88. Can Anxiety Cause Weird Sensations in the Body? Part 5 (Neurological and Endocrine)

Welcome to the Holistic Inner Balance podcast with Dr. Nicole Cain and happy healthy Hadley.

Your go to resource for natural mental health and wellness strategies so that you can become the expert of your own emotional and physical well being.

Merging modern science with ancient wisdom. Hello, welcome back to Holistic Inner Balance. You have me, Hadley and Dr. Nicole Cain.

Hey.

As your hosts today. And we are going to be talking to you about the last two types of anxiety of the eight types of anxiety and how they relate, how Ayurveda relates to them and how to really start to balance them in your life. We're going to be talking about neurological anxiety as well as endocrine anxiety today. So we'll get into what all of that means. If you don't know what neuro, neuro, neurological and endocrine means, those are some big words, especially if you don't have like a psych degree. So we'll go into what those mean and we'll go into how we actually start to balance those things with the doshas.

I love this. And it's been such a conversation for growth, especially holding me accountable as a physician. I was just telling Hadley this just before we started recording this, that it's so important to continuously reframe what our symptoms are, which is your body telling you what needs healing and how. And this beautiful Ayurvedic picture that we see playing out with the different types of anxiety gives us solutions to actually restoring balance as opposed to looking at symptoms as the problem and then trying to silence and suppress them. And I love that, that it can really personalize to what each individual is going through.

Yeah, totally. I'm. That's where Ayurveda really shines is, is that, you know, that individualized approach and looking at the doshas and being like that this dosha is coming up in this symptom because it's trying to tell us that. That we need the opposite quality or we need this other thing. And so once you start to kind of have an idea of the doshas, it's really cool. Like even like my husband who does not study this stuff at all, like he, you know, he's a software engineer. Not at all in this world. He knows, like, oh, I'm feeling really vata today. Like he knows this stuff and he knows when he feels a certain way in his body or when he feels a certain way like mentally or emotionally, he knows that, that it's actually going to be able to. That he's going to be able to balance it out with its opposite qualities based on the doshas. So it's really cool once you start to know the language of the doshas.

I want to give, like, a really obvious or clear or concrete example of how we can be in a state of dosha imbalance, and then we can aggravate that dosha imbalance just to, like. Because I feel like we're getting into, like, kind of complex conversation today, and we're going to talk about, like, when you're in a vata state of thyroid, what does that look like? And what do you do? But I want to make sure that we're not just, like, in this theoretical. And maybe we can give an example of, like, you were feeling like this and you did this, and I bet you felt worse because. So I was wondering if you had an example that you could share.

Yeah, so a great example. I'll just go with the vata example that I was talking about with Todd where he, you know, let's say he is feeling really distracted, and that's a total vata, you know, like, just feeling, like, spacey distracted. Maybe he, like, trips over something and, like, hurts himself. This. This happens. Yes, he has a decent amount of vata, and. And maybe he does that, like, a couple times in a row. There's, like, a couple different things. And he's like, yeah, I know. I'm, like, feeling pretty vats, I'd say. And so in. Instead. So what he could do is lean into the vata and just be like, you know, like, have so much more of this. Like, maybe eat, like, popcorn, which makes you have, like, way more vata. If you think about popcorn is basically air, right? Like, we're just putting air into our. Into our bodies. Maybe drink, like, drinking like, a smoothie that's, like, super cold and. And then makes you feel bloated or whatever it might be. And that can make. A lot of times we will crave things that get us more out of balance. Ooh, another one. That. Another thing vatas usually crave is, like, bubbly water, which is air. Like, literally water infused in air. Yeah, water. So it's literally like vata in a can.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so we crave these things that get us more out of balance, typically. The other thing is that we, like, then crave more stimulation. Right? We're like, oh, I want to go do this and do this and do this and do this. And what we really need is to ground down, add some fats to the diet, add some more, like, grounding practices, nervous system regulation practices. Maybe some hot tea that does not have bubbles in it, maybe some golden milk. You know, that's even more soothing for the nervous system because we've got the fats in milk or whatever type of milk you use, or maybe you add some ghee to it or whatever, then we've got. This is all vata pacifying. And that's what's going to actually balance the vata. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I love that. And I'm thinking about what you're saying, and it makes me think about explaining it to, like, a fourth grader. And like, if. If you're outside in the Midwest in the winter and you're really, really cold, if you drink a big glass of ice water, it's probably going to make you more cold when you're in a state of imbalance. And so in Ayurveda, we call those doshas, vata pittacapha. If you do something that feeds into that or amplifies that, your symptoms will get worse. If you're freezing and your teeth are chattering and you're really, really cold, you want to have something that's nice and warm. You want to have something that's the opposite to pull you out of that state of extreme and more into a state of balance. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about when you're talking about pacifying doshas, is that when we look at your symptoms, in whatever way they're showing up with these eight types of anxiety we're teaching on right now is that there's an imbalance. It's showing up in symptoms. And what we can do is by understanding what that imbalance is, we then have tools to restore balance.

Yeah.

Is. Is that resonating?

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And we're never going to get to a place where we're in static balance. So I think that's a common misconception that people have, is, well, I just need to get to balance, and then I'll be there, and then I'll be, like, good to go. Right. I used to do this all the time. I used to be like, once I lose the weight or once I, you know, do this thing, then I'm. Then I'm fine. Then, like, everything is, like, perfect or whatever I was thinking at that time. And really, it's more of a dance. It's like balance. As the seasons change, as our bodies change. Our bodies are very cyclical. As we go through our stages of life for women, as we go through them, our monthly cycles, we tend to be. We tend to think that that balance is static. But really we just need to respond to what is happening in our external environment, what's happening in our internal environment. And that's what balance really actually is.

Yeah, it's like as long as you're riding the bike, AKA alive, is you're going to need to balance yourself. Because the process of riding a bike requires balance. If the whole time, right, Then you gotta lean to the left. If you tip to the left, you gotta lean to the right. And so that to be alive and is to be human. And so it's not as though you get on the bike and then you can just stop balancing.

Right.

Once you. Once you found a balance, you're not done. So you're kind of describing. It's like it's a continual process, but your body won't have to go out of balance. As far as extreme. With such extreme symptoms, if you can start to recognize the signs of imbalance really quickly and early on in that spike, learning about your body, learning about symptoms, and changing that narrative of what a symptom means and what to do about it.

Exactly. Yeah. When you can. When you can, like, get that right away and be like, oh, I'm feeling a little vata today. What do I need to do to ground that down? Then you don't get into this, like, state of just absolute panic and you're running around and rushing around and, you know, you have all of these things that are. That are stressing you out and, you know, and then causing anxiety in the long run. Um, then when we start to. When we do it, when it just starts to happen, then we're going to be able to. To stay in more of that balance. So we're not like, falling over on the bike and then getting back up on the bike and then falling over the other way, like, getting back up on the bike. I love this analogy song. Gotta go with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This bike is now our new Chumbawamba. And if you guys don't know what means, then you're way too young or I'm way too old and Google it.

I don't know what it means.

It's a song. I get knocked down But I get up again oh, yes, I do Gonna keep me down.

It's a great song.

Yeah. I feel like half of these episodes I'm singing some, like, weird, strange song.

Oh. Which, by the way, she texted me the other day.

In January, mind you, in January, after.

After the holidays.

Holidays.

She was watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which we've talked about many times. On this podcast now, same.

It's the total wackadood that is the holistic inner balance. Yeah.

She sent me a video of the video the Put One Foot in Front of the Other song. So if you still have not looked that up at this point, you gotta look it up. Let us know if you watch it.

Yeah, that's like the one thing people are going to get out of this podcast is the warlock on Instagram.

Let us know.

DM us. Yeah. So I feel like this is such a good segue. Actually, it's not a segue at all. But here, let's embrace this. Not segue, segue into.

We're just pivoting.

We're just gonna pivot. We're gonna just do an about face. No, no, volley up here. We don't need that. We're going to talk about neurological anxiety first. And so. Neurological anxiety, what the heck is that?

Yeah, because I was. I wasn't sure I had.

Can you just like introduce what the heck this is first? And I said yes, because it is a big word. And so think of nerves, think of neurons and think of muscles, tendons, ligaments. So this is your nervous system. And so when in a state of imbalance and you're feeling anxious, if you feel like you get tight muscles, shoulder tension, neck tension, back tension, stiffness, pain, if you get tingling or numbness or zapping pains or shooting pains or cramps even, this is neurological anxiety. If you get migraine headaches, some people will get peripheral neuropathy where it feels like you sat on your foot, but it could be anywhere in your body. This is neurological anxiety. By identifying the neurological anxiety as a type of anxiety, it gives us strategies to restore balance so that the symptoms aren't having to show up as neurological anxiety. So, Hadley, tell us about neurological anxiety and ayurvedic medicine. I'm kind of curious if we start with it, where a lot of my patients will show up and they'll have like burning, tingling, really irritated nerves. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. So anytime you hear the word burning, anything that's related to fire, if you've been following along with these, the, this series, you know that fire is pitta. That's the, the dosha that, that we've got going on. So any time they've got burning or really like any sort of pain, there's some pitta involved. Any sort of pain, there's at least some pitta involved. It might not be fully pitta, but. But we've got some of that going on. Usually there's like inflammation, any sort of like, redness, like a raw or a shooting pain or anything like that, that's all going to be pitta. And so at the same time, well, let me know some of the other symptoms that come with it that are not the burning ones and then we'll talk about that.

What about, like, muscle tension, spasms, Gripping soreness? Mm.

So spasms, we can think of it. Right. Like is. It's involuntary movement of a muscle. And when we have any sort of movement, that is vata, that's the air and ether qualities which are. Or elements which are. Which is vata. Right. It's movement, mobility is. Is the. The name of the game for vata. So anytime we have any of that, that's going to be more. More vata. Tension can sort of be like a interplay between vata and pitta because there's like that. That gripping or that in the intensity sort of comes from pitta, but the.

The involuntary contraction, maybe that comes more from vata.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Sorry I talked over you. I just got so excited that I might have known one of the answers. So tension is like, you. This. This like this tension and spasm from the pitta, but then like the involuntary movement from the vata.

Exactly, yeah. If there's like a. You know, there can be some interplay of like, kapha in there too. If there's like, tension for a long time, then. And it's just like holding. Because. Because kapha is like the stubbornness is like holding things there. So you can bring in some kapha there. Usually that's a protection mechanism because kapha comes in when there's like, too much pizza that's burning things out, or there's too much vata that's just like moving things around and making depleting things. Then kapha will come in and be like, oh, I've got you. I can protect you. Right. And so. And so then the kapha might come in over time. If these things are happening over time, then kapha might come in and try to protect. But then obviously it just makes it a little less pleasant.

So somebody is like this, like, heat, burning, fire, irritated nerves. This like shooting, zapping, painful. That's going to be more of a pitta picture. Pitta and pain often go together. Inflammation, rawness, redness. This is like a very classic pitta picture. And then you were describing this, like the involuntary muscle movement. And I see this a lot with benzo withdrawal or with insomnia and anxiety where there's like, muscle spasms muscle jerking. If you get like a hypnotic jerk where you like involuntarily flare on going to sleep, it sounds like that could be that involuntary movement comes from vata.

And then anytime I have any time I'm stressed or anything, and that will happen. Like when I'm like trying, when I'm falling asleep. You like have like one of those like dreams that you're falling or something. Like while you're falling asleep and then you're like, or you trip or that kind of thing. That usually has something to do with vata. Sometimes it also has something to do with pizza too, because you're stressed.

What would be a good solution for that? So someone's listening to this and like, oh my gosh, I get hypnotic jerks. What would be something that they could do?

Yeah, and this, this goes for basically all neurological anxiety. Just nervous system. Nervous system regulation work is the name of the game. And what that means is, well, anything that's going to be soothing for the nervous system. But I'm a really big fan of bringing, bringing our awareness into our bodies and actually bringing our physical. Like touching our physical body with our hands to ground us down. That's one of the fastest tracks to actually calming us down. Breath is. Breath work is great too, or certain types of breath work is great too for calming the nervous system. But I find that even like physical touch is even more tangible than breath. Right. Like we can do mindset work but that's. It's not so super tangible. We can do breath work and that's a little bit more tangible because we're working with the, you know, we're working with something that is tangible. We can feel the breath move in and out, but. But actually putting our hands on our body is like, oh, okay, I'm here, I'm actually here.

So it sounds like what I hear you talking about is like vatas, vata pacifying stuff like grounding.

Exactly. Yeah, it's vata pacifying. It's also pitta pacifying because a lot of times so stress and anxiety. We've talked about how that can look different based on if it's vata. It's more of like all over the place where if it's pitta, a lot of times it's hyper focused and stressed about like getting things done and it feels more of an intense focus stress rather than with vata it's like, oh my gosh, like there's this and then there's this and then there's this and your thoughts are just kind of like spiraling over overhead. That's kind of what it feels like. So. Yeah. So nervous system regulation work will be grounding for both vata and pitta, which is awesome.

I'm also thinking about, like, for hypnotic jerks like you do golden milk before bed at night. I know that's something like you and I have shared a cup of golden milk together at the end of a day. And that can be really wonderful for vata. If somebody is not sure if it's like pitta or vata, could they still do golden milk?

Yes, anyone can do golden milk. So for pitta and vata, like, it's gonna be, it's gonna be great. Maybe you, if you have a ton, a ton of pitta, maybe doing a little bit less ginger. But for the most part, most people can handle like all of the spices and stuff that are going to be in golden milk. They're mostly tri doshic. And then I would say you could change up the type of milk that you use depending on the dosha. So, like, vata might do well. Vata and pitta are actually going to do well with dairy as long as you can actually tolerate dairy. But kapha, it might be too heavy for kapha. So kapha might do better with like an almond milk or something like that. Yeah, for the mo, I, I actually like to use like almond milk regardless of if I have, which, whatever dosha is out of balance for me. But then I add ghee so that I do have some of that fat.

So I like that. And you guys will learn so much more about this in the Ayurveda course where, you know, Hadley's introducing, like, what kind of milk. And I imagine as you're listening to this, it's like, I don't even, I don't even know what kind of milk I should be using. But a good take home for this is that if you're getting hypnotic jerks or like spasms and restlessness and involuntary movements at night, restless leg syndrome at night, is that an equalizer? Like a good hack for most people would be doing golden milk. And then you can go and check out the Ayurveda course and then see what kind of milk might be optimal, depending on what needs rebalancing for you. But I like that this is a tri doshik option. And then another tridosic option that has an affinity for the nervous system is gotu kola, which is a really great herb and it's anti anxiety. It's great for healing the nervous system. It can calm down Hyperactive spasming nerves. It can help with sleep. And so these are kind of two take homes for neurological anxiety. Both of these supplements that you would take orally or tridosic, and then you can supercharge your golden milk. Like Hadley, you were saying with your milk type, but go check that out in the course. And then as you were saying, it's like, don't just skip over the grounding activities. If it is vata and it's causing involuntary movements and your thoughts are like, racing and busy and all over the places, do those grounding activities. And Hadley teaches a lot on touch and self massage. And so check out some of our other stuff on that.

Yeah, like, you could chug your golden milk before bed and still be equally stressed if you're just like, you know, going and like, drinking it really fast or. Or like, yeah, like, oh, I have to do this for my stress. Go, go, go. And then not. Not see any results. So, you know, golden milk is like. I mean, it's like a lovely experience to just have golden milk. So usually you aren't going to just chug your golden milk because it's just the experience of drinking it is lovely. But because. Because it has the nourishing, like, it's warm like tea, but it also has the fat. And so it's just like. It's like I always used to drink, like, hot chocolate. Like, I loved hot chocolate. And that's kind of. It kind of like fills that void for me. So. So make it into kind of like a little. A little lovely ceremonial kind of thing for yourself, which you probably will if you drink golden milk, can also, like, put a hand on your heart while you drink it. Or, like, put a hand in your shoulder or put a hand on your head. I like to do, like, put one hand on your forehead and one hand on the back of your head and just like cradle your head and like, lean back. It feels so freaking good. Like, our heads are heavy.

Yeah.

When we can cradle our heads, it's like a weight off of our shoulders.

Literally.

Literally.

We didn't plan that, y'. All. That was so neurological anxiety, whether you get headaches or neurons shooting nerve pain or muscles are weak or tired, which is probably more kapha or spasming or burning. Focus less on this is happening, what's wrong. But rather, what is this kind of general picture that I'm seeing? Does it look more like a kapha or a vata or a pitta? And then identifying strategies that work to restore balance in that moment will help correct your body so that you're not going out of balance as easily. What else about neurological anxiety can you think of?

The thing that just came to mind for me was that's great for both vata and Pittsa. Just great for neurological anxiety, like just for your nervous system is getting a foam roller. And actually, I mean, foam rolling is great, like rolling out your muscles and stuff. But the life hack that I learned from one of my teachers, Katie Silcox, is get, get a long foam rollers, long enough so like, like sort of like more of an extra long one. Long enough so that you can put your spine, your tailbone on one end and it goes all the way up past your head. So so your full body or your full spine is on there like parallel to it. So you're not rolling out your muscles with it like perpendicular to your back, rather your, you're lining it up along your spine and just lying down like that and like letting your arms come out to the side. That in itself, the way that it hits your body and the way that it allows your body to then open up on the foam roller is super regulating for the nervous system. I like to do my meditations in that position. A lot of times if I'm feeling like I have more of that neurological anxiety or if I have more vata or pitta going on, I'll just lay down, lay down on that and it's awesome. And then after a little bit of time, you can roll it to the side and then just lay your body just on the ground. And then you'll feel that your body actually, if you were to lie on the ground before doing that, and then after doing that, you'll feel that more of your body is actually like, more of your back is actually on the ground because you've opened up your back in, the muscles have relaxed enough so they're not like so tensed up and tight and they've relaxed enough so that they can be on the ground. And that is like quintessential your nervous system. Like it's all tensed up and then it, it settles back. So that's another really good hack.

I love that hack. And it goes, it's like such a good segue from our conversation last time when we were doing those exercises of extension and contraction. So if you kind of imagine what body posture you take when you're feeling anxious and stressed and then doing the opposite and kind of creat, like a back and forth seesaw or rocking motion between the two, and I love what you're describing and as you were talking about, supporting the whole spine is that's how I like to sleep. And so Paul calls it the wall of China. But I have, like, pillows lined up, and I like to lay on my right side and have all of the pillows lined up to, like, be touching my spine all the way up, just because it feels grounding and supportive. So it's kind of fun to hear you describing that. And so maybe if somebody is listening to this and you're having a hard time sleeping and you do identify with vata symptoms of, like, I'm not grounded, My brain is racing. I'm feeling a little restless. Then maybe doing that stretch Hadley was talking about laying on your back on some long foam roller or a stack of pillows, whatever you have accessible to you.

Yeah, I've rolled up, like, towels before and done it that way as well. Like, because I travel, so I. I can't bring my long roller with me to Europe.

But a body bag.

This is my foam roller.

It goes where I go. Yeah.

So I've used towels you can use.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So, yeah, try that before bed or maybe even try, like, supporting your body when you're sleeping with your own pillow. Wall of China. And maybe that will help with. With asleep if you have insomnia.

Yeah, yeah. Before bed is like, an awesome time to do it because it just kind of lets everything go from the day.

I think that's brilliant. So let's move on to endocrine anxiety, and this is our last of the eight types of anxiety. So if you're really interested in this topic, check out our other podcast episodes. We dive into this in more detail. And I just want to take a moment here to just call out the cool work that Hadley's up to is, you know, she's happy, healthy Hadley, and she is a beautiful online presence. And so make sure that you check out her Instagram and see all the cool stuff that she has going on. She and I have collaborated together to do the holistic Inner Balance podcast, but she is like, a whole world of awesomeness that you definitely don't want to miss. And so go check out her Instagram. She has a link in the bio where you can see what she's up to. One of the cool projects Hadley and I've done together that we keep mentioning periodically, but I want to just mention in more full detail now is the Ayurvedic course where Hadley made this amazing quiz. And it's all about helping you become your most successful, amazing, excited, productive, brilliant, beautiful version of Yourself. And it's a really unique quiz, and it's definitely my go to. And so if you're kind of curious, like what Dosha imbalance might I be in it present. And if it's kind of hard for you to start with the conversations we're having and then figure out where you are is take that quiz. It's really good. It's in the link in her bio. It's on my website. And so if you haven't checked any of that stuff out, definitely do because it's really, really cool stuff.

Oh, you're so sweet. Also, you are too humble. Dr. Kane helped me with that quiz. And also Dr. Kane has a ton of amazing things on her. Well, so check all of that out, too. We got to create some more reels and stuff, too, because that's always a blast.

Hilarious. We just got to get in the same state at the same time again. So right now I'm an Easy. And Hadley's in California. And so we just got to get in the car and.

Yeah, drive the mayhem. Half hours.

Easy, easy. It's so good. Easy peasy. And who doesn't want to be in San Diego in the end of January? Like, that's where it's at, where it's happening.

Goals. Yes, goals.

So what the heck is endocrine anxiety? What is it? What is an endocrine? What is that? And so I want you to think of glands, organs and hormones and endocrine gland. It's the glands that are releasing your hormones. I'm thinking like thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones, sex hormones. And so you have glands and you have all these organs all over your body. And they help your metabolism, they help your sexual health, they help your energy, they help your motivation, they help your mood. Everything that's going on head to toe is regulated in part by your endocrine system. And when the endocrine system goes out of balance, we can get quite a lot of really annoying symptoms. And the standard of care will look at labs. And if the labs are out of balance in such a way that they now no longer fit in the brackets that we have determined as normal, then they'll treat you. But what we're looking at here in this conversation is optimizing the health of your organ systems, optimizing the health of your glands, optimizing your levels of hormones, whatever that looks like for you, and how to identify signs that they need a little bit of support throughout exploration of symptoms and with that perspective of Ayurveda and how to restore balance by Considering your Ayurveda. And so today we're going to focus on thyroid and adrenal.

Yes. Yeah, so we were talking about this beforehand. It's interesting. Ayurveda doesn't necessarily map out perfectly onto the hormonal like conversation because, you know, 2,000, 2,000 to 5,000 years ago, we don't know exactly when it originated. They didn't have this model of hormones and the endocrine system. They had different models and so that's fine. And you know, they had the model of the doshas which we in Western science don't really have the model of the doshas. And so equal, equally good, whatever. There's no better or worse. And, and so there's not like a perfect way to map the doshas onto the endocrine system. However, there are some things that we can talk about that are going to, that when we look at the symptoms we can see. Oh, okay, this is a dosha. This is the dosha that this symptom is. And we'll break it down a little bit because sometimes when we think about hormones there are a couple things interplaying because like we've talked about how like kapha can come in and, and protect and you know, sometimes pitta can like burn something out and then like with the fire and then vatak comes in and like depletes further because, because something has been burned out. So we'll talk a little bit about that because it's not super like cut and dry. Like if you feel this way, then it's always because of this. We'll decode, demystify that a little bit today and then we'll talk a little bit about what you can do to balance each dosha in regards to your symptoms based on your hormonal imbalances. How does that sound?

I can't wait. I feel like I'm going to learn so much. Let's start with thyroid. And so your thyroid is a gland that lives in the base of your neck. And your thyroid gland, in response to a hormone from your brain called thyroid cycle stimulating hormone or tsh, will release thyroid hormone. And then that thyroid hormone is used from head to toe in lots of metabolic pathways. And so when thyroid hormone is in optimal balance, you feel pretty darn good. But as soon as thyroid starts to shift either into too much thyroid or too little thyroid, oftentimes symptoms can develop pretty early on. And so when you're running thyroid, the first thing we want to do is just get basic lab testing so that you know what's going on objectively with your thyroid. And then we're going to combine that information with the information that Hadley's going to bring to the table of how that may present with your doshas. And so the test that you want to be running at least annually is a TSH. Then there's two types of thyroid hormone, T3 and T4, and T4 converts into T3. And so we want to run both to see how much T4 you're getting. And then we also want to see, well, is it actually converting correctly into the bioavailable or active form called T3? But there's also a reverse T3, which is what we end up getting if the T4 isn't properly converting. So you can feel hypothyroid even when all of your other numbers look just right. And so you want to run all of them, TSH, Pre T3, Pre T4, and a reverse T3. So that's where you want to start. And so let's say that you have symptoms of hyperthyroid. So you have too much T3 or T4 as an example. You're going to experience symptoms of heat intolerance, heart racing, high blood pressure racing. Oftentimes people feel, like, hot and fiery and agitated. And so as I'm saying that if you're not watching the video, you're listening to the recording. Hadley smiling and nodding because. Hadley, tell us what this might be reflective of.

Well, yeah, if you're listening to this, what is that? Like, she literally said fiery, right?

I did.

It's like. It is just quintessential Pitta. There's a bit of vata there as well, because. Because there's like, more of that sort of depletion, or I guess there's more of, like, that movement. There's like the high blood pressure and. And all of that, which is very much related to Pitta as well. So if you think about the type of person who's gonna have, like, high blood pressure and like, you know, maybe have, like, heart disease later in life, like, it's like the type A person who's. Who's got a lot of fire in their personality, right? Like, they tend to. That is. That is a type that tends to get more cardiovascular disease. So all of that stuff is highly, highly, highly related to Pitta for sure. And so we can do some things like balance, balancing, pitta for that. That one's. That one's a bit more straightforward, which is awesome.

I thought I'd throw one straight down the center of the park for Us first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, you'll learn tons more in just the longer that you're in relationship with here in the podcast, you'll learn more about how to do that. But, yeah, you want to cool pitta. You want to cool off. And so I had a patient who had hyperthyroidism, but she didn't know it. And so she had all of these symptoms where she was really anxious and panicky and restless and her heart was racing and she was losing weight, even though she was really hungry and eating a ton of calories. And the doctor just told her, you're anxious, you need to do some deep breathing and take some Xanax. And thankfully, she was a self advocate and went and got basic labs, including a full thyroid panel, caught the hyperthyroid, and we were able to treat it holistically. And part of her protocol was, as you were saying, Hadley, she's very type A. She was burning herself out. So we had to hit the pause button on some of her behavioral and her lifestyle strategies. But we were also able to use herbs and botanicals to pacify the pitta and calm the thyroid, which was great because she didn't end up needing a thyroidectomy. She didn't need any radiation or any surgery or anything. She got better. But I think that's large in part due to the fact that she was able to catch it pretty early.

Yeah, totally. And, yeah, that's all. Having a really, really strong appetite and losing weight is classic. It's called tikshna agni. It's basically when your digestive fire is just burning things through. And so, and that relates to the rest of all of the other pitta symptoms. And it's pretty, pretty textbook pitta. Yeah, lots of fire.

Yeah, lots of fire. And so then on the flip side with hypothyroidism, what you might see on your lab test is you might see high tsh, because remember, TSH is coming from the brain, thyroid stimulating hormone, and it's telling the thyroid gland, hey, make hormone. But the problem may be is if your thyroid isn't doing what it's told, and you may have insufficient thyroid hormone being produced, or you may be taking something that's blocking your brain from sending the signal to the thyroid gland. And so whatever is the root cause for you, and there's lots of different root causes, but it could produce symptoms of hypothyroidism, which is really quite the opposite of what you see in hyper. And so we're talking about, like, exhaustion. We're talking about Sluggishness. We're talking about, like sluggishness of the bowels. So we have more constipation. It's like what was moving and churning along is now slowing to a stop. Yeah. And so, Hadley, I know this is a little bit less overtly pitta.

Yes.

But what might be contributing to some of this?

Yes. So a lot of times people will be like, oh, okay, so I'm experiencing, you know, feeling stuck, feeling sluggish. Things aren't really moving. They're like, oh, it's kapha. So I need to do all these things to balance cough, I need to work out harder. I need to eat like lighter. Like, I need to not eat as as much fat and sugar. I need to eat more like salads or smoothies or whatever. They're like. Because it's kapha. All these kava symptoms, that's where it's like, like it's not quite. It's not quite that because. So when we think about hyper and hypo, hyper means more. There's an overproduction of something. Hypo means there's not enough production of something. And so vata causes depletion. Vata is like, that's, that's the imbalance of vata will cause depletion regardless of where it is in the body. And so that's what's causing the depletion of vata, those hormones. And then kapha comes in. So we've got. We've got this depletion. We are feeling really weak and exhausted. That's vata feeling weak, feeling like, you know, maybe feeling frantic. But then. But then the kapha comes in and makes you like. And it grounds down that franticness. It grounds down. It's trying to protect. I mean, not to like over personify the doshas, but like it comes in, and this happens often with vata is the kapha will come in to kind of like protect. And so that's when we have more of that, like, sluggishness, the slow, the stuck feeling, the depressive qualities of hypothyroidism. And so we actually, like, we actually want to balance vata first here. So if we, if we're like, oh, it's kapha, just get up off the couch and go, like, work out more like, no, I mean, like, we can add some of that, but first we have to do the vata pacifying stuff. We have to regulate the nervous system. We have to be gentle with our poor little vata bodies that are just, you know, that are being depleted and Then. And then after that, well, usually the kapha, it will go away because we've balanced the vatas. We don't have a need for the kapha that's trying to protect it anymore. But we can add on some of the kapha stuff later. But we first need to start with that vata.

I think that sounds wonderful. And so then that can actually help if that doshik imbalance is contributing to aggravating or amplifying thyroid health. And just think of health of the glands, health of the body. And so that's what this is really about is how can we identify imbalances in health because of unmet needs or maybe an over predominance of something that's problematic. And so we're working on supporting that. And so some people, this is enough to get their thyroid working better, maybe converting more efficiently into active thyroid hormone. But I do want to point out here, too, that if you have hypothyroidism, that it isn't a failure, that it isn't a failure on your part if you're taking thyroid medicine, and that some of these things are. It's inherited. Some of these things are just the cards that you're dealt with, but you still have the power to optimize the health of your organs, optimize the health of your body, even if you're still taking thyroid medication. And that's just a part of your story, that's okay. And we can put a semicolon or a comma at the end of that and then pursue even greater health with our holistic strategies. And so, yeah, if you're listening to this and you're like, well, I'm hypothyroid and I'm taking medication, and I feel good, then like, rock and roll. That's really good. You have an amazing medicine that's got you where you need to be. And so maybe that's not where that's showing up for you anymore. And if your body needs support, it will tell you and it will use different voices, which is such a mercy. Mm.

Yeah.

And it.

It's essentially anything that doesn't feel good in your body is telling you something. It's just. It's. It's just the. The language of the body. Right.

Like, it's.

It's pretty cool, actually.

I love that. The language of the body. Yeah.

Maybe we should write a book called the Language of the Body.

I love it. You guys, would you be interested?

Yeah, let us know. The body.

And so we also were going to touch on autoimmune. Thyroid. And with autoimmune, I'm thinking like Hashimoto's, primarily, we do have autoimmune Graves disease, which can cause hyperthyroidism. But I would look at two component components of it. One is what's behind an autoimmune process, and then the second is what is happening to you as a result of the autoimmune process. And so with autoimmunity, we have an immune system that's not responding the way that it should. There's immune system dysfunction. It can show up in different ways. You can have it shut down organs, and you can have Hashimoto's, can spike down into hypothyroid, which would be more like we talked about the Kapha vata thing. Or in Hashimoto's, you can have it shooting up into hyperthyroidism, which may look more like Pitta. But what I think is kind of interesting, I wanted to get your perspective on Hadley, is that it can be very changeable. So with Hashis in particular, you can see spikes and drops and spikes and drops, which feels a little bit more. From what I'm learning from you, it feels a little bit more vata because of that changeability.

Totally. Yeah. Anytime we have that changeability, there's going to be some element of vata. So we've got like, you know, we're kind of going back and forth between what seems like kapha symptoms, but there's an underlying vata there and then also going up into the. The Pitta symptoms. So if, you know, if back and forth. And that's the case for anything. If you're like, well, I go between being hot and cold, or I go between being dry and, like, oily, like my skin, you know, all of that. Any. Anything that is like, you go back and forth, there's an element of VATA there. And so we need to ground down the vata and calm. Calm that vata energy. And obviously, there are many ways that we can do, and we talk about them all the time. But. But, yeah, there's definitely lots of vata there.

That's great. So kind of figuring out where to start is. So if you have a hashy state and it's pretty unstable and it's spiking and dropping, and you can't figure out what weighs up. And what weighs down is starting with the vata, and then once that changeability is a little bit more stabilized, then see where we land. Is it turning into more of like a Pitta picture or a Kapha picture? Your body will tell you as you get healthier, other things will either clear up because they're not needing to jump in and balance, or they'll tell you, like, hey, we need some support here.

Totally. And the thing is, like, a lot of. I mean, in ancient India, when Ayurveda was being developed, we didn't have a whole lot of autoimmune issues. Back then, we didn't have as much as much of that. And so there wasn't as much, like, of this model of care. But we can still use the doshas to look at these things. And so, yeah, so definitely work with a doctor on these things. Like, it's beyond the scope of this, of, like, a podcast to, like, listen to and then, like, fix your hormones is what I guess I'm trying to say.

I love that. Yes. Have a good doctor that gets it. And if they're confused, send them this podcast. Yeah, they will be more confused.

They will be.

So as we're finishing up here, we do have one more organ system that we did want to chat about and cover in endocrine anxiety. And so it's adrenals. And so, Hadley, have you ever heard of adrenal fatigue?

Yes. And I'm so fascinated about this because you just, like, off the cuff the other day were like, yeah, well, that's not really real. And I was like, wait, what?

Yeah, adrenal fatigue is not real. It doesn't really exist. And so I know that half of our listeners here are going to be, well, that's wrong. My doctor, who I really respect and who's really intelligent, told me, I have adrenal fatigue. And then the other half, are you like, oh, finally somebody understands the science of adrenals.

I love it. Tell us more. I'm very fascinated about this because I was under the impression that it was.

You have a gland in your body, Actually, you have two, and they live on top of your kidneys and your back. And they're called adrenal glands. And these glands release many different chemicals and hormones, namely, of which we always focus on is cortisol. Cortisol is our stress hormone. And it has lots of different jobs. And so cortisol can rise and cortisol can drop. And it should do that. It should have a pattern of rising in the morning and then going down through the afternoon and being at its lowest in the evening. When cortisol levels spike in the morning, what happens is you get this burst of energy. It helps you get out of bed. It wakes you up, it mobilizes the Blood sugar, it increases your heart rate, it increases your blood pressure, and it increases energy. And so those things that we associate with cortisol being too high would be too much of all of that. And so super high cortisol, which we can see in certain diseases like Cushing's, would be really high blood pressure and really high blood sugars, because cortisol is like pulling the sugar out so we can use it to run away from the tiger. And so all of these symptoms that we associate with adrenergic arousal, sympathetic arousal, fight, flight, freeze, all of those hyper symptoms. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we can have too low cortisol, where the adrenals aren't producing enough cortisol. And that's what people call adrenal fatigue week. And what's actually happening is that when you have insufficient amounts of cortisol is it can look like a disease called Addison's, Addison syndrome. And so what you'll find is that you'll be lethargic and tired, which checks out right? People will say that they're lethargic and tired. But you will also find that your blood pressure is low, your heart rate is low, your blood sugars are low. And so cortisol, when it's high, it's going to help you run from the bear. And when cortisol is really low, it's going to make you very flatlined, very depleted. And so the problem why I'm telling you that adrenal fatigue doesn't exist is because when people are defining adrenal fatigue, they're typically gaining weight and they have high blood pressure and they're tired. Well, that's not adrenal insufficiency. That's a mix of adrenal function. It's more of a disease of lifestyle. But if you have true adrenal insufficiency, you're going to have low blood sugar, low blood pressure plus fatigue. If you've been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, you should get your adrenals tested and look at your overall cortisol levels and then look at how your body's presenting those symptoms and see in what dosha they may be flushing out to need pacifying and need support from. Let's look at the example of too low cortisol. So someone comes in, they have Addison's disease, they don't have enough cortisol. And so again, their blood sugars are low, their blood pressure is low, they're lethargic, they're tired, they just want to be like a blob on the couch. Right. So sounds to me, I'm not the expert, but it sounds to me very kapha.

Yes, yes, totally. Well, and it's. It's kapha. So let's see. Yeah, mostly just kapha. However, there's an underlying vata because it is an insufficiency of the hormone, so depletion. So there's. So vata has come in and depleted the hormone that we need. Where. I mean, you can still. There's still some vata if there's like a high amount of cortisol too. So that's why it doesn't map out perfectly. But. But there is some vata there too, because it, because of that depletion. And so, so the. While it's showing up as purely kapha, there is also that, that piece of vata as well. So how do you usually, like, what lifestyle changes do you usually use with Addison's? And then we can talk a little bit about, you know, why that might map out onto kapha or vata.

We want to tonify. We want to use adaptogens. We want to build up the adrenals. I'm thinking of add, and in that we often just give cortisol. We give hydrocortisone. But we also can see this kind of a picture in chronic post traumatic stress disorder. So if somebody's acute ptsd, like if they're in an acute state of trauma, we often see higher levels of cortisol because the body is in this fight, flight, freeze response trying to protect you. But after it's become chronic and your adrenals are really, truly insufficiently equipped, then we want to holistically, naturopathically, is we would use adaptogens. And so you would pick herbs that are balancing your dosha that also nourish and feed the adrenal glands. And so adaptogenic herbs as examples would be like rhodiola, ashwagandha, glycyrrhiza, panax, ginseng. And making your own botanical blends that take consideration of your whole person pulling. Plus what you're trying to accomplish with your adrenals can be incredibly helpful. And so just to give you an example, I had this engineer that I worked with years ago, and he had burned himself out. He was like a classic pitta, like burning the candle at both ends. And he ended up with hypocortisol symptoms. And so adrenal hypofunction. And so.

So not enough cortisol. He didn't have enough for anyone who doesn't.

Yeah, yeah, he didn't have enough cortisol. So he's, he ended up in like this very kind of kapha state, but it was caused by too much pitta. So he made lifestyle changes to try to help him not burn out the little vitality that he had left. And we gave him a lot of trophorestoratives and adaptogenic herbs and nutrients that are just delicious and helpful for the adrenal glands and he ended up getting a lot better. His PCP had given him hydrocortisone which we were able to get him off of and then build him up naturally. And he's now his much more balanced lifestyle and his adrenal health is great.

Yeah. So instead of being like, well, oh, you have all these kapha symptoms of like feeling like lethargic and sluggish and like lying on the couch and all that, like get up and move, you better like do more. No, no, he had, he had depleted himself from his lifestyle through pizza, the fire. And then that kind of burned, burned it out. And then vata comes after the burnout and just is depletion. And so, so yeah, so, so pitta can cause that, that depletion. And that's when, then we have the kapha that comes in the kapha symptoms that come in. And so when we, when we treat the root cause of the symptoms or. Yeah, when we treat the root dosha, I guess because some of these, what we, what we call it in Ayurveda is like, like vata. So it's like pitta pushing vata, pushing kapha. Like it's like these levels and so that doesn't, you know, it doesn't really matter the exact, the exact, like which one is pushing which or whatever. But like what's the root? What's the root of it? And the root is his pitta. And so we just have to look at the lifestyle that caused the symptoms and then we can see. Oh, of course. And then we can treat those.

I love that validation because at that time this was like in 2011 and I didn't, it was more like following vital, vital resiliency. Like the wisdom of my teachers who were not studied or trained in Ayurveda. And so I'm really grateful that it's like, oh great what I did lined up.

Yeah, right.

It's always so nice because it makes a thing once you like into it, like what you say. I'm like, oh yeah, of course, yeah, right.

Like the doshas just make sense. Even my husband, who is like the most science based logic Minded, like he can get behind the doshas, like he can get fully behind them. So it's great.

So I feel like we talked a little bit about hypocortisol, Addison's, low cortisol, and then on the flip side, too high cortisol, that can cause Cushing's. I think that can cause kind of a mixed picture because some people, they do. They get the, like the striations in the skin and then they start like retaining fluid in different parts of their body. So it's interesting because I feel like there is a kapha component with that fluid retention, but there is also like, like the high blood pressure and the faster heart rate and the higher sugar. And so what, what would you do if it, if it seems like kind of a mixed picture like that?

Yeah, I mean, again, it always comes down to what was the lifestyle before that that led to the symptoms. And then we can kind of see, oh, okay, that's the root of what the symptoms were. And so then we can treat it. And when I say treat it, like I use lifestyle, like, I don't, I don't like prescribe anything or, you know, that, or I guess I prescribe lifestyle. But, you know, then we could, we would balance the things that we were doing before that were causing the imbalance, if that makes sense.

It totally makes sense. And you had broken that up into like three kind of take homes when you and I were talking about this. As you said. Really, when in doubt. Digestion, sleep and stress.

Yeah, that's it. If you don't take anything else away from any of the episodes we've ever done, it is that it is digestion, sleep and stress levels take care of that and then you're good to go. And there's a lot there. Right. Like, digestion is, you know, it's like the home of all of these imbalances in Ayurveda. It's like digestion is so, so important. Digestion, sleep and stress. Those, those are the, the, the three things that are like the most important. So we can look at, when we look at the, the lifestyle that the person was having, like, how was their digestion, what was causing any digestive symptoms that then probably led to other things? You know, how is their sleep that definitely would lead to other things if their sleep wasn't optimal. Quality and quantity. And then stress levels obviously have a lot to do with endocrine anxiety, obviously. But yeah, so we got to look at those three things and just, and start. And just constantly we're balancing those three things.

Things digestion, sleep and stress. I'd love to add a bonus extra credit because I do have a lot of, like, type three enneagram. Like, I want the extra credit achievement, so can I throw in a bonus for that?

Yes. I'll give you a gold star.

Give me a gold star. So for all y' all overachievers out there, the bonus would be moving blood and lymph.

Oh, yeah. So good.

And so stagnation, no bueno. We want to move blood and lymph. Whether that is. Is stretching or exercising or we use hydrotherapy for this. Whether it's like alternating hot and cold, or we can talk about castor oil packs. Acupuncture is moving energy, moving qi. And so I. I would say digestion, self massage, movement. Yeah. So. Oh, I love that. Self massage, move blood and lymph. Yeah. So. So as you're listening to this and you're reflecting on your stress and you're reflecting on your digestion and your sleep is ask yourself, what are the canaries, the voices of your symptoms? What are they telling you, needs healing and how? And then let us know. Let us know what's coming up for you, and we'll be here to help you kind of clarify. If you have questions like, throw us a comment and then we'll try to help you work through it. We're here, here.

Yeah. Like, we will do. We could totally do more episodes on whatever you are actually, you know, going through, feel free to reach out and ask questions and. Because we want to make this as relevant for you as possible. And so if you're the kind of person who's going to take charge of their life and ask a question to us, we want to give you the answer.

Yeah.

So be. Be an advocate for yourself. Ask us so we can do more episodes about what you actually need.

This has been fun. The eight types of anxiety, y'.

All.

We just did the eight types. We finished it up today. So go and check out our other episodes. They're so fun. Then I've learned a ton. And so I'm sure you guys will, too.

Yes. Yeah. And then check out our Ayurveda mini course. If you want to dive deeper into all of the doshas and how to actually balance them with lifestyle and the types of foods that you're eating and the types of herbs that you, you know, are, and all of these great things. We have a whole. A whole mini course filled with lots of goodness and, you know, a whole workbook in there that'll help you actually implement this stuff into your specific life to tailor it to you. So that's where the doshas really shine. Tailoring it to you.

Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for being here. We'll see you next time on the Holistic Inner Balance. Bye.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology, and Happy Healthy Hadley, an Ayurveda expert with a master's in health, behavior and health education. While these opinions are based upon literature, counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you are in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole and Hadley are passionate about you becoming the expert of your own emotional and physical well being. If this resonates with with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast.