the estrogens.
According to her labs and history, Jenny was experiencing estrogen dominance and perimenopause. Many of her symptoms were stemming from elevated estrone, low progesterone and a disrupted HPA axis.
Together, we worked on her diet to provide her body with the nutrients needed to make hormones and to support her brain, mood and adrenal glands.
We used herbs and dietary nutrients to promote liver estrogen clearance and to support Jenny’s adrenal glands.
We addressed the stress in her life, encouraged relaxation, and made sure her body was supported in its ability to make and respond to cortisol.
After a few months, Jenny reported a reduction in hot flashes, better sleep and feeling calmer. She had a reduction in her waist line and better energy and mood.
Our hormones, when imbalanced, can cause vicious cycles in the body that trap us in a state of worsening imbalance.
Through correctly assessing these common hormonal patterns through a health history and appropriate testing, and then making diet, lifestyle and supplement suggestions addressed at stopping these cycles, naturopathic doctors can address underlying hormonal issues that might be causing these complex and troublesome patterns of hormone disruption.
Since publising the original article about the Mirena IUD on this blog, thousands of women have come out of the woodwork writing to me asking for help.
When I originally wrote the article, I was spurned on by my observations of the women in my practice who had experienced a rise in estrogen dominance and low progesterone after the insertion of their IUDs (which were often inserted to treat hormone imbalances!).
At that point I never imagined that so many women would be affected by the IUD, or that even more were suffering from so many hormonal symptoms that drastically affected their lives and health.
It makes sense: our society does not set us up for proper hormonal function.
Our diets are carbohydrate-heavy, promoting insulin resistance and blood sugar dysregulation, which impacts our ovaries’ ability to make estrogen properly.
An excess amount of body fat produces more estrogen in the body and acts as a reservoir for the toxic estrogens in our environment.
We lack many of the micronutrients necessary to process our hormones properly, such as vitamin D, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, omega 3 fatty acids, glutathione, and amino acids.
Many of us have impaired or suboptimal liver function, or sluggish digestion, which keeps hormones in our bodies around longer than they should be.
A dysbiotic gut has the tendency to turn estrogen in the gut back “on”, putting it back into circulation when it was otherwise on its way out of the body.
Stress alters our hormonal function, including our ability to make progesterone, DHEA-S, convert thyroid hormones, and process estrogen properly.
Xenoestrogens in our food and environment, from plastics, fragrances, pesticides, and processed soy products, contribute to overall body burden of the hormones in our body, throwing off our delicate balance, and contributing to symptoms.
The result of all this is that many women suffer from hormonal imbalances.
10% of women have some form of PCOS, or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, characterized by the body’s inability to properly make progesterone or estrogen, instead making loads of male hormones, like testosterone. PCOS alters fertility, promotes weight gain, and causes things like unwanted facial hair growth, acne, and missed periods. PCOS is often connected to stress and insulin resistance.
Many women in my practice suffer from PMS or PMDD, experiencing often debilitating symptoms sometimes even two weeks before their periods begin. They might get migraines, intense cravings for sugar, and massive mood changes, such as anxiety, intense irritability, or devastating depression. Panic attacks can occur at this time as well. Many of them comment that their mood and personalities flip once their hormones levels reach a certain point, causing them to act like different people. This can jeopardize their relationships with spouses and children, coworkers, friends and family.
Tender and painful breasts, or breast lumps, are also common in many of these women.
Acne, weight gain, stress, fatigue, disrupted sleep, depression and anxiety are all symptoms I see in women with hormonal imbalances.
Many women have horrific cycles, experiencing painful and heavy periods that often cause them to miss days of work every month. Many of these women struggle to keep their iron levels in the optimal range, suffering from hair loss, fatigue and weakness.
Many women are diagnosed with fibroids, or endometriosis, or are concerned about their risk of female cancers like breast, ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer.
All of these symptoms are often linked to relatively higher levels of estrogens compared to progesterone, sometimes termed Estrogen Dominance by functional medical practitioners who look at the underlying causes of bodily imbalances.
I feel terrible that I can’t help more of the women who write to me. My license prevents me from giving advice to those who live abroad, especially to non-patients over the internet. It’s a shame, however, because oftentimes the solutions are relatively simple, despite how complicated many of these symptoms might seem.
I’m hoping that this article can provide some direction to many of the women who suffer.
Firstly, I want to state that I am not against birth control or even the Mirena IUD (or other IUDs, for that matter). The vast majority of women with the IUD tolerate it. For many women with debilitating heavy periods and endometriosis it can be the only viable solution that makes life tolerable.
In my social practice at Evergreen, many of the women I see experiencing homelessness, drug addiction, or PTSD from relationship trauma, rely on the efficacy of IUDs to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Their lives often don’t allow for them to remember to consistently take pills every month.
Many women don’t tolerate combination birth control because of a history of blood clots, female cancers, or migraine headaches associated with their periods, and therefore the Mirena IUD, which is progesterone only, is a safe alternative for preventing unwanted pregnancy.
That all being said, many women do suffer on the Mirena IUD (or other forms of birth control). They were perhaps put on the Mirena to deal with some of the above symptoms of hormonal imbalance, or for contraception. Many of them noticed that their symptoms became worse after insertion of the IUD.
How the Mirena IUD and Birth Control Works:
The Mirena works by secreting small amounts of progestins, a synthetic form of progesterone, into the uterus and surrounding tissues. While it is not fully known how the Mirena works, the end result is a suppression of ovulation. This results in either very light periods or a complete cessation of periods until the IUD is removed (after 5 years when its hormones run out).
It is important to say here that, while birth control can certainly treat the symptoms of hormonal imbalances, it does not correct them.
All forms of birth control, with their synthetic versions of the hormones estrogen and progesterone, simply induce further hormone imbalances in the body. They introduce versions of hormones that may suppress or alter symptoms (such as heavy and painful bleeding, or acne), but the versions of hormones are not fully recognized by the body and therefore don’t fully replace all the hormones’ important functions, such as mood regulation, immunity, or blood sugar balance.
The effects of both altering the body’s natural hormonal balance, while ignoring the underlying cause of hormonal issues, is often what causes symptoms to continue or worsen.
For example, women with PCOS are prescribed birth control to manage acne or promote monthly periods. However, when women with PCOS miss periods, it is because they are not ovulating. The missed periods are not the problem; the lack of ovulation is.
Despite that, many women with PCOS experiencing amenorrhea (or missed cycles) will be prescribed birth control. However, birth control does not address the underlying cause of amenorrhea. It simply further suppresses ovulation (because its main purpose is to prevent unwanted pregnancy).
The periods you get while on birth control are not periods. Periods from birth control are withdrawal bleeds. After 21 days of taking hormonal pills, pills are stopped or replaced with placebo pills. The withdrawal of hormones in the pills induces a bleed that resembles a period, but is not one.
Hormonal contraception does not correct hormonal imbalance, it imposes further hormonal imbalance to manage symptoms. This is not always bad!
But it is an important difference.
Many women do require symptom suppression, particularly if their symptoms are severe. Many individuals in my practice experience periods so heavy that the only way for them to get through the month is with an IUD. Genetic variability in how our bodies process hormones can make us susceptible to intense hormonal symptoms, through no fault of our own.
In my opinion, however, it is important to attempt to address the underlying cause and to set our bodies up for better hormonal regulation, making as many changes as our lifestyles will allow.
What You Can Do About It:
If you are like any of the people I described above who seek my help, there are a few things that you can do to get started on correcting hormones.
Working With a Professional:
The first thing I advise is finding a licensed naturopathic doctor or functional medicine practitioner who understands hormones, can order lab tests, and will address the underlying cause of your hormonal imbalances by taking the time to fully understand your body and lifestyle.
This practitioner might be a naturopathic doctor (you can find one in North America by looking one up at naturopathic.org), or a medical doctor, a chiropractor, or a highly skilled nutritionist or nurse practitioner. Research this person well, read their articles, and perhaps book in with them for a complimentary meet and greet.
Testing:
I often test patients using simple blood tests, on day 21 of their cycles (or about 7-9 days before they expect their next period).
I will test their blood, looking for anemia, will test iron and B12 levels, homocysteine (to gauge their ability to methylate), vitamin D, cholesterol (to see if their diets are promoting proper hormone synthesis), estradiol, estrone (the more toxic, problematic estrogen), progesterone, free testosterone, a thyroid panel, fasting glucose and fasting insulin (to calculate insulin resistance using something called the HOMA-IR), HbA1C (to look a long-term blood glucose control), FSH and LH (two hormones made in the brain that talk to the ovaries and orchestrate the menstrual cycle), DHEA-S, to name a few.
Some women will require more testing. Others will require less.
These labs are interpreted from a functional perspective. Even though you are in the “normal” ranges (which take into account the entire population, many of which are not healthy—they are seeing their doctors, after all!), these blood markers may not be optimally balanced, giving us an opportunity to correct things before they go further.
Testing allows us to match symptoms to underlying imbalances and to be able to properly direct treatment protocols. Women with estrogen dominance may be experiencing high levels of estrogen and normal progesterone, which indicates a body burden of estrogen or impaired liver and digestive system clearance. Other women may be experiencing normal levels of estrogen but low progesterone, indicating a failure of their bodies to ovulate, due to high stress, and PCOS (or the Mirena IUD and birth control pill).
Other options for hormonal testing are month-long salivary hormone testing, or DUTCH testing, which looks at hormone breakdown in the urine. I sometimes run these tests, but find that blood testing is useful, accurate, and more cost-effective.
Treatment:
Once you understand your individual hormonal situation through testing (and through working with a practitioner who is putting the testing together with your symptoms and health history), your practitioner may recommend a variety of treatments.
I personally combine diet and lifestyle with key herbal and nutritional supplements, to target what is going on under the surface with my particular patients.
These treatments may include herbs that boost ovulation, aid liver detoxification, or regulate the stress response. I might recommend nutraceuticals that encourage methylation, or aid in hormone production.
My treatments take into account the individual’s symptoms, labs, diet, lifestyle, and any other health issues she may be facing like fatigue, digestive disturbances, or poor sleep.
What You Can Do Today:
Barring more individualized assessment and advice, there are some best lifestyle practices that can help most women balance their hormones better, whether they are still using birth control to control and address their hormonal symptoms or prevent pregnancy.
Diet:
When it comes to diet and hormone support, we need to ensure that we are balancing blood sugar, boosting liver detoxification pathways, promoting hormone synthesis, and supporting digestion, especially if experiencing constipation.
Consume more leafy greens: kale, spinach, collards, beet greens, arugula, etc. Eat 1-2 cups of these foods every day. Leafy greens contain active folate, which boosts methylation and detoxification. They also contain magnesium which is essential for hormonal regulation as well as 300 other important biochemical reactions in the body that balance mood and hormones.
Consume more cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, bok choy, etc. Eat 1-2 cups of these foods every day. Crucifates help the body make glutathione, and contain indole-3-carbinole, which helps eliminate excess estrogens from the body. Broccoli sprouts are potent players in these pathways. Consume them as often as possible.
Ensure adequate dietary fibre intake: I often recommend ground flaxseeds or chia seeds in smoothies, avocados, fruits and vegetables and legumes (if tolerated) to make sure that women are having regular bowel movements to clear excess estrogens out of the body. 2 tbs of ground flaxseed (or more) every day can help balance estrogen levels and promote daily bowel movements.
Balance blood sugar: consume protein, fat and fibre at every meal. Avoid refined starches and flours. Avoid all sugar, even natural sugar like maple syrup, coconut sugar, cane sugar, honey, agave, etc. Try stevia or avoid sweets. Limit carbs (grains, legumes, root vegetables like potatoes or sweet potatoes, to 1/2 cup to 1 cup per meal). Only consume whole grains like quinoa, buckwheat, steel cut oats, millet, and teff. Cook them yourself!
Avoid soy, particularly processed soy, like vegan burgers, or soy milk.
Consume omega 3 fatty acids in fatty fish like salmon and sardines, or nuts and seeds like flax and chia seeds, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds. Get 2-4 tablespoons of these nuts and seeds every day and 3-4 servings of fatty fish a week.
Consume animal products: eggs contain choline, which is essential for liver function, meat contains vitamins B6 and B12, which are essential for hormonal regulation and production. Cholesterol in animal products are the backbones of our sex hormones. Iodine, found in animal foods, regulates estrogen balance in the body. If possible, try to obtain organic animal products from pastured or free-range animals to boost omega 3 intake, to lower your impact on the environment, and to promote animal welfare.
Other Lifestyle Practices:
Boost progesterone production by managing stress:
Establish a self-care routine: plan regular vacations, even small outings, do meditation or yoga, take breaks from work, spend quality time with family, have a plan to get your work done on time, ask for help.
Sleep! Aim for at least 8 hours of sleep, and try to get to bed before 12am. Practice good sleep hygiene by avoiding electronics before bed, keeping the bedroom as dark as possible, and setting a bedtime and wake time, even on weekends. Body scan meditations and some key supplements can be helpful for resetting circadian rhythms. Regulating blood sugar can have a major impact on improving sleep. Talk to your functional medicine doctor or naturopathic doctor for individualized sleep solutions.
Eliminate exposure to toxic estrogens and boost estrogen clearance:
Avoid exposure to xenoestrogens: whenever possible use natural body products, deodorants and shampoos, or “edible” body products for face and hair. Avoid plastic water bottles and plastic food containers. Use natural cleaning products around the house. Avoid fragrances and processed foods, especially processed soy.
Encourage sweating: get regular exercise or engage in regular sauna therapy. If you don’t have access to a sauna, epsom salt baths can also work—anything that helps you sweat. Heat therapy has also been shown to benefit mood and the stress response.
Heal your digestion: make this a priority with your naturopathic doctor, so that you can absorb the nutrients from the foods you’re eating as well as encourage daily bowel movements and optimal microbiome balance.
Maintain a healthy weight: body fat is metabolically active and can increase overall estrogenic load. Work with your naturopathic doctor to manage your weight. We often attempt to lose weight to become healthy, however I find my patients have far more success (and fun!) getting healthy in order to lose weight. Healthy weight loss often involves managing stress, sleeping 8 hours a night, avoiding sugar and processed foods, and regulating blood sugar, as well as encouraging proper sweating and liver detoxification.
Want to balance your hormones, energy and mood naturally? Check out my 6-week foundational membership program Good Mood Foundations. taliand.com/good-mood-learn
I often get emails like this, “Dear Doctor, please tell me your favourite natural cure for anxiety”, to which I often reply:
Dear, Anxiety,
Imagine you are a gardener, tending to your garden. You are a skilled gardener: you tend lovingly to your plants every day and you care deeply for their welfare.
You are the perfect gardener in every way, except for one: for some reason you don’t know anything about soil.
No one has ever taught you about the damp, dark soot that envelopes the roots of your beloved plants, kindly offering to them its protection, water, and nutrients.
You are a gardener, but are innocently oblivious to the fact that soil must be nurtured by millions of microbes, and that nutrients in the soil must be replenished. You have no idea that the other plants sharing the soil with your garden form a complex network of give and take, depositing nutrients into it, while greedily sucking others away.
Now, as this soil-ignorant gardener, imagine your surprise when, despite your care and attention, the plants in your garden wither and die, bearing no flowers or fruit.
Imagine your frustration when your efforts to prop up tired stems fail. You apply water and fertilizer to buds, leaves and stems. You stand by, powerless, as your garden dies.
Notice the weeds taking over your garden, which you lop off at their stems, unaware that their roots reside deep inside the earth.
When the weeds pop up again and again, you slash at them, burn them, and you curse the skies.
“Why me?”
Why you, indeed.
You are unaware of root gardening, soil gardening, just as many of us are unaware of root medicine—soil medicine.
You see, Anxiety, there are many natural remedies that can help.
However, tossing natural pills at twitching nerves, imbalanced blood sugar, unregulated stress responses, and various nutrient deficiencies, might be as naive a practice as spray painting your roses while they wilt in sandy earth, beneath their red paint.
It might be akin to prescribing anxiety medication or a shot of vodka to calm your trembling mind; you might feel better for a time, propped up with good intentions, before collapsing in the dry soil encasing you.
With no one to tend to your roots you eventually crumple, anxiety still rampant.
“Why me?” You curse the skies.
Rather than asking, “Why me?” it might help to simply start asking, “Why?”
While it is important to understand the “What” of your condition—What disease is present? What is the best natural cure for anxiety?—naturopathic doctors are far more interested in the “Why”.
As Dr. Mark Hyman, functional medical doctor, asks:
Why are your symptoms occurring?
Why now?
And why in this way?
Naturopathic doctors prescribe natural remedies for conditions such as anxiety, it’s true. However, naturopathic medicine is a medicine that first tends to the soil.
Naturopathic doctors first look for and addresses the roots of symptoms, working with the relationships that exist between you and your body, your food, the people in your life, your society, your environment—your soil.
Healing involves taking a complete inventory of all the factors in your life that influence your mental, physical, and emotional wellness. It requires looking at the air, water, sunlight, nutrients, stressors, hormones, chemicals, microbes, thoughts and emotions that our cells bathe in each day.
Healing means looking closely at the soil that surrounds us. It requires asking, What are the roots that this condition stems from? And, What soil buries these roots? Does it nourish me?
Do I nourish it?
The causes of disease can be interconnected and complex. Very often, however, there are common root networks from which many modern-day chronic health conditions arise.
Starving Gut Bacteria.
It was Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who first proclaimed that “All disease begins in the gut.”
Our digestive systems are long, hollow tubes that extend from mouth to anus, and serve as our body’s connection to the outside world. What enters our digestive system does not fully become the body until the cells that line that digestive tract deem these nutrients worthy of entering.
Along their 9 metre-long, 50-hour journey, these nutrients are processed by digestive enzymes, broken down by trillions of beneficial bacteria, and sorted out by the immune cells that guard entrance to our vulnerable bodies.
Our immune cells make the judgement call between what sustains us, and what has that potential to kill us. For this reason, about 70% of our immune system is located along our digestive tract.
Our gut bacteria, containing an estimated 30 trillion cells, outnumber the cells in our body 3 to 1. Science has only just begun to write the love story between these tiny cells and our bodies. These bacteria are responsible for aiding in the digestion of our food, producing essential nutrients, such as B vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins, and keeping our intestines healthy.
However, this love story can turn tragic when these little romantics are not properly fed or nurtured, or when antagonists enter the story in the form of pathogenic bacteria or yeast.
Our microbiome may impact our health in various ways.
Studies are emerging showing that obese people have different gut profiles than those who are normal weight. Our gut bacteria have a role in producing the hormones that regulate hunger, mood, stress, circadian rhythms, metabolism, and inflammation. They regulate our immune system, playing a role in soothing autoimmune conditions, and improving our ability to fight off infections and cancer.
Psychological and physical stress, inflammation, medication use, and a diet consisting of processed food, can all conspire to negatively affect the health of our gut. This can lead to a plethora of diseases: mood disorders, psychiatric illness, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain and inflammation, obesity, hormonal issues, such as endometriosis, autoimmune disease, and, of course, chronic digestive concerns such as IBS, among others.
As Hippocrates long knew, one doesn’t have to dig for long to uncover an unhappy gut microbiome as one of the primary roots of disease.
Our gut has the power to nurture us, to provide us with the fuel that keeps our mood bright and our energy high. However, if we fail it, out gut also has the power to plague our cells with chronic inflammation and disease.
To be fully healthy, we must tend to our gut like a careful gardener tends to her soil.
This involves eating a diet rich in fermented foods, like kefir, and dietary fibre, like leeks, Jerusalem artichokes, and black beans. It also means, consuming flavonoid-rich foods like green tea, and cocoa, and consuming a colourful tapestry of various fruits and vegetables.
Healing our gut requires avoiding foods it doesn’t like. These may include foods that feed pathogenic bacteria, mount an immune response, kill our good bacteria, trigger inflammation, or simply those processed foods that fail to nurture us.
To heal ourselves, first we must feed out gut.
Confused Circadian Rhythms.
For hundreds of thousands of years, all of humanity rose, hunted, ate, fasted, and slept according to the sun’s rhythms.
To align us with nature, our bodies contain internal clocks, a central one located in brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is susceptible to light from the sun, and peripheral clocks located in the liver and pancreas, which respond to our eating patterns.
Our gut bacteria also respond to and influence our body’s clocks.
However, the invention of electricity, night shifts, and 24-hour convenience stores, means that our bodies can no longer rely on the outside world to guide our waking and sleeping patterns. This can confuse our circadian rhythms, leading to digestive issues, insomnia, daytime fatigue, mood disorders, and problems with metabolism, appetite, and blood-sugar regulation.
Dr. Satchin Panda, PhD, a researcher at the Salk Institute in California, found that mice who ate a poor diet experienced altered circadian rhythms. However, he found that when these mice were fed the same diet in accordance with their natural rhythms, they weighed less, had lower incidences of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, had better cognitive health, and lived longer.
These findings indicate that perhaps it is not what we eat but when that may impact our health.
Perhaps it is that an unnatural diet disconnects us from nature, or that this disconnection tempts us to choose non-nutritive foods, but the research by Dr. Panda and his team reveals the importance of aligning our daily routines with our bodies’ natural rhythms in order to experience optimal health.
According to Dr. Panda’s findings, this involves eating during an 8 to 12-hour window, perhaps having breakfast at 7am and finishing dinner early, or simply avoiding nighttime snacking.
For many of us, this may involve making the effort to keep our sleep schedules consistent, even on weekends.
For most of us, it involves avoiding exposure to electronics (which emit circadian-confusing blue light) after the sun goes down, and exposing our eyes to natural sunlight as soon after waking as possible.
Nature Deficit Disorder.
Nature Deficit Disorder is a phrase, coined by Richard Louv, in the 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods.
According to Louv, a variety of childhood problems, especially mental health diagnoses like ADHD, are a direct result of our society’s tendency to increasingly alienate children from nature.
With most of humanity living in cities, nature has become a place we visit, rather than what immerses us. However much modernization might remove us from nature, our bodies, as well as the food, air, water, sunlight, and natural settings they require to thrive, are products of nature, and cannot be separated from it.
A Japanese practice called Shinrin-Yoku, or “Forest Bathing”,developed in the 1980’s toattempt to reconnect modern people with the healing benefits of spending time in a natural setting. There is an immediate reduction in stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate when people immerse themselves in natural environments, such as a forest.
Whether we like it or not, our roots need soil. It is possible that the components of this soil are too complex to manufacture. When we try to live without soil, essential elements that nourish us, and the various relationship between these elements are left out.
When we remove ourselves from nature, or ignore it fully, we become like gardeners oblivious to the deep dependency their plants have on the soil that enshrouds them.
Connecting with nature by spending time outside, retraining our circadian rhythms, connecting with our food sources, and consuming natural, whole foods, may be essential for balancing our minds, emotions, and physical bodies.
A Lack of Key Building Blocks.
Our bodies are like complex machines that need a variety of macro and micronutrients, which provide us with the fuel, building blocks, vitamins and minerals that we need to function.
As I child, I would play with Lego, putting together complex structures according to the blueprints in the box. When I discovered that a piece was missing, I would fret. It meant that my masterpiece would no longer look right, or work. If I was lucky, I might find a similar piece to replace it, but it wouldn’t be the same.
After looking long and hard for it, sometimes the missing piece would turn up. I’d locate it under the carpet, my brother’s bottom, or lodged in a dark corner of the box. Often our bodies don’t get that lucky.
Nutrients like vitamin B12, perhaps, or a specific essential amino acid, or a mineral like magnesium, help our body perform essential steps in its various biochemical pathways.
These pathways follow our innate blueprint for health. They dictate how we eat, sleep, breathe, and create and use energy. They control how our bones and hair grow. They control our mood and hormones. They form our immune systems. These pathways run us.
Our bodies carry out the complicated instructions in our DNA to will us into existence using the ingredients supplied from food. If our bodies are missing one or several of these ingredients—a vitamin or mineral—an important bodily task simply won’t get done.
Dr. Bruce Ames, PhD, theorized that when nutrient levels are suboptimal, the body triages what it has to cove tasks essential to our immediate survival, while compromising other jobs that are important, but less dire.
For example, a body may have enough vitamin C to repair wounds or keep the teeth in our mouths—warding off obvious signs of scurvy, a disease that results from severe vitamin C deficiency. However, it may not have enough to protect us from the free radicals generated in and outside of our bodies. This deficiency may eventually lead to chronic inflammation, and even cancer, years later.
According to Dr. Ames’ Triage Theory, mild to moderate nutrient deficiencies may manifest later in life, as diseases that arise from the deprivation of the building blocks needed to thrive.
In North America, despite an overconsumption of calories, nutrient deficiencies are surprisingly common.
25-50% of people don’t get enough iron, which is important for the transport of oxygen, the synthesis of neurotransmitters, and for proper thyroid function.
One third of the world’s population is deficient in iodine, which affects thyroid health and fertility.
Up to 82% of North Americans are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D regulates the expression of over 1000 genes in the body, including those involved in mood regulation, bone health, immunity, and cancer prevention.
Vitamin B12 is commonly deficient in the elderly, vegans and vegetarians. It is important for lowering inflammation, creating mood-regulating neurotransmitters, and supporting nervous system health. Deficiency in vitamin B12 can result in fatigue. Severe deficiency can lead to irreversible nerve damage, dementia, and even seizures.
Magnesium is an essential mineral involved in over 300 chemical reactions, including mood and hormone pathways. Over 40% of North Americans do not consume enough magnesium, which is found in leafy green vegetables.
Our bodies have requirements for fats, which make up our brain mass and the backbone of our sex hormones, and protein, which makes up our enzymes, neurotransmitters and the structure of our body: bones, skin, hair, nails, and connective tissue.
Our gut microbiota require fibre.
Our cells need antioxidants to help protect us from the free radical damage from our own cells’ metabolism and our exposure to environmental toxins.
We certainly are what we eat, which means we can be magnificent structures with every piece in place, thriving with abundance and energy.
Despite reasonably good intentions, we can also suffer from nutrient scarcity, forced to triage essential nutrients to keep us from keeling over, while our immune health, mood, and overall vitality slowly erode.
A Body on Fire: Chronic Inflammation.
When we injure ourselves—banging a knee against the sharp edge of the coffee table, or slashing a thumb with a paring knife—our immune systems rally to the scene.
Our immune cells protect us against invaders that might take advantage of the broken skin to infect us. They mount an inflammatory response, with symptoms of pain, heat, redness, and swelling, in order to heal us. They recruit proteins to the scene to stop blood loss; they seal our skin back up, leaving behind only a small white scar—a clumsiness souvenir.
Our inflammatory response is truly amazing.
One the danger has been dealt with, the immune response is trained to turn off. However, when exposed to a stressor, bacteria, or toxin, for prolonged periods, our immune system may have trouble quieting. Chronic issues can contribute to chronic inflammation.
Scientists argue that an inflammatory response gone rogue may be the source of most chronic diseases, from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, to schizophrenia and major depressive disorder.
The gut is often the source of chronic inflammation as it hosts about 70% of the immune system. When we eat something that our immune system doesn’t like, an inflammatory response is triggered. This can cause digestive issues such as inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, and the more common irritable bowel syndrome. It can also lead to more widespread issues like chronic pain, arthritis, migraines, and even mood disorders like Bipolar.
Ensuring optimal gut health through nurturing the gut microbiome, and eating a clean diet free of food sensitivities, is essential for keeping the body’s levels of inflammation low.
Constant Fighting and Fleeing.
Like inflammation, our stress response is essential to our survival.
When facing a predatory animal, our body is flooded with stress hormones that aim to remove us from the danger: either through fighting, fleeing, or freezing. Our stress response is affectionately called our “Fight or Flight” response.
However, like inflammation, problems arise when our stress response refuses to turn off. Traffic, exams, fights with in-laws, and other modern-day struggles, can be constant predators that keep us in a chronically stressed-out state.
Chronic stress has major implications for our health: it can affect the gut, damage our microbiome, alter our circadian rhythms, mess with mood and hormones, and contribute to chronic inflammation. Stress gets in the way of our ability to care for ourselves: it isolates us, encourages us to consume unhealthy foods, and buffer our emotions through food, alcohol, work, and drugs.
We also know that stress has a role in the development of virtually every disease. Like chronic inflammation, it has been found to contribute to chronic anxiety, depression, digestive concerns, weight gain, headaches, heart disease, insomnia, chronic pain, and problems with concentration and memory, among others.
Discomfort with Discomfort.
To assess its impact on health, it helps to determine between two key types of stress: distress, the chronic wear and tear of traffic, disease, and deadlines, and eustress.
Eustress is beneficial stress—the short-lived discomfort of intense exercise, the euphoric agony of emotional vulnerability, or the bitter nutrients of green vegetables—that makes the body more resilient to hardship.
Whenever I feel discomfort, I try to remember the ducks.
Several years ago, on a particularly frigid winter day, I was walking my dog. Bundled against the cold wind, we strolled along the semi-frozen lake, past tree branches beautifully preserved in glass cases of ice. Icebergs floated on the lake. So did a group of ducks, bobbing peacefully in the icy waters.
With nothing to protect their thin flippers from the sub-zero temperatures, they couldn’t have felt comfortable. There couldn’t have been even a part of them that felt warm, cozy, or fed.
There was no fire for them to retreat to, no dinner waiting for them at home, no slippers to stuff frozen, wet flippers into. This was it. The ducks were here, outside with us, withstanding the temperatures of the icy lake. A part of them must have been suffering. And yet, they were surviving.
Far from surviving, the ducks looked down-right content.
I think of the ducks and I think of the resilience of nature.
We humans are resilient too. Like the ducks, our bodies have survived temperature extremes. Our ancestors withstood famine, intense heat, biting cold, terrible injury, and the constant threat of attack and infection, for millenia. You were born a link on an unbroken chain of survivors, extending 10,000 generations long.
Our bodies have been honed, over these hundreds of thousands of years, to survive, even thrive, during the horrendous conditions that plagued most of our evolutionary history.
Investigations into the human genome have revealed genes that get turned on in periods of eustress: bursts of extreme heat or cold, fasting, and high-intensity exercise. When our body encounters one of these stressors, it activates a hormetic responseto overcome the stress. Often the response is greater than what is needed to neutralize the threat, resulting in a net benefit for our bodies.
These protective genes create new brain cells, boost mitochrondria function, lower inflammation, clear out damaged cells, boost the creation of stem cells, repair DNA, and create powerful antioxidants. Our bodies are flooded with hormones that increase our sense of well-being.
It’s like the old adage, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Our bodies were made for discomfort. In fact, we have entire genetic pathways waiting to kick in and heal us as soon as they experience hardship.
There are a growing number of studies on the healing power of small troubles. Fasting may have a role in treating autoimmune diseases, decreasing the signs of aging, and as an adjunct therapy for cancer; sauna therapy boosts detoxification and may prevent dementia; cryotherapy, or exposure to extreme cold, has the potential to heal arthritis and autoimmunity; and High Intensity Interval Training has been shown to boost cardiovascular health more than moderate-intensity exercise.
Plants may benefit us through flavonoids, which, rather than serving as nutrients, act as small toxins that boost these hormetic pathways, encouraging the body to make loads of its own, powerful antioxidants to combat these tiny toxins.
Mindfully embracing discomfort—the bitter taste of plants, the chilly night air, the deep growling hunger that occurs between meals—may be essential for letting our bodies express their full healing potential.
Not Minding Our Minds.
Our ability to withstand powerful emotions may have healing benefits.
Many of us avoid painful feelings, allowing them to fester within us. We buffer them with excess food, or drugs, leading to addictions. Mindfulness can help us learn to be with the discomfort of the emotions, thoughts and physical sensations that arise in the body as inevitable side effects of being alive.
Research has shown that mindfulness can help decrease rumination, and prevent depressive relapse. It also helps lower perceived stress. How we perceive the stressors in our lives can lower the damaging effects they have on us. Research shows that those who view their life stressors as challenges to overcome have lower stress hormone activation, and experience greater life satisfaction.
According to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), our thoughts create our emotions. Becoming more aware of our thoughts, through CBT or mindfulness, allows us to identify which thoughts may be limiting us or exacerbating our reactions to stressful situations.
When we learn to observe our thoughts, we create some distance from them. We become less likely to see the dismal thoughts in our minds as absolute truths.
Practicing mindful meditation, CBT, or cultivating positive thoughts, such as engaging in a daily gratitude practice, may improve our resilience to chronic stress.
Inattention.
According to Stephen Cope, yoga teacher and author of The Great Work of Your Life, “You love what you know deeply. Get to know yourself deeply”. We get to know things deeply by paying attention to them.
Georgia O’Keefe’s admiration for flowers, or Monet’s adoration of landscapes, is apparent to anyone who sees their work. In order to commit images to canvas, the artists gets to know their subject matter deeply. Their art celebrates what they took the time to pay attention to, and eventually came to love.
As a naturopathic doctor, I believe that healing begins with attention. When we become aware of our bodies, we begin to know them deeply. Awareness allows us to respond to symptoms lovingly, the way a mother learns to skillfully attend to her baby’s distinct cries.
When I first meet a new patient, the first thing I have them do is start to pay attention.
We become curious about their symptoms, their food intake, their sleep patterns, their habits and routines, the physical sensations of their emotions, the thoughts that run through their heads.
Through paying attention, with non-judgmental curiosity, my patients start to understand their bodies in new ways. They learn how certain foods feel in their bodies, how certain sleep habits affect their energy levels the next day, and how specific thoughts contribute to their feelings.
Once we begin to open up this dialogue with our bodies, it becomes impossible not to answer them with love. It becomes hard not to eat, sleep, and move in ways that convey self-respect.
A gardener who pays deep attention cannot ignore the obvious—her plants have roots, embedded in soil. The gardener quickly learns, through careful observation, that the health of this soil is vital to the health of her plants.
And so, back to the original question, “What is your favourite natural cure for anxiety?”
My favourite remedy isn’t a bottle of pills we reach for, it’s a question we reach for from within:
“What do I need to heal?”
After asking the question, we wait.
We wait for the answer to emerge from some primal place within, just as a gardener waits for new buds to rise out of the mysterious depths of the dark, nutritious soil.
Humour me for a moment. Take a moment to imagine your “happy place”—the place you feel most at home. Where are you? What are you doing? Who is there with you?
What are the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations that fill the air and tickle your skin? What are the internal bodily sensations you notice when you find yourself here, in this place? What emotions do you feel?
I’ll venture some guesses: you feel calm, at peace, safe, energized, connected, and integrated. If you turn your attention to your breathing you probably notice that it’s slow, deep, restorative. That head cloud of frenzied thoughts and worries that you tend to spend your time in might have cleared. Your sense of “self” has probably moved out of your head and into your body.
Maybe, through doing this short exercise, you’ve come home to yourself, even just a little.
1) Understand what “self-care” means.
A friend recently shared a Collegehumor video with me depicting three women in a nail salon, bragging about what horrible things they’ve done, from eating 13 glazed donuts in a single sitting, to “enslaving the entire office”, in the name of their own self-care. Because, according to the video, “You can be terrible if you call it ‘Self-care’”.
Humorous? Perhaps. An accurate depiction of self-care? Well, no.
I asked followers of my Facebook page to tell me what the phrase “Self-Care” means to them. They enthusiastically replied:
“Silence. No social media, or anything electronic.”
“Floating in water—buoyant, effortless.”
“Being kind and gentle to myself.”
“Meditation and time to oneself.”
“Eating healthy foods.”
“Respecting your body.”
“Epsom salt baths.”
“Peace.”
“Rest.”
“Hygge.” (a Danish word that is roughly translated as “warm and cozy”)
“Yoga.”
“Commitment.”
“Masturbation.” (There’s one in every crowd.)
In essence, their responses boiled down to, “Self-care is feeling good, taking care of myself, and taking care of my body, by engaging in activities that feel nourishing while reducing external stress and overwhelm.”
Put even more simply, self-care is the act of practicing self-compassion, whatever that might look like to you.
2) Understand the impacts of stress.
The relationship between self-care and stress is important. According to The American Institute of Stress, about 75% of us have significant physical and psychological stress in our lives.
This stress takes a toll; it produces physical, mental and emotional symptoms, sending us into emergency rooms with panic attacks, and drugstores with prescriptions for pain, anxiety, or anti-hypertensive medications.
Stress lands us in doctor’s offices, pouring over junky magazines waiting to discuss our latest health complaint—digestive issues, mental health issues, fatigue, autoimmune disease, metabolic syndrome, chronic pain, weight gain, and so on.
Our bodies have a built-in stress response to save our lives when triggered by a life-threatening danger. Now, this fight-flight-freeze mechanism is chronically set off by the abundant stressors in our modern era—traffic, deadlines, relationship woes, artificial lighting, and in-laws.
When our body encounters a stressor, one of the hormones it releases is cortisol.
Cortisol affects every system in the body; it elevates blood sugar, heart rate, and blood pressure. It suppresses the immune system, redistributes fat, shrinks certain areas of our brain involved in learning and emotional regulation, causes painful muscle contraction, impairs digestion, and affects our sleep.
Managing stress involves two main goals: lowering external stressors, and managing internal perceived stress by boosting our physical, mental, and emotional resilience. Self-care is our armour against the internal and external stress we put up with daily.
3) Make a list of your nourishing and depleting daily activities.
Let’s try an exercise from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Write down a list of routine activities in your typical day: hauling yourself out of bed, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, sitting in traffic, working, exercising, making dinner, and so on.
Decide if each activity is nourishing, depleting, or neutral. In other words, does this activity fill your cup or drain it?
For instance, I find that breakfast is nourishing, but less so when I scroll through Facebook feeds or answer emails while eating it. Coffee immediately feels nourishing to me but, hours later, caffeine-fuelled and wired, I often feel more depleted than if I had opted for an herbal tea, or hydrating water instead.
4) Find out what brings you pleasure or mastery.
To get a deeper understanding of your day, determine if the activities that nourish you provide you with pleasure, mastery, or both.
Pleasurable activities feel good in our bodies, and minds when we do them. They bring us positive emotions like safety, calm, peace, happiness, joy, excitement, gratitude, and awe. Sleeping, eating, laughing with friends, cuddling with my dog, and consuming art, are all activities that give me pleasure.
Activities of mastery give us a sense of accomplishment and achievement. We feel that we are developing ourselves and moving closer towards an important goal. When we engage in activities that give us a sense of mastery, we experience our lives to be rich in meaning. Checking things off a to-do list gives me a sense of accomplishment. So does making strides at work, and taking a course, or studying.
5) Make some changes to your list.
Oftentimes, patients recoil in horror when they realize that their lists contain only depleting and neutral activities. There are no activities in their day that nourish them: either through pleasure or self-development. I ask them:
Are there any depleting activities that you can stop doing?
Are there more nourishing activities that you can start doing?
How can you make a depleting activity feel more nourishing?
Self-care and self-compassion are the agents through which we answer these questions.
6) Set healthy boundaries.
Before we can reduce the invasion of depleting activities in our lives, we must learn to prioritize our needs. Many of us put others’ needs first. We ignore the advice of every flight attendant—we put on everyone else’s oxygen mask before our own. Before long, we run out of air.
In order to nourish ourselves, we need to learn to create healthy boundaries around our energy and time; we need to say “no.” Author Cheryl Strayed writes, “No is golden. No is the kind of power the good witch wields… [It involves] making an informed decision about an important event in your life in which you put yourself and your needs and your desires front and centre.” When we say no to the people, activities, commitments, and responsibilities that drain us, we say “yes” to ourselves.
Think of your list of depleting, nourishing and neutral activities. What activities, if you could just say “no” to them, would bring you immense relief? What would saying no to those activities allow you to say yes to instead?
7) Recognize perceived stress.
Whether or not external events elicit a stress response in our body depends on our perception. Stressful events are woven into how harmful and uncontrollable we perceive them to be, rather than their intrinsic capacity to cause us harm.
Our perception of stress can be influenced by biochemical factors, such as our levels of neurotransmitters, and hormones. It can also be influenced by our mindset, our capacity for resilience, and how far into burnout we’ve begun to drift.
Lowering our perception of stress requires that we practice the skill of mindfulness: being aware of how external situations affect our thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and behaviours. It also requires that we pay attention to our internal physiology: our hormones and circadian rhythms, and inflammation levels, to support our body’s physical capacity to deal with stress.
8) Practice Mindfulness.
A tarot reader friend of mine once said, “It is impossible to be healthy in this day and age without mindfulness.” She was probably right.
Mindfulness helps us lower our perception of stress. It is the act of bringing attention to the present moment, intentionally, without judgement. Through mindfulness we can be intentional about our behaviours: how often we exercise and what it feels like, what certain foods feel like in our bodies, and what activities we engage in.
Mindfulness also allow us to parse out our overwhelmed, worried, personalizing, catastrophizing, black-and-white, future-telling, and negative, thoughts from our body sensations and emotions. We realize that our thoughts are just that—thoughts. Thinking something doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Research shows that mindful meditation strengthens the connections between the rational brain and the emotional brain. It helps us develop awareness of our moment to moment experience. It connects us to our bodies and our emotional states.
There are many different mindfulness techniques. You can do sitting meditations, standing meditations, and walking meditations. You can do mindful yoga. You can wash the dishes mindfully.
However, the simplest way to begin a mindful practice is to sit or lie down in a comfortable position, with an relaxed and alert posture, and focus on the experience of breathing.
Focussing on the breath helps us practice bringing our awareness to the present moment. As we learn to ride the waves of our breathing, we eventually learn to ride the waves of stress that sometimes lap gently at our floating bodies, and other times rock us to our core.
With mindfulness we can begin to relax our resistance to the waves. As Jon Kabat Zinn says, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” Mindfulness is the surfboard that carries you.
9) Practice self-soothing.
Self-soothing helps us regulate our emotions in the presence of external stressors. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy teaches self-soothing as a means of returning to the “Window of Tolerance”.
When we’re in the Window of Tolerance we’re not in fight, flight or freeze. We aren’t depleted, disconnected and dissociated. We feel relaxed and safe, but also alert and focussed. We are present, in control of our bodies. Self-soothing allows us to enter the window of tolerance by boosting the hormone oxytocin, which helps us feel calm, nurtured, and connected.
To boost oxytocin:
Lie or sit in a comfortable position, place your hands on your chest and breathe slowly and deeply.
Connect deeply with a trusted other: a person in your life, a pet, or an entity (God, your higher self, a deceased loved one, etc.).
Use body weights or heavy blankets on your body.
Recite believable affirmations of self-love.
Ask someone you trust for a hug.
Boost pleasure through engaging the senses: listen to soothing music, savour delicious food, look at beautiful images, touch soft fabrics, and use aromatherapy and calming essential oils, like lavender.
Poet Mary Oliver tells us, “You do not have to be good… You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Self-soothing requires practicing mindful awareness to recognize if you’re slipping outside your Window of Tolerance. It also involves implementing nourishing rituals that “the soft animal of your body” loves, to release oxytocin, and return to feelings of calm.
10) Balance blood sugar to balance your mood.
Our blood sugar is complexly intertwined with our other hormones, like insulin and cortisol, but also our neurotransmitters, like serotonin, epinephrine and dopamine, which influence our mood.
More than 1 in 3 American adults has pre-diabetes. This indicates an impairment in our body’s ability to control blood sugar, which throws mood and hormones off balance.
One of the main life-saving actions of the body’s stress response is to regulate glucose in the blood. Fluctuations in blood sugar can trigger cortisol and stress hormone release. Stressful events can also wreak havoc on our body’s ability to control blood sugar. Regulating blood sugar, therefore becomes a priority for managing our body’s internal stress cues.
To balance blood sugar:
Eat a full 20 to 30 g serving of protein and healthy fat at each meal.
Eat a large, protein-rich breakfast that contains at least 200 calories’ worth of healthy fats: 1 avocado, a handful of nuts or seeds, coconut oil, full fat yogurt or kefir, 3 eggs, etc., within an hour of waking.
Eat snacks that contain 10-15 g of protein. A great snack for balancing blood sugar is a 1/4 cup of pepitas, or raw pumpkin seeds. Rich in protein, fibre and healthy fats, they also contain zinc and magnesium, two important minerals for balancing mood and supporting stress hormones.
Ensure that every meal contains gut-loving fibre: eat 2-3 cups of vegetables at every meal.
Avoid refined sugars and flours wherever possible.
Experiment with Time-Restricted Feeding, leaving at least 12 hours of the day open where you consume only water and herbal teas, to give the digestive system a rest. For example, if you have breakfast at 7am, finish your dinner by 7pm, to allow 12 hours of fasting every night.
11) Calm your stress response through healing your circadian rhythms.
The body’s stress response is tightly connected to our circadian rhythms. Cortisol, the stress hormone, follows a predictable daily pattern, rising within an hour of waking in the morning, and then falling throughout the day. Low cortisol levels at night coincide with the rise in melatonin, our sleep hormone.
Morning fatigue, afternoon crashes, and waking at night, all point to a flattened or altered stress response that has negatively impacted our body’s circadian rhythms. Sleep is also the greatest reset for the stress response. We build up our metabolic reserve and internal stress resilience every night when we rest.
To heal your circadian rhythms:
Expose yourself to bright, natural daylight soon after waking.
Eat a large, fat and protein-rich breakfast within an hour of waking.
Avoid exercising too close to bedtime.
Keep blood sugar stable.
Practice sleep hygiene: keep your bedroom dark and cool, and reserve your bed for sleep and sex.
Avoid blue light after 7 to 8 pm. Wear blue light-blocking glasses, use a blue light-blocking app on your devices, such as F.Lux, or simply avoid all electronics in the evening, switching to paper instead.
Try to get to bed before midnight, as the deepest sleep occurs around 2 am.
Talk to your naturopathic doctor or natural healthcare professional about melatonin supplementation or other natural remedies to help reset your sleep cycle.
12) Manage Inflammation and nurture your microbiome.
Cortisol, the stress hormone, is an important anti-inflammatory. High levels of inflammation have been associated with mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
Keeping inflammation levels low not only reduces our need for stress-hormone-signalling, but keeps us healthy. Most chronic conditions, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, are associated with inflammation.
To keep inflammation levels low:
Eat a variety of anti-inflammatory colourful fruits and vegetables.
Avoid processed oils like soy and corn oil, whose omega 6 fatty acids are known to contribute to inflammation.
Eat healthy fats from avocados, fish, coconut, olives, nuts, seeds and grass-fed animals.
Avoid processed foods and fried foods wherever possible.
Nurture your gut health by eating lots of fibre, and consuming fermented foods, like kefir and sauerkraut.
Our gut is the seat of the immune system. Keeping it healthy is a powerful preventive measure for keeping inflammation levels low. Our gut bacteria also play a role in our mood and stress-hormone regulation. Therefore, keeping them healthy and happy is essential for boosting our internal resilience against external stressors.
13) Recognize that balance doesn’t exist.
None of us are born cool and collected. Those of us who seem to “have it together” are simply quick to respond to life’s tendency to fall apart. Balance doesn’t exist; as soon as we feel like we have the details our lives lined up, a sharp gust of wind sends them tumbling in all directions. Therefore prioritizing self-care becomes an ever-evolving balancing act that we must commit ourselves to through nurturing our internal resilience.
A poem by Kelly Diels says it best, “when your love knocks you down or your weak ankles trip you up, stop worrying about balancing—‘cuz you’re not — and bounce.”
Estrogen levels in the brain and body affect our brain’s levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, two neurotransmitters that are implicated in mood disorders like depression, psychosis and anxiety.
Our brain has several built-in recycling processes to keep us level-headed. When neurotransmitters (brain chemicals that have mood-regulating effects) are finished with their tasks, enzymes recycle them, breaking them down into their chemical parts to be reused again at a later date. This process controls the level of chemical nervous system stimulation in our brains and keeps our moods regulated.
You’re at home, late a night, working on an important assignment, driven by the excitement of the topic at hand. Your brain is flooded with dopamine, a brain chemical that is connected to positive mood and motivation, pleasure and reward; dopamine pathways are activated when we’re engaged in a task that is pleasurable and rewarding, when our lives are flooded with meaning and we’re working towards a goal. Dopamine, however can also be connected to psychosis, conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and also be linked to impulsive behaviour, aggression and irritability, when over-expressed.
Typing happily, you near the end of your assignment. Suddenly, your computer screen goes dark. Your heart begins to race, your skin prickles and you’re overtaken by anxiety, panic and fear. Your body is releasing norepinephrine, a chemical connected to stress, anxiety and the “Fight or Flight” response, but that also allows us to feel alert and energized. Your heart pounds as your reboot your computer. You are hyperaware of the sounds and smells around you. Your skin prickles and your breathing is loud and rapid.
You exhale with relief as your computer screen lights up again, revealing that your assignment is unharmed. Stress drains out of your body, and your norepinephrine levels fall. You begin to tire; it’s time for bed. You add some finishing touches to your work, hit “save” and turn in for the night. The stress and motivation you felt only hours before dwindle, as the neurotransmitters responsible for these responses are swept out of your synaptic clefts and recycled.
When our brains have had enough stimulation of dopamine (mood, reward, pleasure, but also aggression, irritability, impulsivity and psychosis) and norepinephrine (stress and anxiety, “Fight or Flight”, but also alertness and energy), both get recycled through COMT, which pulls them out of circulation, breaks them down into their chemical parts, and reassembles them for later use.
We all have variability in how fast our COMT enzyme works, based on the expression of the COMT genes in our DNA. Some of us have slower COMT genes, meaning that our brain levels of dopamine and norepinephrine tend to be higher than other people’s, as our ability to clean up and recycle these hormones is slowed. This might result in an individual (depending on other genetic and lifestyle factors) who is at a higher risk of mental health conditions like psychosis or bipolar disorder, or someone who is more irritable, prone to aggression, or stress intolerant.
Others have more COMT gene expression, resulting in a faster enzyme that clears dopamine and norepinephrine more quickly, resulting in lower brain levels of these neurotransmitters. If other factors are present, these individuals may be more at risk for mental health conditions such as depression, low mood, lack of motivation, or susceptible to addictions.
Beyond genetics, there are several environmental and biological factors that may affect the speed of the COMT enzyme. One of these factors is estrogen. Estrogen slows the COMT enzyme down by as much as 30%. This means that when estrogen levels are high (seen in many women around ovulation or premenstrually, or in women with generally high estrogen levels, termed “Estrogen Dominance”, COMT performs more slowly and dopamine and norepinephrine levels remain elevated.
Depending on the extent of the problem, women with high estrogen often experience anxiety and irritability and a low tolerance for stress. On the more severe end of the spectrum, some women experience conditions such as PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoria Disorder) or PMS-induced psychosis, resulting from abnormally high brain levels of dopamine and norepinephrine due to high estrogen. These conditions probably result from a combination of high estrogen, slowed COMT and other genetic and lifestyle factors. Xenoestrogens from environmental toxins, or birth control pills may also slow COMT and further exacerbate some of the symptoms of estrogen dominance.
Conversely, women with lowered levels of estrogen, such as those with amenorrhea (missed menstrual cycles) from various causes—PCOS is one, so is the birth control pill, especially progestin-only pills, or hormonal IUDs—or women who are peri-menopausal or menopausal, will have a faster COMT enzyme. This means that dopamine and norepinephrine will be cleared from the brain more quickly. Low levels of these neurotransmitters may result in depression: low mood, low energy and lack of motivation. On the extreme end, low levels of dopamine in the brain may result in conditions like Parkinson’s. Currently, research is being done on estrogen-replacement therapy as a treatment for Parkinson’s because of its ability to increase brain dopamine levels through slowing COMT.
When it comes to birth control pills, which are combination of synthetic estrogen and synthetic progesterone (“progestins”), or just straight progestin, either in pill-form or in a hormonal IUD, effects can be unpredictable. There is evidence that oral contraceptive use, especially progestin-only contraception, can exacerbate anxiety and depression, especially in teens. The pill acts by suppressing ovulation and suppressing natural hormone production, which may result in low levels of naturally-occurring progesterone and estrogen, which can slow COMT. However, the synthetic estrogens from the pill may interact with COMT, speeding it up in some women. Therefore the effects of specific forms of birth control on individual women is hard to predict; if functional medicine and genetic research tells us anything, it’s that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to striking the right hormonal balance.
Estrogen also has effects on another enzyme, called MAO-A, that recycles serotonin, the “Happy Hormone”, often implicated in depression and anxiety. Like COMT, estrogen slows down MAO, reducing the speed at which the body breaks down serotonin, resulting in higher brain serotonin levels. Drops in estrogen around and before a woman’s period, or low estrogen levels, may result in feelings of depression. Many women report feeling depressed and craving carbs and sugar around their periods. This is often related to a drop in serotonin as estrogen levels fall right before menses. Drops in serotonin levels due to drops in estrogen levels after childbirth may explain postpartum depression, according to some researchers.
The link between estrogen and its effects on COMT and MAO hint at the complexities of the body and brain’s hormonal milieu and its implications for hormonal regulation and mental health. Mental wellness is a complex state involving a variety of factors: hormones, enzymes and neurochemical pathways that are affected by our environment, our genetics and our hormonal predispositions. This is why I believe in taking a functional approach to mental health, seeing our mental health symptoms for what they are: symptoms, and making efforts to uncover underlying causes rooted in lifestyle, genetics and our environment. I believe the way to address symptoms is to trace them back to their source.
For many women, treating depression, anxiety and stress-intolerance may involve balancing estrogen levels and healing the menstrual cycle. For others it may involve supporting genetic susceptibilities with lifestyle changes, finding a birth control method that balances (or coming off entirely), and reducing exposure to xenoestrogens, supporting estrogen detoxification pathways, and addressing women’s health conditions such as irregular menses, and conditions like PMS, fibroids, endometriosis and PCOS.
