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2:14

your best. Hey

2:16

everybody, Chris Krasner here. Welcome to another

2:18

episode of Revolution Health Radio. Adrenal

2:21

fatigue is a topic that's surrounded by misconceptions

2:24

and misunderstanding. On one

2:26

end of the spectrum you have conventional doctors

2:28

who insist that it's just a made-up condition

2:30

and has no basis in reality. And

2:33

on the other end of the spectrum you have people

2:36

who claim that everybody has adrenal fatigue

2:38

and it always involves exhaustion of the

2:40

adrenal glands and inability to produce

2:43

cortisol. As you might expect,

2:45

both extremes are incorrect and

2:48

the reality is much more nuanced. So I was

2:50

excited to talk to Dr.

2:52

Isabella Wentz about this. She

2:55

is, you might already know of her

2:57

as the thyroid pharmacist. She's

2:59

an expert in Hashimoto's and

3:02

has spent most of her career supporting people

3:04

with Hashimoto's and finding

3:07

root cause and addressing it

3:09

with a functional medicine approach.

3:13

Over her career though, she noticed that

3:15

a lot of her patients were struggling

3:17

with HPA axis dysfunction or

3:20

adrenal dysfunction and

3:23

that became a major part of her work. It's

3:25

helping to support people in addressing

3:27

that issue whether or

3:29

not they had Hashimoto's. So

3:32

she has a new book out called

3:35

The Adrenal Transformation Protocol

3:37

and it's based on a program that she had developed online

3:40

to support people with HPA

3:42

axis dysfunction. It's been very successful

3:45

and so she decided to turn it into a book. And

3:48

I wanted to sit down with her and talk about the

3:51

connection between adrenal

3:53

dysfunction and Hashimoto's and thyroid

3:55

issues and just the general population's

3:58

experience of adrenal dysfunction

4:00

in the United States and other developed

4:02

countries where it's pretty

4:05

much rampant. You know, most people who

4:07

are listening to this have either are experiencing

4:10

it, have experienced it, or will experience

4:12

it at some point. So I think it's a really important topic

4:15

and I really enjoyed this conversation.

4:18

I think you will too. Let's dive in.

4:21

Dr. Isabella Wentz. It's a pleasure to have you on

4:23

the show. Hey, Chris. So great

4:25

to see you again. Thank you so much for having me back.

4:28

Oh, it's a pleasure. So you are the thyroid

4:30

pharmacist, but we're talking about adrenals.

4:34

So let's start with that. For

4:36

those who have maybe not followed my

4:38

work or your work for any length of time, why

4:41

would we be talking about adrenals

4:43

in the HPA axis, you know, against

4:46

the backdrop of thyroid dysfunction?

4:48

Sure. So if I could start with my own personal

4:51

story, when I first was diagnosed with

4:53

Hashimoto's and how I kind of became

4:55

the, you know, Hashimoto's expert slash

4:58

human Guinea pig was just trying to get myself to

5:00

heal and feel well again and feel halfway

5:02

human, right. Um, and I found

5:04

that getting off of certain foods helped

5:07

me tremendously with, with acid

5:09

reflux and my bloating

5:12

and IBS and all of these random

5:14

symptoms that I didn't realize were connected, yet

5:16

I was still left with like fatigue,

5:19

morning fatigue, especially, and

5:21

brain fog, kind of like irritability,

5:23

anxiety, sleep issues, unrestorative

5:25

sleep, overwhelm, all

5:28

of these. Symptoms. And everybody kept talking to me

5:30

about like adrenal fatigue. And

5:32

I was like, this doesn't exist. I'm a pharmacist. I would

5:34

have learned about it in pharmacy school and I Googled

5:36

it. And of course it was like, Oh no, this

5:38

isn't a real thing. It's not a real thing. I think

5:41

it took like the 15th person that

5:43

will like set it to me. And it happened to be

5:45

a compounding pharmacist for

5:48

whatever reason. I just was like, okay. I

5:51

looked at it from a different lens and

5:53

I was like, okay, I do have all the symptoms, so let me just try

5:55

this voodoo medicine stuff and see what happens.

5:58

And sure enough, I got better. Right. And

6:00

so my brain fog, my fatigue,

6:02

anxiety, all of these things that improved

6:05

with utilizing like the things that

6:08

worked for the thing that didn't exist. Right.

6:10

And I've found over time that most people with

6:12

Hashimoto's with hypothyroidism,

6:15

with chronic fatigue syndrome and autoimmunity,

6:18

they do have some degree of

6:21

adrenal dysfunction, which is, which is

6:23

more of the scientifically accurate term.

6:25

We can, we can get into the semantics throughout

6:28

the interview if you'd like, but

6:31

more than 90% of the people that I tested that

6:33

I was working with, they had

6:35

this adrenal

6:37

dysfunction. And part of

6:39

what was happening for them is they would get

6:41

started on thyroid hormones

6:44

and feel a little bit better. And then

6:46

all of a sudden they'd have more fatigue.

6:48

Right.

6:49

The thing that can happen with thyroid

6:51

hormones is that they

6:53

can unmask an underlying

6:55

issue with not having enough cortisol on

6:58

board. When we are hypothyroid,

7:01

our body makes adaptations for

7:03

us. And it'll say, let's slow

7:05

down cortisol clearance to give

7:07

you at least some sort of energy. Yeah. It

7:10

might be like a wired anxious, like I've

7:12

had too much coffee energy, but it's something, right.

7:15

And that's what happens when we are hypothyroid.

7:17

When we bring in thyroid hormone, that

7:20

cortisol clearance increases,

7:22

right? And so then a person will,

7:24

might be left over with not, not actually

7:27

producing enough cortisol at the right times

7:29

throughout the day. And so

7:31

that's kind of like one, one part of what I've been

7:33

seeing is like, just about everybody

7:35

that has a thyroid condition needs

7:38

to work on their adrenals. And

7:40

then on the flip side, I've had some people come

7:42

to me and they're like, I know you're, you

7:44

know, the Hashimoto is expert and you specialize

7:47

in thyroid. I have a thyroid issue,

7:49

yet nobody has ever diagnosed it. They

7:51

don't have thyroid antibodies. They don't have

7:54

quote unquote, a thyroid condition, her

7:56

thyroid disease. They have all the symptoms

7:59

and it turns out that it's their adrenals, right?

8:01

And so when we have a

8:03

lot of stress in our lives, this

8:06

can send too much reverse T3

8:08

into our body where that

8:10

can block thyroid hormone receptors.

8:12

And then our active T3 isn't able to

8:15

get into those receptors and activate

8:17

them. So we can have this kind

8:19

of thyroid condition and thyroid

8:21

symptoms without actually having

8:23

a thyroid condition just because of our adrenals

8:26

being affected. And so I really

8:28

wanted to focus on the adrenals

8:30

because this

8:31

is something that most people with thyroid issues need

8:33

to do. A lot of people with just being stuck

8:36

in a chronic stress response also

8:38

can really benefit from optimizing their adrenal

8:40

function. Excellent. Yeah. I

8:43

think the conversation around adrenal fatigue

8:46

has, first of all, even that term,

8:49

adrenal fatigue, which is, I

8:51

think, a misnomer and is part

8:53

of what generated a lot of resistance to amongst

8:56

endocrinologists and people in

8:58

the medical field because they knew

9:01

that in most cases when people

9:03

say that, you know, are diagnosed

9:06

with adrenal fatigue, it's not actually

9:08

true that their adrenals are fatigued and unable

9:10

to produce cortisol. It's that the upstream

9:13

glands like the hypothalamus, the pituitary,

9:15

the thyroid are not sending the

9:18

right signals. And the truth

9:21

is much more nuanced. It's really the,

9:23

we call it the HPTGA

9:27

axis with the hypothalamus, pituitary,

9:30

thyroid, gonads and

9:32

adrenals. But of course that doesn't really roll

9:35

off the tongue. And so

9:37

I think you get, you know, adrenal

9:39

fatigue is the term that gets thrown

9:41

around a lot and unfortunately has caused a lot

9:43

of misconception. So how

9:45

do you look at this dysfunction

9:48

and is it the same in everybody

9:51

is what's the range

9:53

of variation of how people can

9:56

experience this? Can people

9:58

diagnose

9:59

themselves?

12:00

super wired, right? Like you feel

12:02

like you had four rock, four red bulls and like

12:04

you're a rock star, but everybody around

12:07

you is just like moving way too slow.

12:09

And then we have the cortisol

12:12

roller coaster where somebody

12:14

might start off with high cortisol in the morning,

12:16

but it dips too quickly. And

12:18

then they get that 3pm crash. And

12:20

rather than the cortisol

12:22

healthy curve is like good cortisol

12:25

in the morning. And then we kind of go down this gradual

12:27

slide, it'll dip. And then it'll raise

12:29

up again in the evenings and you're like, this

12:32

is supposed to be your winding down rest time,

12:34

but you're like edgy and you've got all these things

12:36

on your mind and you just can't fall asleep.

12:39

Then as that can progress for

12:41

some people where they will actually

12:43

have a drop in the morning cortisol.

12:46

So they'll wake up tired and

12:48

have be like sluggish all

12:50

throughout the day until the afternoon.

12:52

And again, they can't sleep in the evenings.

12:55

And then another pattern, and this is the pattern

12:57

that unfortunately I've seen in the majority of

13:00

the clients that I've come to work with

13:02

with Hashimoto's and autoimmunity is

13:05

the kind of burnout flatlined

13:08

adrenal phase where they start off with low

13:10

cortisol in the morning, even though it's supposed

13:12

to be relatively high. And then

13:15

it's just very low all throughout the day.

13:17

And even in the evenings, it's

13:19

low and sleep just fine.

13:22

And they're like, I'm sleeping. I'm sleeping

13:24

so much, but I'm still tired and I wake up

13:26

tired, go to bed tired. I wake up tired.

13:28

So there's definitely different patterns that

13:31

it could present with depending on what

13:34

point of the healing journey the person is on and

13:36

what point they're diagnosed.

13:38

Yeah, that's been my experience as well. And

13:40

it,

13:41

you know, there's never a one size fits

13:43

all approach. And that's

13:46

especially true with HPA access dysfunction.

13:48

You can see all different types.

13:51

And I would, I would agree.

13:53

Like, I think if you look at statistics

13:56

and research, the most common is just

13:58

elevated cortisol. that's,

14:00

you know, you could say that that's a cultural

14:03

affliction. That

14:06

it's so common that it's probably more common

14:08

than not. And then if that tends

14:11

to go along with obesity and,

14:13

you know, and metabolic dysfunction, which are,

14:15

of course, extremely common now. But

14:18

then, as you mentioned, with Hashimoto's

14:21

or with people who are,

14:24

you know, let's say

14:26

the quintessential archetype for

14:28

this in my practice would be a mom

14:30

who's busy with kids and also working

14:32

outside of the home and maybe doing

14:35

CrossFit three or four times a week and

14:38

not eating enough generally, and

14:40

maybe has an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's

14:43

or another one and is

14:46

just really stressed out, then

14:48

that is often like a flat

14:50

line, you know, cortisol

14:53

type of situation where it's just

14:56

really, they just feel like

14:58

they're dragging themselves through the day,

15:01

for the most part. So

15:04

how does this relate to thyroid function

15:07

in your mind? Like, is

15:09

it a chicken and egg situation

15:12

where, you know, they just

15:14

reinforce each other? Is there,

15:16

is one more of a root cause

15:18

than the other such that, you know,

15:22

significant adrenal or dysfunction or

15:24

HPA dysfunction then

15:27

increases the risk of autoimmunity

15:29

or, you know, deepens or exacerbates

15:32

existing autoimmunity, or the other way around

15:34

where

15:35

autoimmunity itself is a stressor on the

15:37

system and can influence

15:40

and worsen

15:41

HPA access dysfunction?

15:44

Sure. And I think the body is always

15:46

in a feedback system,

15:48

right? So one thing impacts the

15:50

other, and the both situations can

15:53

be absolutely true where

15:55

the autoimmunity is a source of inflammation and

15:57

that can be an impact on the,

15:59

you know, know, HPA axis, but I

16:02

will say that the majority of the people that I

16:04

talk to and that I work with, I'll

16:06

ask them what was going on in your life before

16:08

you got sick and most of them will say I

16:11

was going through a significant period

16:13

of stress in my life. So I

16:16

personally believe and there's some research that

16:18

supports the stress comes before

16:20

the autoimmunity and that stress

16:22

can be a really impactful

16:25

trigger and that HPA axis dysfunction

16:27

can be really impactful trigger for

16:29

autoimmunity. And in my experience,

16:32

like you said, most healthy volunteers,

16:34

quote unquote, are people without a diagnosis.

16:38

They might have higher levels of cortisol.

16:40

If they don't get to the root cause of why

16:43

their body is stuck in a stress

16:45

state, then they may step

16:47

and progress into an autoimmune condition

16:50

or something like chronic fatigue syndrome where

16:53

their cortisol output is just flatlined.

16:55

So that's my personal theory.

16:57

And of course, chicken or the egg,

17:00

our body is always, you

17:02

know, there's always feedback loops within the body. But

17:05

personally, my hope is if we

17:07

can catch people like in the early stages

17:10

of the HPA axis dysfunction, we'll

17:12

be able to prevent so many cases of autoimmunity.

17:15

Yeah,

17:16

I completely agree.

17:18

I think we have a habit in conventional medicine

17:20

of, you know, looking at the body

17:23

as just a big collection of parts

17:25

that are not related to one another in any

17:27

way. And even how the system is set up,

17:29

right, you go to, you know, gastroenterologists

17:32

to talk about your gut health, you go to an

17:34

endocrinologist to talk about your hormones, you

17:36

go to a cardiologist to talk about

17:38

your heart. In theory, the primary

17:41

care provider is supposed to be playing the role

17:43

of like quarterback and just making

17:45

sure that all of those pieces are integrated.

17:47

But in practice, that rarely happens. And

17:49

there's rarely any view like

17:52

you just shared of where of how all of these

17:54

things are connected, which which of

17:56

course they are. And the funny thing is

17:58

most most people just average people with

18:01

zero medical training know that intuitively.

18:03

They can tell you from their own experience how

18:05

it's all connected even

18:08

when their doctor is insisting that

18:10

it's not connected. So

18:12

speaking of myths or you know

18:15

maybe conventional ideas,

18:18

let's talk a little bit about treatment.

18:21

The common advice with

18:24

adrenal fatigue, I'm

18:27

doing air quotes there, those

18:29

are just listening is you know,

18:31

it's quick caffeine, sleep

18:33

more, and maybe take

18:35

some DHEA and

18:38

that's you know a good approach for pretty

18:40

much everybody regardless of

18:43

what the situation is. So what do you

18:45

think about that? So

18:47

sure and I think that's a step in

18:49

the right direction is just to think about

18:51

lifestyle. I feel like conventional doctors

18:53

will say like it doesn't even exist like it's all

18:55

in your head go to a psychiatrist

18:56

right? So if you

18:58

can get to maybe like an old-school integrative

19:01

doc they'll be

19:02

they'll give you some of these strategies or a naturopath

19:05

perhaps give you some hormones. I know I was

19:07

initially trained in using like pregnenolone

19:09

and DHEA and sometimes I've

19:13

had clients where hydrocortisone

19:15

there were protocols that I was familiar with

19:17

that where you would give the body

19:19

like some doses

19:22

of what it wasn't making at the right times

19:24

to try to reestablish that pattern and

19:26

I feel like that can work really well

19:28

for some people. It does take

19:31

some time to work and I do recommend working

19:33

with a practitioner that knows how to use hormones

19:36

not just like taking them over the counter and

19:38

seeing what happens but

19:40

there are risks to that right? So there are

19:42

risks with like DHEA over converting

19:45

into something that makes us grow chin hair. I've

19:48

had that personal experience

19:50

so I could share proudly about that but

19:53

otherwise it can also work

19:55

on you know fueling estrogen

19:57

dominance and any kind of

20:00

the cancers that are, you know, fuel

20:02

fueled by estrogen. And it's just not

20:04

the best fit for everybody.

20:06

And then we focus on like the caffeine

20:09

elimination. So

20:11

yes, caffeine can absolutely kind of

20:14

make things worse. It can make,

20:16

make us not being able to, we can't sleep

20:19

as well. If we're drinking too much caffeine, right. And

20:21

we don't go into that resting state,

20:24

but what I've noticed is that a lot of people,

20:27

they will be drinking caffeine to self-medicate,

20:30

right? Because they're trying

20:32

to get that energy in the morning and they're so

20:34

tired. And same goes with

20:36

like drinking wine in the evenings. People

20:39

that tend to have that like higher cortisol

20:41

in the evenings.

20:41

They're like,

20:42

huh, I'm going to have a little bit of wine and

20:44

that'll help me wind down that that'll help

20:47

me fall asleep better at night. So

20:49

a lot of times when I started working with clients, I'd

20:51

be like, I figured

20:54

out your problem. You drink too

20:56

much coffee and too much wine. Boom.

20:58

Take that away. And you're going to be

21:01

full of energy. You're going to be able to sleep at night and

21:03

they, they would, you know, they would follow what I said

21:05

and they'd be like, yeah, I quit

21:07

everything. But like now I'm

21:09

like, I'm still tired throughout the day

21:12

and I'm still having trouble waking up at night.

21:14

Right. I can't sleep at night. I'm having frequent

21:17

night wakings. And then it was just like a big aha

21:19

moment for me. Like, wait a minute. People

21:21

are self-medicating with that. Um,

21:24

and yes, these strategies are great, but a

21:26

lot of times we actually need to get

21:28

somebody's energy levels up. And

21:30

there's a root cause of why their energy

21:33

levels are so depleted before

21:35

we ask them to quit

21:37

caffeine, right? Or we want to work

21:39

on their sleep and the root causes of why

21:42

they're so sleep deprived rather than just being like,

21:44

Hey, get more sleep, right?

21:46

Like it's so easy to just to tell somebody to get more

21:49

sleep, but it's not, not

21:51

realistic for everybody. Or some people might have

21:53

barriers to that, that are, um,

21:56

that are within their body or within their environment.

21:58

Right.

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22:04

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22:12

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22:14

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22:16

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25:36

Speaking of that, and

25:39

just the sort of distribution

25:42

of this condition, how it differs demographically

25:46

in the population, in my experience and from

25:48

what I've seen of the literature, this

25:51

does seem to be a constellation of

25:53

issues if you combine thyroid, adrenal

25:56

and autoimmunity that disproportionately

25:58

affect women.

25:59

It's not to say that men aren't affected,

26:02

they definitely are, but it's a problem

26:05

that does appear

26:07

to affect women more than men. So

26:10

has that been your experience, number one? And

26:12

number two, what's your take on

26:14

that?

26:16

So definitely, and I work with

26:18

full disclosure, I work primarily with women.

26:20

So I would say 90% of my clients

26:23

have been women, right? But

26:25

the literature does support that, that it

26:27

does tend to be women who are more

26:30

sensitive to our environment.

26:32

So they're going to be the ones that are going to have higher

26:35

rates of HPA access dysfunction, they're

26:37

going to have higher rates of Hashimoto's and higher rates

26:40

of autoimmunity. And again, not to

26:42

say that this doesn't happen to men, but

26:44

I feel like women are just more

26:47

tuned into the environment. And

26:49

my personal theory on that is, you know, there's

26:52

a lot of things that can play a role.

26:54

So women wear more makeup with

26:56

toxins, for example, and estrogen

26:58

can be a hormone that can

27:01

impact everything within our body,

27:03

right? So just those, those are just kind

27:05

of some of the differences and women

27:07

way less so they may be more susceptible

27:10

to toxins in general, compared to men. And

27:12

we have a different metabolic profile, like

27:14

so many things, right? What I've

27:16

sort of found as kind of the unifying

27:19

theory for that is that women tend

27:21

to be more tuned into the environment

27:24

because we're the ones that,

27:27

that are going to be caring and bringing new life

27:29

into the world, right? And so we have to be super

27:31

tuned into that. And

27:34

for our species and the survival

27:36

of our species, probably not

27:38

good to be like pregnant and caring for a newborn

27:41

when you're in a famine or when you're in a war,

27:44

or there's something going on in the world. And

27:47

what like adrenal dysfunction does,

27:50

thyroid issues and autoimmunity, what

27:52

they do is they prevent us from

27:54

being like vibrant and out

27:56

in the world. A lot of these conditions

27:58

do suppress liberation. They suppress

28:02

fertility, reproduction, so

28:04

on and so forth. And they also,

28:06

with thyroid and adrenal specifically conditions,

28:09

they also impact our metabolism.

28:12

So in a way, I feel like it's the

28:14

body's adaptation to

28:16

helping us survive, right? So,

28:19

you know, we're over here being

28:21

like, hey, I'm trying

28:23

to lose a few pounds, so I'm not gonna eat enough

28:25

and I'm gonna get on the treadmill where

28:28

our genes are saying like, hey girl, I

28:30

see that I'm picking up that you're

28:32

in a state of a famine because

28:34

you're not eating and you must be running

28:36

away from all of these crazy warriors

28:39

because you're always running on this treadmill, right? Girl,

28:41

don't worry, I got you. We're gonna slow down the metabolism

28:44

so you're not gonna need as much calories

28:46

to get you by. And so that's

28:48

what happens a lot of times in

28:50

the women that I work with is like,

28:52

their metabolism is super slow and the

28:55

thyroid and the adrenals can slow that down.

28:57

And I personally think it's our body's way

29:00

of trying to adapt to stress,

29:02

right? And back in our,

29:04

when our genes first were evolving,

29:07

we weren't aware

29:09

that like stress could come from like the television

29:11

set or from work deadlines. It was all about

29:13

like survival. It was like, you're either

29:15

being chased by a bear or you're not, right?

29:18

Or you're either in a famine or there's food

29:20

that's available to you.

29:22

Yeah, absolutely. It's a

29:24

great point, one that I've talked about a lot,

29:27

but it's, I

29:29

think a lot of people don't really

29:32

fully understand the binary

29:34

nature of our stress response system and

29:36

how significant the impacts

29:39

are of being in a chronic stress response.

29:42

Where as you just described very well,

29:46

when the fight or flight response is activated,

29:48

the easiest way to think about it is

29:51

the body's prioritizing everything

29:53

that's required for immediate short-term survival.

29:57

That made sense in an ancestral.

29:59

where our lives were literally at risk

30:02

when we were in the fight-or-flight reaction. And

30:04

I mean, certainly that is true in some places

30:07

still, depending on the circumstances. But,

30:10

you know, thinking about your 401k

30:12

or, you know, having an argument

30:15

with a co-worker or something like that that triggers

30:17

fight-or-flight now is usually not life-threatening,

30:20

but the body still responds in that same

30:22

way where it's triaging and prioritizing

30:24

short-term survival, and de-prioritizing

30:27

anything that is required for long-term

30:29

health and well-being, and even reproduction,

30:32

as

30:33

you pointed out. Like,

30:35

if you're in a really stressful situation, it's

30:39

not sending what you call safety

30:41

signals to the body and telling

30:43

the body, oh, this is a safe, nurturing

30:46

environment to bring a child

30:48

into. So let's

30:51

talk about how to work with that. Since

30:54

most people do experience stress

30:56

in their lives, it's not something that

30:59

necessarily everybody can just

31:02

eliminate entirely, or even

31:05

desirable to eliminate entirely, because stress

31:07

helps us to adapt and grow. But

31:10

if people are experiencing harmful impacts

31:14

of that stress, what are some steps they

31:16

can take to send those safety

31:18

signals to their body?

31:21

Sure. Yeah. And I'm

31:23

a big proponent of, like, feeling into what's

31:25

going on in your world. And no,

31:27

it's like you can't live in a monastery and

31:30

meditate 12 hours a day. And

31:32

obviously, you know, you wouldn't grow, you wouldn't change if you

31:35

hadn't had stress, and stress helps

31:37

us with building resilience.

31:39

But at the same time, we want

31:41

to think about, like, what are the messages we're currently

31:44

sending to our body by our daily

31:46

actions? And if, let's

31:49

say we're skipping meals, we're not

31:51

eating foods that are compatible

31:53

with our bodies, that are foods that are inflammatory,

31:56

we are undernourished, we don't have enough

31:58

nutrients in our. bodies,

32:00

that's going to be a stress signal, right? So

32:03

blood sugar imbalances, these are going to be stress

32:05

signals. And then like a lot

32:07

of pressure, a lot of deadlines, sleep

32:09

deprivation, psychological stress,

32:11

these are all stress, stress signals.

32:14

And so we want to counter that with

32:17

some safety signals. And I kind of developed

32:19

this plan when I was, when

32:21

my son was eight months old, and he

32:24

was waking up every two to three hours. And

32:26

I found myself with like flatlined adrenal

32:28

again, after recovering my health,

32:30

you know, many years prior to that. And

32:33

I was like, I can't take hormones,

32:35

man, I'm not quitting coffee. Like I just started

32:37

drinking coffee, and it's really helpful right now.

32:39

And I'm like, I can't sleep. I'm

32:41

taking care of my son in the middle of the night,

32:43

right?

32:44

That's kind of what a mom's got to do. And

32:47

so I was like, I can't sleep. And I can't, I can't

32:49

do any of these things. These are the things I

32:51

have to work with, right? I have to work

32:53

with sleep deprivation at this moment. So

32:56

what can I do? And I just

32:58

focus on sending my body enough of

33:00

the safety signals, so that the

33:02

messaging was like more balanced,

33:04

right? Because if you have 10 danger signals,

33:07

and one or two safety signals, then your body

33:09

is going to shift into that fight or flight mode.

33:12

But if you have enough of the safety signals

33:14

throughout the day and at nighttime, then

33:16

you're going to be able to shift more into the driving

33:19

states. And so, so I do

33:21

sleep now, I sleep like, you

33:23

know, nine to 10 hours, and my son

33:25

sleeps like 10 to 12 hours, but we

33:28

got to take, we got to work with what

33:30

we have. Like there's always going to be stressors

33:32

in our life. And so I really focus

33:34

in on blood sugar balance, making

33:37

sure that you're eating nutrient dense foods,

33:39

utilizing some of the supplements and

33:41

nutrients that get burned when

33:43

you're in a stressed out state. So like B

33:46

vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium,

33:48

electrolytes, these are just some really

33:50

foundational things that people can

33:52

do to help themselves feel more

33:55

balanced and utilizing nutrients

33:57

that support mitochondrial function.

33:59

That's- another thing, our mitochondria are

34:01

super tuned into our environment and whenever

34:03

they're, they're sensing stress or danger,

34:06

they're not going to be working as well. So I

34:08

really focus on things

34:10

like that from like a foundational

34:13

nutrition standpoint, making

34:15

sure we're spending time in nature.

34:18

And probably one of the favorite things that people

34:20

love is focusing on pleasurable

34:23

activities

34:24

and really building that within

34:27

your routine, rather than doing

34:29

things like you don't enjoy, right?

34:32

Yeah, let's talk about that's one of my favorite

34:34

topics. Pleasure

34:37

and fun as an antidote stress because

34:39

I think when a lot of people

34:42

think about stress management

34:44

or stress reduction, they might think exclusively

34:47

of things like meditation or,

34:49

you know, deep breathing or Tai Chi

34:52

or yoga, Qi Gong, something like that, which

34:55

of course are all fantastic for stress

34:57

reduction. But they

34:59

might not think that watching a funny movie

35:02

or, you know, going playing with their

35:04

kid in the backyard or,

35:06

you know, doing something that's just

35:08

purely pleasurable and enjoyable is

35:11

is actually having an impact

35:13

on stress. So say more about that.

35:16

Sure. And I think many of us

35:19

I know, our age, we're kind

35:21

of in that sandwich generation where we've got

35:23

like little kids to look after

35:25

or children in general and perhaps elderly

35:28

parents. And we can

35:30

find ourselves between like work and caring

35:32

for other people where there's

35:34

not a lot of opportunity to

35:37

actually focus on doing things for the

35:39

simple pleasure of doing them. So

35:42

I want some of the exercises that

35:44

I have the women and

35:46

men that go through my program focus on

35:48

is just like making a list of

35:50

things that you enjoy and

35:53

take a piece of paper, divide it in

35:55

half on one side, write down what makes you

35:57

feel worse on the other side, write down what

35:59

makes you to feel better and

36:01

this can be a really major shift

36:04

for you, for how you feel, how you show up

36:06

in the world, what your energy looks

36:08

like. What read this amazing quote and

36:10

it talked about how people who

36:13

are fatigued and don't have enough energy,

36:15

it's not because of all the things that they're

36:17

doing, but sometimes it's because they're not doing

36:19

the right things to fuel their energy

36:22

levels. And I couldn't agree more with

36:24

that. A lot of my clients

36:27

will say things like spending time in nature,

36:30

having time to connect with friends, Epsom

36:33

salt baths, or creating

36:37

art just for the sake of creating it. These

36:39

are all wonderful things that we can do that

36:41

could shift us into more of like,

36:44

aero sympathetic, resting,

36:47

digesting, relaxing, healing state,

36:49

and really shift us away from like, I've

36:52

got a to-do list and this is stressful

36:54

for me. So this is actually a really big part of

36:56

the program in addition

36:59

to utilizing nutrients and supplements

37:01

and food, which we all love, but like incorporating

37:04

like small doses of pleasure into

37:06

your day to day life.

37:08

So you mentioned the program a couple of times that just

37:10

for those who might not be familiar with it, the

37:12

adrenal transformation protocol, which is

37:15

the name of the book, is that also the name

37:17

of the program? And what does that

37:19

look like in terms of how

37:21

long it is and what kind of commitment?

37:24

Just walk us through it a little bit.

37:26

Sure. So I initially

37:28

developed the adrenal transformation

37:31

program and the, you may notice the abbreviation

37:33

is ATP if you're a nerd. We

37:38

really focus, utilizing

37:40

creating energy in the body and it's

37:42

a four week program and

37:45

the book has all of the same information

37:47

that the program does. So it's evolved

37:50

out of the program. The

37:52

amazing thing is when I used to work

37:54

with people and focusing on utilizing

37:57

hormones or even

37:59

some of the life It would take like three

38:01

months, sometimes two years to

38:04

rebalance their stress response and rebalance

38:06

their symptoms. With this program,

38:08

people are seeing a major difference in like

38:11

three to four weeks of just

38:13

committing to, I'm going to eat blood

38:15

sugar balanced. I'm going to utilize a few

38:17

supplements to support my stress response.

38:20

I'm going to incorporate pleasurable activities

38:22

into my routine. I'm going to be focusing on

38:25

just really putting my body into

38:28

that rest, digest and heal

38:30

state that helps to build the body

38:33

back up. And it just takes three to four weeks

38:35

to see results.

38:37

Great. Yeah, that's amazing. I know,

38:39

you know, in my experiences can

38:41

turn around pretty quickly, which

38:44

is sometimes hard to

38:46

envision if you've been struggling for

38:49

a long time and it seems like there's

38:51

no light at the end of the tunnel. But

38:54

the good news is that it can

38:56

change relatively quickly and three

39:00

to four weeks to get some results

39:02

is just off in the beginning. You know, the

39:05

results will typically accumulate over

39:07

time as you stick with a program like this,

39:10

which is of course great

39:12

news. And

39:15

on the flip side, my experience has also been

39:17

that

39:19

people who,

39:20

and when I say people, I include myself

39:22

and pretty much everybody I know,

39:25

like

39:27

the behavior patterns that get

39:29

us into HPA access

39:31

dysfunction don't tend to just disappear. So

39:35

it's a process, continual process

39:38

of examining our relationship

39:41

with our life and our work and

39:44

the people around us. And you

39:46

know, it can be easy to, this

39:49

is a caveat that I'll often provide

39:51

to my patients. The

39:53

scenario is like this. Okay, somebody

39:56

has pretty significant HPA access

39:58

dysfunction. Adrenal dysfunction,

40:00

they're really tired out of it. They start doing

40:03

a program like this. A couple

40:05

of weeks later, they start feeling a lot better.

40:07

So then all of a sudden, they're

40:09

going crazy with activities and

40:12

working out a lot and staying

40:15

up late with all of their newfound energy.

40:18

And then they're right back to where

40:20

they started. Or maybe even worse,

40:22

they crash because they

40:25

overdid it too soon. Is that something

40:27

you've seen in your work with people? And

40:29

how do you counsel people to avoid that?

40:33

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And full disclosure,

40:35

I'm people as well. So that

40:39

happened to me when I had Hashimoto's

40:42

and I was chronically fatigued for so many

40:44

years. And I got my energy back. And I was like,

40:47

woohoo, I'm making up for lost time. I'm going to

40:49

take over the world. And then you can kind of

40:51

get yourself in the same patterns where

40:54

you burn yourself out again. And so a

40:56

big part of my

40:59

program too is focuses on building

41:01

resilience. And I

41:03

have a whole section on that where we focus

41:06

on some of the underlying patterns. Like let's

41:09

say one of the things I recommend is doing

41:11

gratitude every morning and positive affirmations

41:14

and sending all these beautiful safety signals

41:17

to yourself. But when you just

41:19

do that, but you have underlying trauma

41:21

that you're walking around with that tells

41:23

you that you're

41:26

not worth anything in the world unless you're super

41:28

productive or unless you're working

41:30

at your max or so

41:32

on and so forth, whatever the messaging, the

41:35

negative nancies we have in our brains

41:37

and saying all those naughty things to us.

41:40

And then we're going to just kind of get ourselves into the same

41:42

patterns. So I really focus

41:45

on figuring out what your

41:47

triggers are and what your traumas might

41:49

be. And so you could work on processing

41:51

them. There are a lot of fabulous

41:54

ways to

41:55

overcome them.

41:57

One of my triggers was.

42:00

I have a brother who's like six to

42:02

he's older than me and he's like, you

42:04

know, into martial arts and I was I'm

42:06

like a foot smaller I was always

42:08

the younger sister. And so I got

42:11

this message that I'm not strong and I can't

42:13

do things and, you know, you're a little

42:15

you're not strong. And so that kind

42:17

of led me to push myself and to prove that I

42:19

was strong, even at times where maybe

42:22

I shouldn't have been strong and maybe

42:24

I should have asked for help right so

42:27

really working to heal those kind of underlying patterns

42:29

that I would say most of us have right

42:33

can be extremely extremely

42:36

healing and liberating and it's like lifting

42:39

a huge weight off of our shoulders, and

42:41

we don't get triggered easily and

42:44

we're able to just be more relaxed and

42:46

present and be more into that like

42:48

healing that resting digesting

42:50

state rather than in that fight or flight or

42:53

I need to prove myself I need to be strong. So

42:55

we focus a lot on that like how do you make your

42:57

mind more resilient and how do

42:59

you deal with

43:00

with stressors because we all have them right.

43:04

For sure,

43:04

not not going to avoid it and again not

43:06

even desirable to avoid it that this

43:09

concept of you stress, meaning

43:11

you us tr

43:14

e ss that's how it's spelled means

43:16

positive stress like a stress, like

43:19

we wouldn't have evolved as a species if

43:21

we didn't have stressors that we had to overcome

43:23

that that's just part of being human and

43:26

anything that is worth doing

43:29

is often going to come with stress and difficulty

43:31

and challenge so we're not saying you need

43:33

to eliminate stress

43:34

from your life which is an unrealistic and

43:37

not even desirable goal but just these

43:40

ways that we can bring more balance into our

43:42

lives and help mitigate the harmful,

43:44

you know, the potentially harmful impacts of

43:47

stress that we can't avoid. That's what

43:49

this is really about. So,

43:51

is about has been super

43:54

interesting and helpful I'm really excited about

43:56

your book adrenal transformation protocol.

44:00

everybody listening to this is experiencing

44:02

the syndrome that you

44:04

describe at least to some extent or

44:07

has experienced it or you know is at some

44:11

stage along the process and again

44:13

myself included it's something we're always

44:15

you know most of us are always working with

44:17

to some degree or another so

44:20

where can people learn more about the book

44:23

and the program and your work in

44:25

general?

44:26

Sure so my book is available on

44:28

Amazon and Barnes & Noble wherever fine

44:30

books are sold. My website is

44:32

thyroidpharmacist.com and

44:35

I have a guide at thyroidpharmacist.com

44:37

slash ABC that talks

44:39

about some of the different elements of

44:42

restoring the function the

44:44

optimal function of your stress response

44:47

and I'm on social media as well so find

44:49

me there.

44:50

Fantastic well I've always appreciated

44:53

your balanced approach to thyroid

44:56

and Hashimoto's and

44:58

I was excited to see that you were taking tackling

45:00

this subject because it's very important

45:03

as we've discussed so thanks again.

45:06

Thank you so much for Chris for having

45:08

me on and thank you for all the wonderful

45:11

work that you've been doing over the years and

45:13

helping and empowering people to take

45:15

charge of their health. You helped me on my thyroid

45:17

journey so much

45:20

and you've just been doing a fabulous

45:23

job helping the world so thank you. Okay

45:25

everybody thanks for listening please

45:27

keep sending your questions in to chriscrustor.com

45:30

slash podcast question and we'll

45:32

see you next time.

45:34

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investing in the company or joining their advisory

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45:59

and products that I love.

45:59

truly believe in and I

46:02

hope you benefit from learning more about them

46:04

and how their products can improve your life.

46:08

That's

46:08

the end of this episode of Revolution Health

46:10

Radio. If you appreciate

46:12

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46:14

happier world, please head over to iTunes

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46:18

They really do make a difference. If

46:21

you'd like to ask a question for me to answer in a

46:23

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46:26

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46:29

can also leave a suggestion for someone you'd like

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46:33

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46:39

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46:41

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46:43

and research that I do throughout the week there that

46:45

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46:48

it's a great way to stay abreast of the latest developments.

46:51

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.