Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / Stress Is a Hashimoto's Trigger ⎸ Root Cause Series Ep 205

Transcript

Stress Is a Hashimoto's Trigger ⎸ Root Cause Series Ep 205 · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition. That means your immune system is attacking
• 0:03
  your thyroid. But the bigger question is why?
• 0:06
  Why is your immune system reacting this way? What root causes and what triggers
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  are keeping that fire burning?
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  That is what we are exploring throughout this summer series.
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  Because when you understand what is driving your symptoms, you can stop guessing
• 0:20
  and you can start focusing on what matters most for your health.
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  If you want help identifying your own root causes, check the link down in the
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  show notes for Hashimoto's decoded root causes revealed.
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  In less than one hour, I will walk you through the most common root causes behind
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  Hashimoto's, and I will help you create a roadmap for your next steps.
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  My name is Esther Yunkin. I'm a registered nurse, holistic health educator,
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  and I am the host of the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
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  I believe that your health is a blend of five interconnected areas,
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  body, mind, spirit, diet, and environment.
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  Let's look at the root causes through that whole person lens.
• 1:00
  All right, hopefully you started at episode 200, 201, and you got through 202.
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  In 202, I covered the root causes, which is three different things.
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  One of those root causes is a trigger.
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  And then I covered the eight most common triggers.
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  Of course, it was really fast. If you want to go in depth, head over to Hashimoto's
• 1:19
  Decoded, because then I'm going to take you through all of it in less than an
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  hour. You're going to have a roadmap. That's what you want.
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  Today, we're talking about the most common root cause and or the most common trigger.
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  And I bet you already know what it is.
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  If you looked at the blog post or Pinterest or Instagram or whatever,
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  wherever I posted the infographics.
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  I bet you already know. You looked at those eight most common triggers and you're
• 1:46
  like, oh yeah, I have that one and that one and that one. And almost every person
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  who looks is going to say stress.
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  Stress is definitely part of my story. I can absolutely see how stress plays a role.
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  Now this is two different sided.
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  There's the stress coming in and then there's also how you react to the stress.
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  Both matter. Sometimes you cannot do anything about the stress coming in.
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  All you can do is.
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  Improve how you are reacting to it. Let me give you a quick story.
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  I live in Minnesota. Minnesota is cold.
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  I also live in a family with five guys. I've got my husband and four boys.
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  In general, males run hotter.
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  That means even without Hashimoto's playing a role in this,
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  I would feel colder in a temperature where the rest of my family is comfortable,
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  just based on the physiologic differences between males and females.
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  Now you throw some hypothyroidism into the mix, and I feel even colder.
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  And then you throw Minnesota into the mix, and in the winter, I am very cold.
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  And that is not a stressor that I am going to change.
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  That is a physiologic stressor on my body, that feeling cold, that cold weather.
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  I can't change other than, you know, if I were to up and move my whole family somewhere warmer.
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  And that's not going to happen right now, or maybe ever. In fact,
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  I left Minnesota to move to Alaska after college because Minnesota did not have enough snow for me.
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  So I don't envision myself moving to a warmer climate.
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  It is my job then to say, oh, one of my biggest stressors over the course of
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  the year is the temperature.
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  Now, what can I do about the temperature? Because it's going to be cold every winter.
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  I'm going to have about nine months out of the year where it's really cold.
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  And that just is what it is.
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  Are you seeing how this also relates to your life?
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  There are some stressors that you probably cannot change. what is it for you?
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  Maybe it's your job. Maybe it's relationships. Maybe you have some relationships
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  in your life that are going to be in your life, and they're just stressful.
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  What is it for you that is causing stress?
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  Maybe it's your spiritual beliefs. I'm going to have an episode later this summer
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  with a guest and we're going to talk about spirituality.
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  She is a doctor and I love her perspective, especially on like how your spiritual
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  health impacts your physical health. It's going to be a very good conversation.
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  So you cannot necessarily control the stressors coming in.
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  So then you get to figure out how to deal with the stressors that are there.
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  Now for me, I honestly didn't realize for a couple winters that it was the cold.
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  I had a suspicion and I knew I was cold. So I would put on layers,
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  I would, you know, get nice warm wool things, and then I'd get all itchy.
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  And then that was a whole nother thing.
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  Like I tried a whole bunch different things in order to feel warmer.
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  And then, what was it, two springs ago, I got a sauna, a far infrared sauna,
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  and I absolutely love that thing.
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  Absolutely love it. Now, yes, I do use it for the actual sauna benefits,
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  like to increase my mitochondrial health and to sweat out toxins.
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  Those are definitely parts of a far infrared sauna.
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  But for me in the winter, part of having that sauna is just to be able to warm
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  up at least once a day. Maybe sometimes twice a day.
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  I would go into the sauna for just three to five minutes just to warm up so
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  that I wasn't feeling cold to my bones.
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  Because that is a physical stressor for me. And I know that.
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  So I got to choose, okay, how am I going to deal with this? I'm going to warm up.
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  It was not a cheap solution, but a very effective solution.
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  And so at the end of this last winter, I was able to show my labs to my nurse
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  practitioner, and she noted that they went up. My antibodies,
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  I think my antibodies went up.
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  But I was able to show her, okay, here are how I did the last three winters,
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  and compare that to this winter.
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  And I did so much better.
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  So for you, I'm asking, what are the areas of stress? How do you see stress coming into your life?
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  And let's look at that through the five different perspectives.
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  The five parts of the whole you are body, mind, spirit, diet, environment.
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  You can have stress in any or all of those areas.
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  And the stressors look a little different. So I already said cold is one of my biggest stressors.
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  And that would be both body and environment. I live in an area where it is cold
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  and also it affects my body.
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  I'm feeling cold to the bones.
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  There are other stressors in all of those categories. Body, mind,
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  spirit, diet, environment.
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  I'm going to point you to a couple different podcast episodes.
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  I believe most of these have a blog post to go with them so that you can kind to dig into more.
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  Also, of course, I cover it in Hashimoto's Decoded.
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  Episode 7 and 8 were my foundational episodes on stress.
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  I talk about stress, your thyroid, Hashimoto's, how they go together.
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  In episode 8, we shift to how you can manage stress, and this is more how you are reacting to it.
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  Episode 24, I'm talking about your adrenal glands and chronic stress.
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  Episode 34, we're talking about how your lymphatic system is also impacted by
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  stress and how you can halt that damage.
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  Episode 36 is giving you a tactile way to de-stress, and I talk about using
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  art and crafts. It's a very interesting episode.
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  At least I think so. Episode 40, if you're wondering what spiritual stress is.
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  Episode 40 is all about spiritual stress.
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  So I should have all of those down in the show notes. Episode 7, 8, 24, 34, 36, and 40.
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  And throughout those, you should be able to really get a good picture of stress in general.
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  But we all know, we all know we have stress. You know you have stress. I know I have stress.
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  We all know that we should, should is in quotes, we should be able to do things
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  about it. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't.
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  I'm sure you have heard that scrolling on your phone on social media is a stressor.
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  I'm sure you've heard that. And you probably still do it. I do it.
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  And if you don't, kudos to you. Good job.
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  I have so many thoughts about social media on personal level.
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  I know it's a time suck, but as far as my mission goes, I want to serve as many
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  people as possible to help them realize that they can figure out their root
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  causes, that there are things they can do about their Hashimoto's.
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  They can address those root causes and the triggers.
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  That is what I want every single person to understand. And if by me showing
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  up on social media, more people get that message, then awesome.
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  But if people aren't, you know, clicking over to the podcast or blog from social
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  media, which to be honest, most people just scroll, they don't click through.
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  Then I wonder about if it's worth me continuing to post over there.
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  So I would love to know, how did you find this podcast?
• 9:37
  Come over to our school community. It's Health with Hashimoto's on school,
• 9:41
  S-K-O-O-L. That link will also be down in the show notes.
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  And let me know how you found this podcast, because I want as many people as
• 9:49
  possible to discover this podcast so that they can figure out what is driving
• 9:53
  their symptoms so they can stop guessing and start focusing on what matters most for their health.
• 10:00
  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
• 10:03
  Please discuss any changes with your trusted healthcare provider.
• 10:06
  To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available
• 10:10
  there. You do not have to figure your health out alone.
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  So that is school, S-K-O-O-L.com, and it is the Health with Hashimoto's community.
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  I'll see you next time on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.