The Case:
- Dana is post-menopausal and experiencing weight gain, fatigue, and a general sense of not feeling well.
- She feels like she’s doing everything right: eating well, working out, and taking supplements, yet nothing is working.
- Along with her physical symptoms, Dana struggles with stress, anxiety, and feelings of overwhelming.
Addressing More Than Just the Thyroid
To dig deeper into Dana’s health mystery, I invited Elyssa Smith, a trauma-informed life strategist and highly regarded speaker, onto the podcast. Elyssa specializes in helping people overcome trauma and self-sabotage so they can live their best lives. Her perspective was invaluable in addressing the mind-body connection, particularly how trauma can impact our health.
Elyssa shared insights into how trauma—both big and small—can contribute to chronic health issues like those Dana was facing. While Dana’s biochemical factors such as her thyroid levels, diet, and exercise regimen were important, Elyssa explained that trauma could still keep her body stuck in a state of fight-or-flight, preventing healing.
The Role of Trauma in Health Issues
Elyssa explained how trauma, even when it’s not recognized or remembered, can affect the body’s ability to feel safe and heal. For Dana, her weight gain, fatigue, and other symptoms were worsened by underlying stress and trauma that she wasn’t fully aware of. Elyssa highlighted that unresolved trauma could lead to self-sabotage, where individuals, despite their best efforts, find themselves falling off track with their health goals.
Recognizing and Overcoming Self-Sabotage in Healing
A common roadblock in healing that many people encounter is self-sabotage. Elyssa explained that while people may be committed to their health goals, they often find themselves unintentionally veering off course. This happens when the body, due to unresolved trauma, doesn’t feel safe. The nervous system’s survival response—fight, flight, or freeze—can trigger behaviors that seem like self-sabotage but are actually protective mechanisms.
Elyssa shared that trauma, whether big or small, often rewires the brain to perceive certain changes or actions, like sticking to a diet or new workout routine, as threats. The survival brain will then intervene to keep you “safe” by stopping you from moving forward with those goals. Overcoming this type of self-sabotage requires recognizing these patterns and creating a sense of safety in the body, allowing the nervous system to calm down and making it easier to follow through on healing protocols.
Next Steps: A Multi-Layered Approach
When I began working with Dana, I quickly identified several areas where we needed to make adjustments to support her healing and alleviate her symptoms. Here’s what we did:
- Adjusting her thyroid medication: Dana was on a combination of T4 and T3 medication, but the ratio wasn’t right for her thyroid type. After working with her doctor, we compounded a custom combination that better suited her body’s needs. This was a key shift in balancing her thyroid function.
- Supporting her adrenals: Dana was experiencing high cortisol levels, which were contributing to her stress, fatigue, and weight gain. We worked on managing her stress through specific adrenal support and techniques to reduce her cortisol levels. This helped her feel less overwhelmed and more in control of her energy.
- Rebalancing her approach to exercise: Dana was doing intense bootcamp-style workouts and heavy-duty cardio, but this was only further stressing her already taxed body. We changed her exercise routine to incorporate shorter intervals of strength training and more restorative activities like yoga, which helped reduce the physical stress on her body while still promoting fitness and health.
- Modifying her diet: While Dana had been intermittent fasting, we discovered that this was too stressful for her body, especially given her adrenal fatigue. We shifted to more regular meals throughout the day to prevent blood sugar dips and support her nervous system, which ultimately improved her energy levels and helped reduce her weight.
- Addressing her sleep issues and negative thought patterns: Sleep was a big problem for Dana, as she was not getting the rest her body needed to heal. By balancing her neurotransmitters and providing support for her sleep, we gradually improved her sleep quality. Additionally, we tackled her negative self-talk and self-sabotage patterns with mindset techniques. This helped her become more aware of her intentions and actions, reducing the overwhelm and anxiety that were holding her back.
Happy Ending: Escaping Self-Sabotage and Unlocking Health
After implementing these changes, Dana started to see progress. Within just six weeks, she lost her first seven pounds, and her energy levels improved significantly. Over the next three months, she continued to lose weight, ultimately shedding 20 pounds. More importantly, her mood stabilized, her sleep improved, and she felt much more in control of her health.
By addressing both the physical and emotional aspects of her health—particularly the stress and trauma that were affecting her immune and nervous systems—Dana was able to get to the root of her issues and finally experience the healing she had been searching for.
The Power of a Trauma-Informed Approach to Healing
Elyssa emphasized that while biochemical factors like thyroid medication and diet are critical, emotional healing plays a huge role in recovery. For Dana, addressing her trauma and learning to calm her nervous system were the missing pieces of the puzzle. As her emotional state improved, her physical symptoms began to resolve, leading to weight loss, better sleep, and more energy.
Eliminating Health Mysteries
For Dana we were able to find that missing piece of the health puzzle and help her regain her health. Could this be the missing clue for you or someone in your life?
Links:
Resources mentioned
Thanks to my guest Elyssa Smith. You can connect with her through her website and on Facebook where you can join her group, The Stress Less Lounge.
Suggested Products
Related Podcast Episodes:
5 Pivotal Hashimoto’s Hacks: The Empowered Approach to Thyroid Health How to Support the Nervous System for Hashimoto’s and Hypothyroidism with Dr. Cathleen King Your Family History Goes Beyond Genetics: A Novel Way to Look at Hashimoto’s with Anat Peri Counting Calories Not Working for Weight Loss? Try This Instead with Brian KeaneThanks for Listening
If you like what you heard, please rate and review this podcast. Every piece of feedback not only helps me create better shows but also helps more people find this important information.
Never miss an episode – Subscribe NOW to Health Mysteries Solved with host, Inna Topiler on Apple Podcasts & Spotify, and remember to rate and review the show!
PLEASE NOTE
All information, content, and material on this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Some of the links provided are affiliate links. This means we may make a very small amount of money should you choose to buy after clicking on them. This will in no way affect the price of the product but it helps us a tiny bit in covering our expenses.
