The Case:
- Amanda suffers with frequent colds and sinus infections (especially around her menstrual cycle).
- Her hands and feet are always cold and she gets tension headaches all the time.
- Standard blood tests came back normal, leaving the doctors with no answers.
The Investigation
I run more comprehensive labs that many traditional doctors I make sure to run them at a specific time in the menstrual cycle. My suspicions were that this was not related to her sex hormones but rather something upstream. I suspected that a combination of hormones were being affected and leading to tension and immune challenges. In other words, I suspected that Amanda had fallen into sympathetic overdrive.
One of the top experts in this field is Dr. Amir Rashidian so I was eager to discuss Amanda’s case with him.
Dr. Amir Rashidian is the founder of the Mid-Atlantic Chiropractic Center where he focuses on high-tech diagnostics to detect and correct disturbances in the nervous system. Like me, he is a believer in drugless health solutions and eliminating the causes of disease (not suppressing the symptoms).
What is Sympathetic Overdrive?
We’ve talked a lot on this show about how our nervous system reacts to stress. We have a primitive response to danger that triggers our nervous system to ready the body for fight, flight, or freeze.
Dr. Amir explains that this unconscious response to our environment can often go undetected (because we don’t have that obvious ‘sabertooth tiger’ threat). So, it might be traffic, work stress, our boss being demanding, our spouse being upset, or our busy lifestyle that the nervous system is perceiving as danger. And, when you are in this state, day in and day out, your nervous system never gets the chance to calm down. This leads to the sympathetic nervous system moving into overdrive.
Chronic Stress vs. Sympathetic Overdrive
Everyone handles stress differently so it’s difficult to say at what point chronic stress turns into sympathetic overdrive. The body does have the ability to adapt to stress so in some cases, stress can be present without it triggering sympathetic overdrive. Think of a weightlifter – they stress their muscles and cause them to adapt (by becoming bigger) without any health concerns. Stress is the same, you can become more resilient to stress once you understand your stress threshold. However, it may be difficult to determine how much stress the body can safely handle, so you have to watch out for the symptoms of sympathetic overdrive.
Symptoms of Sympathetic Overdrive
There are a variety of symptoms that suggest your nervous system may be in sympathetic overdrive like chronic sinus infections and insomnia. Additionally, someone may experience dry eyes, dry mouth, dry skin, cold hands, cold feet, constipation and indigestion. However, not everyone will have these symptoms and having these symptoms doesn’t always mean you are in sympathetic overdrive.
Three Stages of Sympathetic Overdrive
Dr. Amir explains that there are three stages of sympathetic overdrive. They are:
- Stage 1 – Wired. In this stage, you’ve got a lot of energy, your senses are heightened so you might be looking around a lot and feeling hyper-aware of your surroundings. You will likely crave sweets because your body is burning a lot of energy and will feel a need to replace it.
- Stage 2 – Wired & Tired. In this stage, you are still feeling wired but at the same time, you are tired. You are likely struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep regardless of how tired you feel. You will likely continue to crave sweets but also fatty foods (so, ice cream, donuts, etc) because your body is over producing cholesterol in response.
- Stage 3 – Exhausted. You can’t seem to stay awake. You fall asleep anywhere regardless of what stimulates (like caffeine or loud music) you have been exposed to. Your adrenal glands are shutting down because they can’t produce any more adrenalin. Your cravings will switch to salty foods because your metabolism is looking for fuel.
How Sympathetic Overdrive Affects the Immune System
In Amanda’s case, we saw a shift in her symptoms during her menstrual cycle. I asked Dr. Amir about why this was happening. He explained that there is a direct connection with the immune system and sympathetic overdrive because the immune system relies on energy produced by the adrenals. When the body is in sympathetic overdrive, the adrenals can’t produce adequate energy to support other systems in the body like the immune system.
Another option is to do a cortisol test to determine autonomic tone. This is a saliva test
Diagnosing Sympathetic Overdrive
The first step in diagnosing sympathetic overdrive is to look at the collection of symptoms. To confirm suspicions of sympathetic overdrive, Dr. Amir uses a heart rate variability test. This is a process of determining the heart’s ability to vary its own rate. It’s measured on a scale between zero and 100. If someone scores 100, they are fully capable of handling all of the stress in their life. Trainers in the UFC (mixed martial arts fighting) use this test to determine if a fighter is in a good state to train or if they need a day off.
done at different times of the day to see if cortisol is following the natural fluctuations as it should.
Three Keys to Treating Sympathetic Overdrive
Dr. Amir shared three critical ways to get the body out of sympathetic overdrive (and to keep it from slipping back). Here are the three keys to reversing sympathetic overdrive:
- Quality Sleep.
Sleep is so critical to repairing sympathetic overdrive but Dr. Amir says that how well you sleep is more important than how much you sleep. Getting quality sleep at night (by reducing stimulation and controlling your evening cortisol levels) results in a release of melatonin which calms the nervous system and takes it out of parasympathetic state.
- Controlled Breathing.
Our breath is very connected to our nervous system. The intake of breath is parasympathetic (most noticeable when we gasp) and the exhale is sympathetic. Doing deep breathing exercises takes us out of automatic breathing (innate) and voluntary breathing (intentionally controlled) which helps us reset the nervous system. Breathing is so much more powerful than most of us realize. In fact, Dr. Amir shared an interesting study about the role breathing plays in fat loss and weight loss.
- Intentional Eating.
Like sleeping, Dr. Amir believes that the secret to resetting the parasympathetic nervous system is not in what you eat but how you eat it. He says we need to remove stress from the eating ritual. So many of us eat distracted and in a hurry which keeps us in a stressed state. This makes it very hard to digest the food. Instead, he suggests that eating is a perfect time to give the nervous system a break and allow it to calm down by eating slowly and intentionally.
Nutrition for Balancing the Nervous System
Dr. Amir mentioned eating foods that are powerful antioxidants including those rich in minerals like sea kelp. With Amanda, we focused on making sure she had balanced meals and a regular routine that included mindful eating practices.
Supplement Support for Sympathetic Overdrive
While eating a diet that intentionally balances the nervous system is powerful, there are a few supplements that can also help. Dr. Amir suggested ashwagandha and I love this option. With sympathetic dominance, I also recommend getting the system back in line with the help of Phosphatidylserine and then supporting the adrenal glands with adaptogenic herbs (like those found in Orthomolecular’s AdreneVive
Chiropractic Treatments for Sympathetic Overdrive
Most people think that going to a chiropractor only happens when you have a kinked neck or you need your back cracked. Dr. Amir explains that while a chiropractic adjustment can help in those cases, there is much more to it. When it comes to Sympathetic Overdrive, you want everything to be aligned because it ensures that none of the pathways to the brain are blocked. The nervous system relies on signals from the brain and if the body is out of alignment, it can cause challenges for an already stressed nervous system.
Mystery Solved
It would have been easy to assume that the issues Amanda was facing had to do with her sex hormones since her menstrual cycle seemed to trigger illnesses. What we discovered was that the issue was further upstream with her adrenals. She was suffering from sympathetic dominance.
Her monthly cycle simply added that little bit of extra demand that made her stress bucket overflow.
Conclusion
The first thing we worked on was balancing out her eating. As Dr. Amir noted, it was less about what she was eating and more about how she was eating so we focused on making sure she was eating regularly and not skipping meals (to balance her blood sugar). Her meals were balanced with a lean protein, vegetables, good fats, and healthy grains (like quinoa, brown rice, and millet). She also started practicing mindful eating.
Speaking of mindfulness, I taught Amanda the box breathing technique which is breathing in, holding, exhaling and holding all for equal counts (for example 5 in, 5 hold, 5 out, 5 hold). We also introduced mindful walking and sitting quietly.
For supplements, Amanda started taking Phosphatidylserine (I recommended PS 150 from Designs For Health). She took two tablets at dinnertime to lower her cortisol for six weeks. After that, she switched to a blend of adaptogenic herbs called AdreneVive by OrthoMolecular.
Happy Ending
This course of action really helped to rebalance her adrenals and she noticed that she felt better, her energy was back, and her hands and feet weren’t cold anymore. Within four months, she was no longer getting colds during her period and her headaches subsided too. Best of all, she had the tools to keep her chronic parasympathetic response in check.
Eliminating Health Mysteries
For Amanda we were able to dig deep enough to find the real cause of her health mystery 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 Dr. Amir Rashidian. You can connect with him through his clinic website or his personal website. Or, watch his videos on YouTube.
You can also check out his book “The StressProof Life”
Suggested Products
PS 150 from Designs For Health AdreneViveRelated Podcast Episodes:
The Case of Feeling Constantly Overwhelmed w/Christy Whitman The Case of Always Feeling Tired w/ Dr. Deborah MatthewThanks for Listening
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