module #7 - lesson 4 - amazon s3 · module 7 - lesson 4 adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism welcome...

Hypothyroidism and Adrenal Fatigue

MODULE #7 - Lesson 4

2Super Nutrition Academy – MODULE 7 - Lesson 4

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Stress and the General Adaptation Syndrome

Module 7 - Lesson 4

Adrenal Fatigue and HypothyroidismWelcome to Lesson 4 Module 7. Today we will discuss adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism starting with adrenal fatigue, then we’ll shift focus slightly to hypothyroidism followed by the interplay between the two.

Let’s get started by first understanding the impact of stress on our bodies. A legendary physiologist/psychologist named Hans Selye, coined the term general adaptation syndrome. He came up with was a three-phase response to stress.

We have phase one here, which is on the left-hand side, this is our general alarm reaction. We see something that scares us, somebody jumps out of the corner of a room, we get startled, and we get this alarm reaction. This is known as the fight-or-flight response where our body’s instinct is to either fight or flee.


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In this case, the main hormones released from the adrenal glands are epinephrine, denoted by E here, and norepinephrine. These are the short-term, fast-acting hormones that are released from the adrenal glands when we have this acute form of stress.

Next is phase two, this kind of resistant stage. This one really depends; this will vary from person to person. Phase two could last one year or one decade, depending on the overall level of vitality and resistance to stress and trauma the individual has. You and I might have totally different lengths of time for this stage two.

Cortisol is the main hormone involved in regulating this stress response. The problem is phase two can’t last forever because, with time and a chronic level of stress, the body will break down, and that leads us to phase three, which is called exhaustion.

This, as we’re going to see adrenal fatigue. Keep this in mind, this three-phase approach is how all animals, whether it be your pets or human beings, respond to stress and no one responds in the exact same way. Some might have a very short phase two, a very rapid onset of phase three, exhaustion. Everyone’s response is pretty different, but it generally goes through the same kind of three-phase approach.


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What is Adrenal Fatigue?

What is adrenal fatigue? Basically, it’s a condition whereby the adrenal glands are exhausted and unable to produce adequate quantities of hormones, primarily cortisol.

Risk Factors of Adrenal FatigueSo, risk factors for adrenal fatigue include lack of sleep, staying up late, poor food choices, using food and drinks as stimulants when tired, chronic feeling of powerlessness. This is something I really want you to understand. Adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism have a huge psychospiritual and emotional component. Stress is a huge underlying component to both of these issues, what happens in your mind is a big factor with how you either develop these or you cope with them.

Here’s another example take a type-A personality, so somebody who’s always striving for more, trying to be perfect. These characteristics are generally related to higher stress than somebody who’s more easygoing. Also, lack of enjoyable and rejuvenating activities. So, if you’re working 16 hours a day, you’re not doing things to rejuvenate yourself, you’re not getting some down time, that’s a very important factor.

Recently, I was fortunate to have met Arianna Huffington from The Huffington Post who runs a very successful online blog, news platform. One of the things that she said was one of the big things for her at this stage in her life, she realizes how important it is for her to get away, to disconnect, and to rejuvenate. She used the analogy of recharging your cell phone, while most of us do that on a daily basis we don’t take the time to recharge our own battery.

And, obviously, a high-stress lifestyle. The more stressed out you are, the greater the risk of developing adrenal fatigue. I moved out of the city a couple years ago and I love it. I go back to the city and it’s just stress. I enjoy a slower pace, closer to nature, not as much craziness around. For me, that’s really


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important. For some other people, they enjoy the high stress, busy stuff in the city; that’s totally fine but you have to really understand how you operate, what’s going to work best for you.

These are eight big risk factors for adrenal fatigue. Notice that only two of them are dealing with food. The other stuff is really lifestyle and mental mind-set stuff. Let’s talk about what the adrenal glands are and what they do.


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The Adrenal Glands

The adrenal glands are about the size of a walnut, so they’re very small. They sit on top of your kidneys. One of the hormones, aldosterone, is closely involved with what the kidneys do. There are a number of different functions, but, essentially, adrenal glands help your body cope with stress. That is their big ticket; that’s what they do.

How They OperateNormally functioning adrenal glands secrete minute amounts of steroid hormones; for instance, cortisol, aldosterone, DHEA, which is the most abundant hormone in the body, androstenedione, and catecholamines, which are epinephrine and norepinephrine also known as adrenaline and noradrenaline.

These hormones help regulate all processes in your body, especially energy metabolism. Let’s just say a tiger approaches you, you need the energy to run away from that situation, unless you decide to fight the tiger. You need the instant energy to run away from the tiger.

When that happens, you go through that fight-or-flight response. Your adrenal glands start pumping out epinephrine and norepinephrine and what those are going to is in conjunction with the cortisol. They break down fat reserves and glycogen reserves into blood sugar or glucose molecules, which will then come into the bloodstream and provide immediate energy so you can run from the situation. All of these hormones have a big impact specifically cortisol and epinephrine and norepinephrine on energy metabolism.


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What I want you to get out of this flowchart is how all of the adrenal hormones are created. Notice that the precursor to every single one of them is cholesterol. This is one area where cholesterol is absolutely critical. If you’re not eating cholesterol, if you’re not eating any animal protein, for instance, no animal sources of cholesterol—yes, our body does manufacture some of it, but we also know that very low-cholesterol diets are going to compromise all of these resulting hormones.

Cholesterol leads to the development, the pre hormone, which is the hormone before all of the other hormones, called pregnenolone, and pregnenolone is eventually converted into cortisol. It can also be converted into DHEA, which can be converted to androstenedione, which is then converted to testosterone. Those two pathways could also go the estrone and estradiol pathways as well, which are estrogens.

This is essentially the whole flow chart of how, from cholesterol and the pro hormone pregnenolone, how we get all these adrenal hormones: cortisol, aldosterone, testosterone, estrogens, and so forth.


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Cortisol

Cortisol is a really complicated hormone to understand because it’s kind of like a double-edge sword. You’ve probably heard too much cortisol is related to storing abdominal belly fat but too little cortisol has the same effect. It just goes to show you that in the body, homeostasis, is very important. We don’t want too much cholesterol; we don’t want too little cholesterol.

As this spectrum shows too-little cholesterol is an indication of adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands are pretty much exhausted. They can no longer produce and secrete enough cortisol to meet the demands from stress. When I say stress, I mean physical, emotional, environmental, toxic, and food stress; all of these are stressors in the body.

When we have too little cholesterol, we have excessive inflammation. Cortisol is anti-inflammatory, that’s you have an autoimmune condition, skin flare-up, joint pain, asthma, the first course of action in most cases is, corticosteroid, which is, essentially, a type of cortisol. Cortisol is a natural antiinflammatory and in healthy adrenal glands, at healthy levels of the body, it is very important for mitigating inflammation.


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However, with too little cortisol, we get excessive inflammation. We’re not able to control the immune response in a lot of cases. Too much cortisol, on the other hand, let’s refer back to phase two, where we’re going through the resistance phase on a constant basis, at that point, we have high levels or cortisol. This suppresses the immune system, and that’s why when you’re stressed out, you’re more likely to get sick.

Cortisol also helps us regulate healthy blood sugar, because as we mentioned before, it’s needed. One of its primary functions, is to maintain normal blood sugar so that you can manage your energy levels for survival purposes. If you have too little cortisol, you’re going to be in a hypoglycemic state.

Too much cholesterol, on the other hand, if you’re constantly stressed out, will lead to energy depletion. One of the things high levels of cortisol will do is excessively tap in to glycogen and fat reserves and it’s going to constantly be draining those stored forms of energy into simple sugars for energy usage depleting your energy.

As an athlete and from working with athletes, one of the biggest things I’ve seen is that we don’t manage our anxiety or arousal levels before a game properly. Some guys get really ramped up and really pumped up, but they peak too soon. They get too much cortisol, they get too much epinephrine and norepinephrine, and all of that is going to break down their energy reserves and it’s going to deplete their fuel sources for the actual competition. Understand that too much cortisol will deplete you.

Again, too little cortisol can lead to abdominal weight gain because when you have too little cortisol in the blood, you can still have high levels of insulin as a result of eating certain foods, and when that happens that insulin is going to help store or favor the storage of sugar into your cells. It’s going to obviously favor abdominal weight abdominal and total body weight gain, lethargy as well. Adrenal fatigue, one of the big symptoms is this feeling of blah. This feeling of lethargy.


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Actions of CortisolCortisol normalizes blood sugar through 2 pathways. First cortisol stimulates what’s called gluconeogenesis, which is the synthesis of new glucose. This happens specifically in the liver. In periods of need it will break down fat and proteins and use pathways in the liver to convert those into glucose molecules for immediate energy. At the same time, it’ll also work with insulin to regulate how much sugar’s in the blood. Insulin wants to store sugar from the blood and into the cells; cortisol will kind of work with insulin and say, “Hey, you know what? Let’s keep a bit of sugar in the blood, because we need this for some immediate action.” It’s really cool how all this works.

As I mentioned before, it has huge antiinflammation properties. It is the main antiinflammatory agent in the body. For instance, autoimmune conditions generally have very low cortisol levels, and, therefore, they require corticosteroids to control what are called flare-ups. If you or anyone you know has an autoimmune condition, this is probably going to resonate with you.

It also has a tying along with the anti-inflammation rule it also has a very strong regulatory impact within the white blood cell community within your immune system. Among a number of other different functions, what I wanted to point out here is that it reduces the rate of lymphocyte multiplication and accelerates their programmed cell death, called apoptosis. Cortisol doesn’t’ allow your immune system to get out of control protecting you from a hyper-reactive immune system, which could lead to allergies, autoimmune conditions, and so forth. It’s a very, very important thing.

If our adrenal glands are fatigued they will not pump out cortisol as they should. This can lead to long-term immune complications, because now the immune system is no longer being suppressed, and now we have some problems.

The other thing that it does in conjunction with not allowing the rate of lymphocyte multiplication to occur too rapidly is accelerate the preprogrammed death of these white blood cells. This causes a disappearance of white blood cells in the bloodstream due to high cortisol levels. This is one of the ways corticosteroids suppresses immune function.


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Within normal levels, cortisol is going to help regulate the immune system. However, with too high of a level of cortisol such as in phase two of stress, where we’re constantly stressed out. What this will do is reduce the rate of lymphocyte multiplication and accelerate programmed cell deaths. We’re literally wiping out a lot of the white blood cells from the bloodstream, and that’s why this suppresses immune function. Stress or exogenous corticosteroids through drugs, for instance. Anything that’s going to increase the amount of cortisol in your blood is going to decrease immune function.

Cardiovascular control. Cortisol helps to control the tone of your arteries, hence your blood pressure as well. High cortisol leads to a higher tonality, a higher constriction or muscle tone within the blood vessels, and that’s going to increase your blood pressure. It’s very important to remember we’re talking about a spectrum. We don’t want too little cortisol, which can occur with adrenal fatigue, and we don’t want too much cortisol, which can occur with chronic levels of stress, which would precede adrenal fatigue.

We need chronic levels of stress over certain months, or years in some cases, or a certain traumatic event, which is going to raise cortisol levels, which is going to lead to all these issues. Then, eventually, our adrenal glands become exhausted, leading to a very low supply of cortisol, which essentially creates the same conditions.

Now, the big thing with cortisol is its ability to help us cope with stress. If we have a lack of cortisol in adrenal fatigue, we have no ability to tolerate severe or chronic stress. This is one of the biggest signs or symptoms of adrenal fatigue. If you get really ramped up and you get really stressed out or you have an argument, do you feel physically and emotionally exhausted after it? It doesn’t have to be something that lasts for an hour; it can be a simple yelling argument for 30 seconds, that’s it. If your body cannot rebound from that, that’s an indication that your adrenals are probably pretty exhausted.

People give cortisol a bad rap, and that’s why I want to give you this information, because you have to understand the reality of cortisol. It is a double-edge sword. Another very important role that cortisol plays is cellular protection. It helps protect our cells by releasing or activating defense mechanisms within the cells and shutting down or modifying them to prevent them from damaging our own cells.


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There’re a lot of really intricate cellular defense mechanisms that cortisol helps work more effectively, like to protect our cells against too much insulin. It also prevents damage from excess glucose in the cells from having high levels of insulin during stress.

Remember, if we’re breaking down glycogen for immediate energy, that’s going to increase the glucose in the blood and when we have high levels of glucose in the blood the pancreas will secrete insulin, there’s this whole cascade of events. Cortisol helps protect our cells from the damaging effects of insulin.

Cortisol and the HPA AxisThe amount of cortisol and other adrenal hormones circulating is regulated by a negative feedback loop involving the hypothalamus (H), we’ll call it your thermostat, the pituitary (P) gland, and the adrenals (A). This is known as your HPA axis.

So the hypothalamus is like your control center in your brain, and it’s like a thermostat. Let’s say the temperature in your body has dropped too low, so the thermostat will generate some heat to bring the temperature up. Conversely, if the temperature gets too hot, it’s going to turn on the air conditioning to bring the temperature back down.

That’s essentially how this works, this HPA axis or this negative feedback loop. The hypothalamus secretes the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), and this is directed right to the anterior pituitary gland, which is another gland inside the brain. Then the anterior pituitary gland is stimulated from the CRF, and then it sends out ACTH, which is adrenocorticotropic hormone. This is the precursor to your hormone, which is sent from the anterior pituitary in the brain, down to the adrenal glands, and when it attaches to specific receptor sites on the


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adrenal glands, it stimulates the release of cholesterol, and then we start to produce pregnenolone, which is the precursor to all other hormones that the adrenal glands produce.

A certain level of stress is the initial activator to stimulate this whole cascade. ACTH comes down to the adrenal glands, stimulates the production of cortisol, epinephrine, and so forth. Cortisol is secreted and it does what it has to do.

As you’ll see here, there’s this negative feedback loop. When there’s a certain amount of cholesterol in the blood, it says to the hypothalamus, “You know what, we’re good. We don’t need any more.” Therefore, it shuts down the production of CRF and then, subsequently, ACTH from the anterior pituitary glands.

I’m going to walk you through a step-by-step scenario of how this plays out once we kind of get to some of the other hormones so you understand how all this kind of fits together. Here’s how cortisol looks throughout the day it goes through a circadian rhythm. The orange lines here are the natural levels of cortisol throughout the day. It peaks at around 8 a.m., it drops at about


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11 a.m., comes back up after lunch, goes back down to kind of its lowest between 3 and 5 p.m. That’s one of the reasons why we kind of go through this midafternoon lull, and a lot of people turn to coffee and stimulants to kind of come back up to life. And then, again, it peaks a little bit after dinner and then kind of settles back down later on in the evening and then it kind of flat lines.

One of the recommendations for people who have adrenal fatigue is to eat more frequently throughout the day. I don’t agree with eating all the time, but in adrenal fatigue, there’s some merit to it, because, as I mentioned at the bottom here, both exercise and food increase cortisol levels. I’m not talking about increasing cortisol levels to unhealthy levels; just normalizing them so we don’t go through these ups and downs that are similar to the ups and downs of blood sugar.

When you have very low cortisol levels generally you have lower levels of blood glucose so you feel lethargic then you seek out sweets and caffeine. By grazing throughout the day, as these dotted lines in the pink show, you kind of help mitigate the drop. You help to keep the cortisol levels a little bit more elevated throughout the day and hopefully mitigate some of that drop in energy that leads to cravings. Exercise also helps mitigate this, that’s why we want to move throughout the day.

Aldosterone’s a really important hormone, but we’ll also mention DHEA and testosterone as well, because these have really important roles in the body, as you can tell. As we age, they tend to decrease, and that has some impacts on our health. Again, they all come from the same thing, cholesterol, pregnenolone, and then they go down these pathways.


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Adrenal Sex Hormones

As I just mentioned, the production of the adrenal sex hormones decreases with age and stress, so the more stressed out you are, the less that will be produced in the adrenal glands. Also remember that a lot of these sex hormones, estrogen and testosterone, are going to be produced in the ovaries and the testes. This is kind of an extra source of sex-hormone production in the adrenal glands. Therefore, if you have adrenal fatigue, it’s associated with a loss of libido which makes sense.

A drop in DHEA and testosterone also account for many degenerative processes of aging, including the protection they offer against high cortisol levels in our cells. Earlier, I mentioned that cortisol has a protective effect on our cells in normal, healthy ranges. Too much cortisol can be very damaging. DHEA and testosterone offer a protective action against high levels of cortisol,


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so when we start to age and as we become more and more stressed out, levels of DHEA and testosterone decrease, which lowers our protection against high levels of cortisol from stress.

AldosteroneAldosterone is a really important and it’s easy to understand. Basically, it’s responsible for fluid and electrolyte balance. As I showed you earlier, the adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys which are very important for fluid and electrolyte balance, because they’re the last filtering system before the fluid leaves the body as urine. Aldosterone works with renin and angiotensin in the kidneys to help balance water and electrolytes. We’re talking about sodium, potassium, and those important electrolytes that we need.

Like cortisol, its production rises during stress. However, it is only controlled by a negative feedback loop between cortisol and ACTH not the hypothalamus, therefore, aldosterone’s actions are controlled almost exclusively by cortisol, which is interesting.

The body’s very smart, so it knows that it needs some way to kind of down regulate. The only way aldosterone downregulates is via its production cells in the adrenal glands, which become less sensitive to ACTH after about 24 hours. If cortisol’s constantly high, we get more stimulation of ACTH. There’s this constant influx of ACTH from the pituitary glands to the adrenal cortex where these hormones are produced.

Initially, there’s a rise in aldosterone. Initially, that’s okay but the cells in that area then become desensitized to ACTH, therefore, it starts producing less aldosterone. Now we have this kind of adrenal fatigue situation setting in with aldosterone, which means that aldosterone, one of its major roles is sodium retention, so when there’s less aldosterone, we get less sodium retention. And because sodium attracts water to it, if we’re not retaining salt or sodium, it’s going to be lost in the urine, and, therefore, water will follow.

So, we get an increased water and sodium loss via the urine, and, as a result, we get lower blood volume. It’s really important to understand how this stuff comes into play, because then when we look at some of the signs and symptoms; it’s going to make a lot of sense to why this is happening.


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The signs and symptoms related to low aldosterone include: salt cravings. If you’re losing sodium, then your body’s going to crave sodium. Increased thirst. That makes as well because you’re not only losing salt, but you’re losing water, so you’re losing a lot of the fluid in your body, so, therefore, your cells need to replenish that.

Muscle weakness; because aldosterone has an integral role in electrolyte balance, sodium and potassium, as an example, and sodium and potassium play an integral role in muscle contraction. If we’re not balanced out with those electrolytes, our muscles are not going to be feeling normal. They’re not going to contracting and relaxing properly.

Lightheadness upon standing. The reason this would happen is because if you’ve lost sodium, if you’re not retaining sodium or water, then you have lower blood volume. If you have less blood volume, if you’re lying down, to go to standing, your heart has to pump so much harder. In order to do that, it requires a huge surge of adrenaline or epinephrine and norepinephrine, which should be secreted by the adrenals. But if the adrenals are fatigued and you have low blood volume because of low aldosterone, well, you’re getting lower blood volume now, which is kind of pooling toward the lower side of your body, and you’re not getting enough stimulation to your heart to contract more forcefully to bring all that blood back up. Then you get this feeling of lightheadness.

And the general feeling of lethargy. This general kind of blah feeling is a very, very universal symptom of adrenal fatigue. I hope all this is starting to make sense for you, and I love because once you understand the physiology of how this stuff works, it’s really cool because now you have the power to say, “You know what? I think I actually get lightheaded sometimes from a lying-down position to a standing position.” I’m going to give you some techniques to help you overcome that and rectify the situation.


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Adrenal Hormones (Medulla)We talked about the adrenal hormones on the cortex side. The cortex is kind of the outer portion of the adrenals. The medulla is the inside, and the inside, the medulla, is where the catecholamines, the epinephrine and norepinephrine are produced. The one thing I do want to point out here is that both of them have a tyrosine base. The reason this is important is because—and we’ll see in a second—is that the thyroid hormones require the exact same tyrosine base. Tyrosine in an amino acid; we’ll see why that’s important in a second.

Essentially, they go through a series of conversion, and we have norepinephrine and that is eventually converted to epinephrine. Both of these have really important roles within the cardiovascular system and, obviously, the fight-or-flight response.

Epinephrine & NorepinephrineHere’s essentially what they do. They’re involved, as I mentioned earlier, in the acute stress situations, the fight-or-flights. Their actions include, they dilate the airways—your bronchials, your lungs and stuff—and the blood vessels to the muscle, so they allow more oxygen in, which allows you to produce more energy and do your stuff. They increase the strength and rate of heart and muscular contractions, which makes sense, right? We need the heart to pump more forcefully to get the blood to our muscles, to get the oxygen to our cells, and the muscles need to contract more forcefully, kind of a superhuman strength, to get out of a scary situation.


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There are a number of other effects that can give superhuman feeling. You may have heard the story about the mother who literally just kind of threw car off her baby using only one arm. This is pretty much what’s happening here. If you’ve ever experienced or heard of someone in this kind of situation, this is epinephrine and norepinephrine at their best. They give you this short-lived superhuman strength for survival.

Here is a little flow chart to bring all this stuff together. Let’s look at the first one, acute stress. With acute stress the adrenal medulla is stimulated, which stimulates more epinephrine and norepinephrine and this leads us to our fight-or-flight response, which increases blood sugar amongst other things.

The fight-or-flight response is going to release the epinephrine and norepinephrine. Epinephrine specifically will go to your cells and stimulate hormone-sensitive lipase, for instance, to break down fat in order to produce glucose. That’s the first pathway, acute stress, fight-or-flight. That’s our alarm reaction; that’s our phase one.

Chronic stress. You live in New York City, for instance, or you have a high-stress job or you have a lot of stuff going on in your mind. This is going to lead to adrenal cortex stimulation, which will stimulate the outer portion of the adrenals. This is going to do two things, lead to a release of cortisol, which


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among other things will increase your blood sugar. Cortisol also stimulates the production and secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine, which is then going to lead to that fight-or-flight response, which is then going to go down and increase blood sugar again.

So, cortisol impacts blood sugar both directly and indirectly by increasing the production and secretion of those catecholamine stress hormones. Increased blood sugar overtime will lead to blood sugar irregularities, which, among other things, can lead to low immune status. As we know, that’s sugar and immune function and so forth.

Chronic stress leads to adrenal cortex stimulation. It’s also going to release aldosterone, which leads to water and sodium retention, which leads to high blood pressure. Again, this will change with adrenal fatigue, as will this pathway as well. With adrenal fatigue, you’re not getting high blood pressure; you’re almost going to get the reverse of it. You’re not going to get sodium and water retention; you’re going to lose sodium and water, and that’s going to lead to a lack of blood pressure, which is going to lead to that lightheaded feeling and so forth.

That’s why in Lesson 1, where I gave you those self-tests like the lying down, the standing, blood pressure self-check, essentially this is this aldosterone pathway. This is what this is checking for.


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Do You Have Adrenal Fatigue?

Before we get to this question I want to integrate everything we’ve just talked about with a scenario. Let’s say you go on a safari in the African Savanna but out of the blue, there’s a black rhino, which are known to attack humans. It starts running at you.

Here’s what’s going to happen. Your hypothalamus is going to signal to your pituitary gland to release ACTH, the adrenocorticotropic hormone. ACTH then instructs your adrenal glands to secrete epinephrine and norepinephrine, cortisol, and the other stress hormones. These hormones will instantly mobilize your body’s resources for immediate activity. Its like, “Oh, my God. Let’s get the hell outta here. We gotta run. We need some sugar.”

Then your breathing becomes faster and shallower to supply the necessary oxygen to your heart, brain, and muscles. The blood in the intestines is shunted to areas of most need. That’s why your digestive system will shut down; all the blood will move to your muscles because that’s what’s needed. Your cortisol levels rise and convert increased amounts of stored glycogen into blood sugar in order to provide more energy for the increased work your cells are now required to do during this kind of panic attack.

Epinephrine and norepinephrine are also released directly into the bloodstream to produce a surge of energy for your body. They’re going to go to the glycogen, they’re going to go to the fat stores; they’re going to break those down for immediate blood sugar. Their impact at the heart level, the cardiovascular system level, will do the following: They’re going to increase your heart rate; blood vessels are going to dilate; and blood pressure’s going to rise. Again, all to stimulate more blood flow and more activity.

You’re going to sweat more, as a result of cortisol release. Your muscle tension’s going to increase as a result of these hormones. You need more muscle tension because you need to be prompted into activity. Your digestive system’s going to shut down, so there’s no point in eating. That’s one of the reasons why they tell you not to go swimming right after you eat, because you don’t want to shunt all the blood away from your stomach to move toward


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swimming; you want to actually digest your food. And at the same time, your bladder and rectal muscles relax. That’s why you may pee your pants sometimes in a really scary situation.

That’s essentially how this all plays out. We have this kind of initial alarm reaction, epinephrine and norepinephrine do their thing, cortisol comes into play, and all these different energy things and muscles are mobilized to help you get out of the situation. The problem, though, is that that’s great; that’s important for a very short-lived situation, to get away from the rhino. But what happens if the tour guide abandoned you and you were stuck by yourself in the Savanna for several months on end? What about several years on end. You’re in the Savanna, by yourself, never knowing, when you were going to eat, if you were going to be attacked by an animal. This is considered chronic stress.

That’s obviously a very extreme example. Let’s bring that into the real world. Let’s say you can’t stand your boss, you don’t feel like you’re making any kind of significant contribution to this world. Constant stress, constant demands; you feel that you have no creative power. All these things make you feel powerless. The same thing is going to happening at a hormonal level from your adrenal glands, as if you were stuck in the Savanna by yourself. The problem is that our bodies have not evolved to meet the daily needs in the modern world, so we’re living in a new age with an old-age body, and we have to recognize that in order to be able to change it.

So, do you have adrenal fatigue? First go through the adrenal fatigue health assessment from Module 7, Lesson 1, if you scored 17 out of 48, you should start taking preventive measures to get it before it goes too far.

Big Signs and SymptomsLet’s look at the big signs and symptoms of adrenal fatigue. Difficulty getting up in the morning. Usually, cortisol remember, we looked at cortisol kind of around eight o’clock in the morning is at its highest level of the day? Well, if you have adrenal fatigue, you’re not going to have very high levels of cortisol, and cortisol’s one of the reasons we wake up. It’s part of the surge that wakes our body up, so if you have difficulty getting up in the morning, well, that’s part of the reason.


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Continuing fatigue and lethargy not relieved by sleep. Craving for salt or salty foods, mainly due to aldosterone levels being so low. Increased effort to do everyday tasks. Decreased sex drive, because now the sex hormones are at a lower level. Decreased ability to handle stress or you’re short-fused, so you lose your temper really quickly. The flipside of that is when you lose your temper, you feel yourself kind of being really exhausted afterward, so you’re not able to handle stress very effectively because cortisol levels, which are a protective mechanism against stress, are so low.

It takes longer to recover from illness, injury, or trauma. You can actually include intense exercise to this. If you have a tough time recovering from very, very intense bouts of exercise, this could be part of what’s happening. Lightheaded, again, when standing up quickly. And mild depression. If you have any of these, we’re now into phase three, which is the exhausted stage, the adrenal fatigue stage.


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Recovering from Adrenal Fatigue

Recovering from adrenal fatigue. The good news is that you can recover from adrenal fatigue. It really comes down to managing your stress. That’s pretty much what you need to do to recover from adrenal fatigue. As I mentioned before, stress can come in emotional, physical, environmental food forms, so we need to approach all of those.

I’m going to give you a couple of really, really powerful suggestions that have worked in my life, because I’ve gone through periods where I’ve seen a lot of these symptoms come and go. I’m going to give you some really cool strategies that I use and not just me, but a lot of people talk about in terms of really reducing stress and managing it properly. The first thing I’d highly recommend—not just for this, but really for your outlook on life and your enjoyment of life—is a gratitude journal.

Every single morning I go for a workout or a walk with my dogs down by the water. I then take about 20 minutes to write in my gratitude journal, and I write down everything I’m grateful for in my life. The beautiful thing about gratitude is that it ties in with appreciation which means to increase in value. If you want something to feel more valuable to you, then just appreciate it more. So, your spouse, your loved ones, your family, your work, your whatever it is, your body, the more you can express gratitude for the things that are important to you, the more you’re going to appreciate them, and the more they’re going to seem to increase in value to you.

The other amazing thing about a gratitude journal is that it helps you focus on the good rather than the bad. No matter the situation, we have 2 choices. We can focus on the good or we can focus on bad. It has to be a conscious choice initially, but with practice it becomes a little bit more unconscious and more natural.

To start a gratitude journal, essentially you just take out a journal, a binder, or some paper and start off by writing “I’m so happy and grateful that…” or “I’m grateful for…” or “I’m grateful that I am…” For instance, I’m grateful that I run and operate a business that provides value to people. I am grateful for


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my incredible level of health and vitality. I am so grateful that I am getting fitter and healthier every single day. I’m so grateful for my son Oscar. I’m so grateful for the relationship I have with Amy. I’m so grateful for my two dogs. I’m so grateful…

It’s listing gratitude after gratitude after gratitude, and while you do this put a smile on your face. When you smile in conjunction with this, you can’t not help but feel amazing. If you do this in the morning or at night or both, I guarantee this alone will transform your life, so start doing this today.

Proper sleep. This is really important. You need to be able to sleep properly. How many hours going to depend different variables. Everyone needs different amounts but generally between six and eight hours of sleep. If you need to buy a new mattress, buy a new mattress. We spend one-third of our lives sleeping, and if you’re not sleeping properly, your body’s not repairing itself appropriately. If you’re not getting into stage-four deep sleep, you’re not making a lot of those neural connections. Your body’s not able to repair itself so sleep is really important.

Here’s something I’d strongly encourage you to do. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, seven days a week. I know it might be tough, but let me tell you if you can get your body into a regular routine of going to bed at, let’s say ten-thirty at night, waking up at six-thirty or seven in the morning every single day you are going to put your body into autopilot, and it’s going to feel so much more alive. Waking up early is just what you do; going to bed early, it’s a lifestyle thing. I understand that we all have different schedules, but find a schedule and try to stick to it as best you can.

Connection and healthy relationships. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of health and wellness. Nowadays we are so overly connected electronically and under connected personally. That’s one of the biggest reasons why so many people now are unhappy. We’re seeing so much more diagnoses of ADHD. We need to connect with people, not electronics. I hope that I’m able to connect with you a little bit more personally than I could otherwise. Obviously, being in person would be the best, but really spending time with the people you care about, developing deep, meaningful relationships with friends, family, coworkers, whatever it might be. This is what it’s all about. As human beings, this is what separates us from every other living species.


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I can tell you first and foremost that if you feel sad, depressed, unhappy, go out and connect with people, and I guarantee you’re going to feel a heck of a lot better. Dr. Ned Hallowell who specializes in focus and ADHD calls it vitamin C, vitamin connect.

Regular exercise and yoga. Now if you have adrenal fatigue, I would not recommend going very intense. I would not recommend intense workouts. You want moderate. You can throw in an intense workout every now and then, but the majority of your exercise should be a little bit more moderate since exercise can be a form of stress.

Yoga, is very powerful. I highly recommend it and that ties in with meditation, breathing. One reason we put together the habit-conditioning audios is not only is it helping you recondition your neural patterns, but you also work all on of these elements of stress management into 15 minutes a day through very simple meditation.

Laugh. I put a picture of Will Ferrell here, from Taladega Nights. I love cheesy comedies and Will Ferrell is probably the king of these. There are many studies now showing that laughter and smiling just increase dopamine released in the brain. If you’re smiling, the 44 muscles in your face, just the fact that they’re in a smiled position increases neurotransmitters in your brain to hit those dopamine receptors and you feel great. Spend as much time as you can laughing every single day. Again, it’s just a natural remedy; it’s so powerful. Watch a comedy, standup, whatever’s going to do it for you.

Diet for Adrenal FatigueLast but not least is a wholesome diet. If you have adrenal fatigue, this is what you want to look at. Do we really need to explain this? I don’t think so.

Here’s something we do need to explain a little bit more. As I mentioned before with the cortisol circadian rhythms, you want to graze throughout the day to normalize your cortisol levels. You don’t want to go through extended periods of up and down. If you’re going to include an intermittent fast throughout your week, if you’re going to do a one-day fast, that’s fine but when you’re eating, listen to your body and see how it feels. Generally, the protocol for people with adrenal fatigue is to graze throughout the day.


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Salt your food and water. This is the one time when I’m going to recommend you add some sea salt to your food or your water. So, if you’re peeing all the time, if you have adrenal fatigue, if you’re losing a lot of body water, then you want to add a little bit of sea salt to your drinking water. Just one-fourth of a teaspoon, and just do that throughout the day. You may want to add some salt to your food, and that’s important to do as well. That’s going to help of offset some of the sodium and water you’re losing.

Eat slightly more protein, cholesterol, and sea vegetables. Protein and cholesterol obviously because both of them are precursors to cholesterol and really important for the adrenal cholesterol-based vegetables. Sea vegetables because they’re just loaded with minerals, and we haven’t even talked about the mineral requirements for the adrenal hormones. I think you understand now that minerals and vitamins and all these other cofactors are so important for all this stuff. Sea vegetables are important to eat.

Avoid sugar and caffeine. Sugar and caffeine are stimulants, so if you have adrenal fatigue you don’t want to add more stress into your body.

Supplements For Adrenal FatigueSupplements for adrenal fatigue. First one I’d recommend is maca. Maca is a root vegetable from Peru that you can get it in powder form in any health food store. I take it one to two times a day. It’s actually an adaptogen, which means it helps your body regulate its own hormones. Very powerful; should be safe pretty much for everyone.

Supplement with a B-complex. The adrenal function is heavily tied in with the central nervous system, so you want to support that with a B-complex. If you’re using a whole-food-based multivitamin, the B-complex will be included in there. L-tyrosine, we mentioned that L-tyrosine forms the base of norepinephrine and epinephrine, so we want to improve our stores of tyrosine.

Licorice root, very powerful for supporting your adrenal glands, with similar properties to that of maca, so you can do licorice root tea or you can take a more potent extract form. Siberian ginseng is also really powerful, gingko biloba and ginger. All of these herbs are very, very helpful for you in helping you support your adrenal glands.


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The Thyroid-Adrenal ConnectionThe majority of adrenal fatigue sufferers also have an underactive or compromised thyroid. The adrenals compete for tyrosine which the thyroid also needs. The adrenals need tyrosine to produce epinephrine and norepinephrine; they thyroid needs tyrosine to produce T4 and T3, which are the thyroid hormones. That’s why if you have adrenal fatigue, the adrenal glands are going to be sucking all the tyrosine out of your body as much as they can, and in so doing, they’re depriving the thyroid gland from the very same building block that it needs and perhaps even more importantly in the thyroid. It’s debatable.

What Does The Thyroid Do?The thyroid is located around the Adam’s apple. It is your master metabolism gland; it produces and secretes the thyroid hormones T4 and T3, which affect your metabolism; oxygen consumption, energy expenditure, body temperature, and so forth. These hormones also increase heart rate and force of contraction and affect blood pressure and they stimulate formation of new red blood cells and the activity of other glands in the body.

T3 and T4, reach all the tissues and all the glands in the body. A very, very important function that it plays. Here are T4 and T3.


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T4 and T3

With the adreals we looked at that cascade from the hypothalamus to the anterior pituitary, which then led to the ACTH going to the adrenal glands and secreting cortisol. A similar process occurs here with the thyroid hormones. T3 is the main active form of thyroid hormone. It is produced together with the hormone T4.

The hypothalamus sends off the thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH) to the pituitary. The pituitary then sends out the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) to go to the thyroid, which tells the thyroid, “Hey, we need more T4 and T3. We need more hormones in the blood.”


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The thyroid pulls iodine in and it brings tyrosine in and, together, it makes T4 and T3. Both T4 and T3 are made from molecules of tyrosine and iodine. The only difference here is T4 is made up of two tyrosines and four iodine atoms. T3 consists of two tyrosines and three iodine atoms. T4 is sent from the thyroid gland to the liver where it’s converted from T4 to T3 simply by taking away one of those iodine atoms. And then the T3, the free T3 is the active form which does the stuff in the body.

As I just mentioned, iodine forms a critical component of the thyroid hormone. On the left here, we have a sufficient dietary intake of iodine. Everything works as it should. We have plentiful iodine and it’s able to come into the thyroid and the thyroid’s able to produce T3 and T4. When it does so, it sends this negative feedback loop to both the anterior pituitary and the hypothalamus to stop sending the messages. That’s what happens in the negative feedback loop if it’s all good.

When we have low iodine stores in our body we have low T4 in the blood, meaning that there’s going to be less conversion of T3, which means that there’s going to be a low negative feedback to the anterior pituitary to say, “Hey, stop sending us TSH,” and the same thing’s going to happen in the hypothalamus.


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Essentially, what’s happening here is that there’re more messages from the hypothalamus and the anterior pituitary to the thyroid itself to say, “Hey, you know what? We need more thyroid hormones. Start producing, start producing, start producing,” and that’s when you start seeing things like goiters, which are enlargements of the thyroid gland, in populations that are deficient in iodine, as an example. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it can happen either way. If there’s too much iodine or too little iodine, the same thing can happen.

Here’s the iodine deficiency worldwide. So, countries like Russia, Eurasia, parts of Africa, parts of Europe even have quite a bit of iodine deficiency. Australia, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, South Africa, seem to have the perfect amount of iodine.

For the U.S., it says “more than adequate iodine intake.” That’s debatable, depending on where you live. For instance, the Great Lakes and the Midwest actually have very low iodine in their soil because iodine comes from the oceans. So, unless you’re one of those seaboard towns or cities your soil is going to be pretty void of iodine. They call this the Goiter Belt. These stats come from the journal Lancet, in a study from 2008. So, iodine’s really important. We need iodine to produce the thyroid hormones.

The Role of Selenium

Although selenium’s not required in the actual formation of T4 it’s very involved in the metabolism and regulation of it. The thyroid cells, also known as thyrocytes, produce a protein called thyroglobulin, which connects iodine and tyrosine to form T4. This process produces a tremendous amount of free radicals in the form of hydrogen peroxide. If these free radicals are not deactivated, then damage to the thyroid gland occurs, and the efficiency of the immune production of thyroid hormone is destructed.

To deal with this problem, the thyrocytes make an antioxidant enzyme called glutathione peroxidase which requires selenium, to help render these free radicals harmless. If selenium is low, then glutathione peroxidase, is not made at optimum levels, and the thyroid is damaged in proportion to the level of selenium deficiency.


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Causes of Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is an increasingly common condition which might be related to the increasing exposure of free radical damage inside the thyroid itself and radiation. A number of countries that have been exposed to nuclear radiation because iodine, in kind of it’s isotope form, can become problematic if it’s from a radiated source.

Free radical damage inside our body, specifically in the thyroid gland, can lead to hypothyroidism. Iodine deficiency, selenium deficiency because we won’t to be able to counteract the free radical damage, mercury fillings, mercury actually competes for binding sites in the thyroid and other cells in the body that it’ll actually replace, it’ll compete for the binding sites where T3, would bind. It’s going to displace iodine; it’s going to displace the actual active thyroid hormones, and that’s a big problem.

If you have mercury fillings it’s very dangerous. I’m not going to suggest that you get them removed because that actually might be even worse, but most dentists don’t do the mercury stuff anymore, but there’s a huge correlation between mercury and mercury fillings and actually mercury consumption in general and hypothyroidism.

A study done in 2012 showed that increasing mercury levels, whether it be through food sources or mercury amalgams, increased the level of thyroid antibodies. So, high levels of mercury in the body were related not only to Hashimoto’s disease an autoimmune disease, but it’s also related to rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and all sorts of other autoimmune conditions. So, mercury, not something you want to have in your body.

These are the main causes of hypothyroidism. It’s not really clear what exactly causes hypothyroidism, but there’re a number of different factors, which we’ve just talked about.


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Signs/Effects of HypothyroidismThe signs or effects of hypothyroidism: lethargic tiredness or sluggishness; lack of motivation; cold hands and feet; low body temperature; dry hair or hair loss. Again, refer to the thyroid health assessment from Module 7, Lesson 1. If you scored above 20 out of 57, your thyroid needs help. Again, very similar symptoms to adrenal fatigue.

Stress and HypothyroidismStress and hypothyroidism. Now, in case you haven’t put two and two together, stress is obviously a significant contributor to thyroid dysfunction. Fluctuating blood sugar levels; immune problems; emotional stress. This is above and beyond the fact that stress wears down your adrenal glands and that’s going to obviously impair your thyroid function, but specifically in relation to adrenal function, stress also disrupts the HP axis, which downregulates thyroid function, reducing the conversion of T4 and T3, weakening the immune system, thus possibly promoting autoimmunity, causing thyroid hormone resistance and resulting in hormonal imbalances. So, stress is not good. Obviously, we can’t eliminate stress; we can only manage it better.

Another example is excess estrogen in the blood caused by chronically low cortisol and high ACTH levels. If you have chronically low cortisol levels, it’s going to send that feedback loop back to the pituitary to send out more ACTH, which is essentially saying, “We need more cortisol.” Unfortunately, the area where the cortisol is produced in the adrenal glands no longer responds to the ACTH because it’s toast, but there’s another zone in the adrenal cortex which does respond to that. That can lead to the production of more estradiol, more estrogen. That’s why kind of this happens.

Higher levels of estrogen in the blood can lead to hypothyroid symptoms by decreasing levels of active T3. In general, having high levels of estrogen in the blood is not a good thing. It leads to growths and all sorts of other stuff.


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Thyroid-Supporting DietIt’s basically the same recommendation as with adrenal fatigue but with the following additions. Increase intake of iodine-rich foods, like sea vegetables. I’m not going to recommend you intake high amounts of iodized table salt, which is generally what most government agencies have done around the world to combat iodine deficiency. Interestingly enough, a lot of research has shown that that hasn’t really solved the problem in some cases. Go for the sea vegetables, the kelp, the dulse they’ll all be a high source of iodine but in a balanced ratio w other minerals and microminerals.

Eat one two Brazil nuts per day for selenium, because as we saw in Module 4, you only need about one Brazil nut per day to meet your selenium requirements. Awesome, right? Avoid canned fish and other sources of mercury.

One more thing is to, you want to just kind of consider goitrogenic foods, which are typically some of the brassica vegetables like broccoli. Garlic is another, although a very high source of iodine, so you can eat garlic as much as you’d like. You just don’t want to eat those in their raw state; you want to steam them a little bit or cook them a little bit if you have thyroid issues already, because they tend to have properties which suppress thyroid function a little bit. So, don’t eat those raw. Steam them, cook them a little bit just to kind of remove some of those goitrogenic properties. It’s not really that much of an issue but something to be aware of.

As I mentioned, garlic does have a very, very good source of iodine, so enjoy garlic as much as you want. It’s amazing for pretty much all levels of your health. And if all else fails, you need to check with your natural practitioner or your doctor, but natural thyroid hormones are sometimes necessary. Two of the best ones are called Armour Thyroid and Nature Thyroid. So, you may want to consult your naturopath or doctor about those.


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In SumLet’s sum this up. In the body, nothing occurs in isolation. Impaired adrenals will impair thyroid function and vice versa and perhaps a bunch of other stuff in the body as well. Stress is a big culprit behind both of these endocrine problems, and we need to manage it. Stress management and the proper diet are important for preventing, managing, and reversing these problems naturally.

I want you to understand that you can reverse these conditions. If you have adrenal fatigue, if you have hypothyroidism, you can get back to a better level of functioning by adopting the stuff we’ve talked about in this presentation. I always want you to remember that there’s always hope.


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Coming in Module 8So, there we go. It’s been a fascinating presentation. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it and hopefully you gotten some great take-aways from it. In Module 8, we’re going to talk about everything you ever wanted to know about weight loss, metabolism, and hormones. Obviously, we’ve talked a little bit about metabolism and hormones n this specific lesson, but we’re going to talk more specifically about testosterone, estrogen, and the hormones in respect to how they impact weight loss and metabolism.

That’s coming in Module 8. It’s going to be amazing. Once again, thanks for joining me and I look forward to seeing you in Module 8.

module #7 - lesson 4 - amazon s3 · module 7 - lesson 4 adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism welcome...

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