Why are you not getting better?

Do you focus on your strengths or on your deficits? It is easy to get stuck in a negative mindset  about our health and our thyroid health in particular. When your thyroid is not working optimally, you are stuck in a bit of a depression already. You probably don’t look sick and you may feel like total garbage.

You might be critical of yourself or someone else is critical of you. Either way, it’s not good for your body or your mind. When we focus on the negative aspects of this disease too much, you probably will feel more pessimistic, lose confidence, motivation, and you may just walk around feeling just generally bad about everything in your life. This is no way to live.

It is hard to be sick and it is also hard to be well and you do have a choice. Both take work.

Women especially tend to be critical of themselves, their appearance, and their abilities. We live in a culture of body shaming and we have all been exposed to images while growing up of what society believes to be the standard of health and beauty and that is a woman who looks like a coat hanger. I’m not a fan of the body positivity around extremely overweight people at the moment. Being obese is not healthy and there is a lot of science to back that up so don’t come after me. If you want to be heavy, go for it. You don’t see a lot of obese people that are 80 or 90 years old.

Aside from that, what do you think would happen if you focused on your strengths? If you looked at yourself in the mirror and found something good to say about yourself? Having a positive attitude is important for happiness, for general well being, and also for health and fitness.

When we focus on our strengths, what we have, what we are already doing well, then it helps us choose healthier behaviors more often, we have better exercise habits, better eating habits, and we will feel better overall.  Self criticism is not a good motivator. Shaming, judging, and pointing out your flaws actually gives us a physiological stress response which makes us feel worse and we are generally less motivated. When we feel emotionally attacked either by ourselves or someone else, we are less able to solve problems, less willing to try new things, and less likely to stick to those things we need to do to get and feel better.  Self criticism also activates the inflammatory response.

If you are trying to get better and you are walking around with a negative attitude about your body, you are perpetuating inflammation that is keeping you sick. How crazy is that. Our minds are very powerful. The good news is, when you can begin to think differently, you feel inspired, empowered and motivated and you start to get better.

I’m not saying your Hashimoto’s is all in your head- not at all. I’ve been there with the doctor and it is super frustrating. What I am saying is ask yourself what the story in your head is. What do you say to yourself on a daily basis? How do you think all day? Are you focusing on the negative of everything? Catch yourself doing it- hit the stop button and eject that negative tape and start to work on putting in a positive tape.

Instead of ‘I hate my body’ try ‘My body gets me where I need to go’. Instead of ‘why can’t I get better’ try ‘what is my body asking for?’. You get the idea. Just try to reframe what is going on in your head and little by little you will make new pathways in your brain and the positive thinking will get easier and easier.

When you work with me, we focus on fixing the problems of nutrient deficiencies, dietary needs, inflammation reduction but we also focus on developing your strengths and successes because you can do the hard work it takes to be well.

Doing this will allow for more happiness, more confidence and you may even feel more powerful and you will become more resilient. We have to unlearn all those negative messages we have been given throughout our lives whether from people we know or from the media. This takes time and it takes persistence because your brain is going to fight you on this tooth and nail.

If you are not aware of what your strengths are you can find assessments online such as the strengths finder to start with a list of your strength of character. You can just journal what you are good at. It feels weird at first but soon enough the good will start flowing. You can even just ask people you know what traits you have that they find positive. This one is hard for a lot of people, including myself, but I once did this as an anonymous survey so people who responded didn’t have to say who they were, and it was the best thing ever. I felt so loved and so good after reading all the responses. You can ask things like “what do you think I am good at?’ or ‘how am I most reliable?’

Once you find those strengths, then we need to ask how we can use them to get to my health goals. This will make getting better more enjoyable and your progress towards health moves forward instead of staying stagnant or moving backwards.

We all know the typical symptoms of hypothyroidism- low energy, cold hands and feet, fatigue, high cholesterol, muscle pain, depression, brain fog, memory issues, etc. Thinking positive can be hard when you feel this way. Start by thinking of something to be grateful for. When I am feeling really down, I will go for a walk and just start saying to myself “I am grateful for eyes that can see the blue sky, I am grateful for ears that hear the birds, I am grateful for feet that I can walk on, I am grateful for legs that take me where I want to go, I am grateful for a house that is warm and cozy….” and on it goes until I feel better and the things I am grateful for get a little deeper. It works.

In order to age well and be healthy in to old age, we need good thyroid function. Lower antibodies to your thyroid means a longer, healthier life. And you can reduce those antibodies. One of my current clients told me her endocrinologist told her high antibodies is just a fact of the disease and they will always be there. We have reduced her antibodies in half over a 4 month time period. She looks happier, her skin looks beautiful and she is doing the hard work it takes to get those antibodies down.

When you have hypothyroidism and hashimoto’s we need to not first say that you need medication. You may, but if your labs indicate your thyroid is working and it might be an issue in your brain, then taking a functional medicine perspective can prevent damage to your thyroid and keep you from needing medication.  We want to look at what FM calls your antecedants and your triggers that are causing a high TSH. What is going on in your hypothalamus or your pituitary? Those to are paramount to getting your thyroid to produce thyroid hormone and remember that TSH is a hormone put out by the brain to tell the thyroid to make more hormone. If that signal is off, we need to ask why.

In particular, these symptoms are associated with a dysfunction at the hypothalamus and pituitary glands:

• fatigue that is always there, especially when waking

• depression or melancholy

• extreme cold feeling

• high LDL cholesterol

• muscle cramps, pain in calves, thighs, upper arms

• constipation

• joint pain, arthritis like

• prolonged achilles tendon reflex time

• easy bruising

In order to assess what is going on here, we need some basic tests like blood chemistry from your doctors office. I would usually add a bit more on to what your doctor would order as they would not consider it relevant. In addition, what is your cortisol doing? Are you stressed? Stress increases glucagon levels and lowers T3 while increasing RT3. Glucagon is a hormone that raises blood sugar (read higher blood sugar, more insulin, cell resistance, fat storage). T3 is the thyroid hormone that your cells use and RT3 binds that T3 so the cells can’t use it.  This will create hypothyroidism that doesn’t need medication. I discuss what your labs mean in pretty good detail as a bonus lecture in my Nutrition for Thyroid course offered on my website.

When you are dealing with chronic stress such as what I have talked about here today with the negative thinking cycle, your cortisol can rise and that will inhibit the pituitary’s ability to produce TSH while also keeping the thyroid hormone you do have from being transported through your blood. So thyroid hormone is becoming depleted but your TSH may read as normal. This is when your doctor says you are fine and you definitely don’t feel fine.

That chronic stress not only suppresses the brain from releasing hormones that tell the thyroid to produce hormones, it increases inflammation that blocks the conversion of T4 to T3 or prevents T4 from being made at all. It promotes an overactive immune system resulting in more antibodies to your thyroid being made. It can bind up the free hormone so it doesn’t get to your cells. Chronic stress also depletes your magnesium levels which will lessen your body’s ability to relax and get that deep sleep your body needs to repair itself. Taking thyroid hormone replacement therapy when this is the issue will make you feel better for a week or two and then you will feel worse.

A normal functioning cortisol response is needed so the liver and kidneys can convert T4 to T3. Low cortisol levels will result in less cortisol available for that conversion to happen leading to higher T4 and lower T3 and excess cortisol will cause more T3 to be converted to RT3. If you become anxious when you get your blood drawn, that alone can cause a temporary increase in thyroid hormone levels.

If you have a story in your head about not being able to change your diet, you may be missing critical nutrients needed for good thyroid function. You need all the B vitamins, vitamin A and E, iodine, zinc, selenium, vitamin C. This is not to say you need to supplement- you need them from your food first and foremost because all of those nutrients also supply other processes in your body and when you get them from food you get them in the proper ratios. These nutrients complement one another and supplementing with a mineral like selenium or zinc can throw off other things. And it is really quite rare to be selenium deficient. Food first.

If you have a story in your head about why you can’t exercise know that exercise stimulates your thyroid to produce thyroid hormone. It increases your cells sensitivity to thyroid hormone meaning your cells will take it in and use it. It relieves stress which would be caused by the negative tape in your head.

We all need community, support and most of all love and the love part starts with us. We need to learn to love ourselves if we don’t already. Look in the mirror and smile at yourself. If you have the type of family that is supportive of you, put little post it notes around the house to remind yourself what kind of wonderful human you are and that you deserve to feel not just good, but great!  Chronic stress, if unmitigated by an inner spiritual harmony that assigns a positive meaning will disrupt your thyroid function at every physiological level.

From the textbook of functional medicine: “A 2002 review of celiac disease in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that gluten sensitivity can cause anemia, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, thyroid dysfunction, schizophrenia, psoriasis.

Our daily behaviors are fundamental to the production of our internal and external environments, they represent the most powerful influences upon our physiology. Our daily choices directly affect the chemicals in our body and how they function which includes: the kind of diet we eat, how much exercise we get, how the HPA- Adrenal and thyroid axis work, toxic or infectious exposures, emotional experiences of joy, fear, hostility, connection, etc. Negative influences include using chemicals on our lawns, consuming poor quality fats (trans fats), skipping meals, chronic stress. Positive influences are the opposite.”

You can do this. I can help you.

Thank you for showing up for yourself by listening. We all want to do better and when we know better we can start to do better. It just takes one healthy choice at a time whether it be a food or a new thought.

Sign up for my newsletter on my website and get The Definitive Guide to Hashimoto’s. You can also get your free 3 day anti-inflammatory meal plan when you go to my site and click on the meal plans tab.

If you are ready to start tackling your thyroid health, schedule your discovery call on the work with me tab on my website and if you want to just start on your own you can start with my Nutrition for Thyroid course available on my site under work with me, then choose programs.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate each and every one of you!