Thyroid and Adrenal Health for Women

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What are you waiting for? Good night. What if I told you that your thyroid and adrenal health not only are connected— not a news flash, I know— but that your need to floss is also related? Got your attention? My guest is talking about a very important topic or topics for our Flipping 50 members. I mean, listen, who who doesn't wish they had a little bit more energy or wonder, is my metabolism slow maybe because of my lifestyle habits or is it something deeper than that? Maybe that my lifestyle habits are causing thyroid and adrenal health are both key to energy, motivation, metabolism. Need I say more? And if this topic is of interest to you or you suffer from either fatigue or low energy or you feel like your metabolism is suffering unnecessarily, like you don't deserve it, this docuseries I'm about to share with you may be valuable. The Thyroid and Adrenal Health docuseries is currently available. This is only while I'm doing this live at the end of September in 2023. Now chances are this link will take you somewhere. Maybe you can get more information, but I'm gonna have you register if you wanna save your spot. It's flipping50.com/docuseries, just that. And this is for my guest today's hosted docuseries. Happens to be coincidence that we are talking about it here and that he had this available. So as an obvious next step or additional resource for you, I highly recommend it. And I'm also going to plea to your ability as a midlife influencer to share this. So although yes, this is Flipping 50 and we're really addressing with the whole frame of mind around it being women in the middle of their 40s or mid-40s or early 40s to 70s— and if you're here and you're in your 70s, I, I acknowledge that as well— but we influence younger women as well. And that's actually when adrenal stress and thyroid issues begin happening and lifestyle habits are set that either will cause them to start or not. This docuseries may be something appropriate for young women that you influence, or you may wish to watch it in order to better influence them. But I always say it's probably better for somebody that I hope to influence to hear it from a third party maybe that they might listen better, even though it's a message I've told them before. So there's that. I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50, where I address, yes, struggles, concerns, but mostly we want to inspire you and hope to give you a little power to flex the muscle that expects and demands better services and products for women just like us that cater to the hormonal needs that we have right now, that don't expect us to fit into a box like a man or a mouse or a younger woman, not even our younger selves. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and the vitality that you want, need, and deserve in the second and better half. My guest today is a first-time guest. For over 35 years, Jonathan Landsman has been in the health and fitness industry and is the creator of NaturalHealth365.com, one of the most popular health— natural health websites in the world. Natural Health 365 offers a free newsletter, podcast, and videos which reveal the very best information in science and natural health solutions. Throughout his career on the internet, Jonathan has created over 500 online programs with over 300 of brightest minds in natural health and science. He's the creator of many best-selling online educational programs, including the Stop Cancer and Fatty Liver docuseries. To learn more about Jonathan's programs, you can visit Natural Health 365. We'll put the links to connect with him in the show notes, and of course, that docuseries link will be here as well. Let's get started. Jonathan Landsman, thank you so much for joining us here.

Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much. This is such an important topic, and, uh, I, I can't applaud you enough for tackling it because, as we all know, millions and millions of women and even men out there are going to really benefit from a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about. So it's great. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, you bet. And we've got really the powerful one-two punch here. So in the title, putting thyroid and adrenal health really in the same You know, context is we're really getting a wide sweep of a lot of women, and I think one thing we'll want to talk about is how are they related. But before we even do that, would—

let's just start at the very beginning, the ABCs.

Talk about what is adrenal health and how would you know if you, you are not in peachy adrenal health? How do you know you have some adrenal stress going on?

Right, I think it's really simple the way you started it to think that it is a strange concept, Debra, you're right, like adrenals and thyroid because so often, let's just stick to the women which I know mostly listening to your program, women are told, oh my goodness, you have a low thyroid, you have a hyperactive thyroid, but the conversation is not around adrenal health. Adrenals are so intimately connected to the stresses that we feel, but you can't separate them out. And so a lot of what I do in the programming that I create is to bring in these holistic physicians that really tie it all together. How can we have a better, healthier perspective about what I need to do to keep my adrenal health up and running well? And that absolutely, let's just spoiler alert right away at the beginning, Absolutely taking better care of your adrenal health in the way we live our lives is gonna automatically improve thyroid health. So, a lot of times we go through the functional medical tests that people look for a holistic physician. They're obviously frustrated with Western medicine conventionally trained docs that aren't really helping them out of the woods if you will with thyroid issues. They had the medical test, they were told, you know, you're pretty much in the, in the right range, you're a little low, you're a little high, you know, let's try to supplement with maybe some synthetic hormone. It's not working, but there's no conversation about what's causing the thyroid issues. We're gonna definitely talk about that a bit and how to better take care of your adrenal health. And it all comes down to one simple thing. If you feel, and you have to just be honest with yourself, you don't need a medical degree for this. If you feel like you're under a lot of stress, whether that is from physical stresses, like the things we can talk about, toxicity happening inside your mouth from poor dental care, my eating habits are really off, or even something as simple And I hope people are open-minded about this because it is a biggie. Fear of voicing your opinion. So this kind of idea of, you know, I always feel a bit intimidated or shy and I'm holding back. And it's this chronic way of behaving that way that really does create internal stresses, physical, mental, and emotional stresses in our body that then creates these hormonal imbalances, which— and inflammation throughout the body because it is stress, whether it's mental, emotional, or physical stresses from toxicity of our lifestyle. And when you couple all of this together, that's when you get dysfunction, breakdown of the ideal operation of our adrenal glands, which are sitting just on top of our kidneys. And our thyroid gland, which is in and around the throat area. So I hope that kind of gives a very simple overview about where I'm coming from, you know?

Completely does. And I want to go back to something that you said kind of in passing, but I think that even our listeners might have skipped over, skimped over, and not thought, oh, I hope she asked about that. So I'm going to ask the question that maybe they don't know to ask yet, but What is it that we do? I mean, aside from maybe storing some of these traumas and, you know, swallowing words we ideally will say instead, what other lifestyle factors are the opposite of nurturing our adrenals? What's trashing them?

Right. I think we can touch on an area that I never get tired of talking about, Debra., and it is just going to your regular old dentist over the years. Hello, I was just as guilty for years and years. My master's study is in exercise physiology. I went to university, I studied all about natural health, blah, blah, blah. I knew all these things about health, but one area I never really looked at a lot was what a dentist was doing to me. And for over 30 years, Debra, I had mercury-based silver fillings in my mouth. There are root canal-treated teeth that— Debra, again, I hope most people are kind of sitting down and won't get too freaked out about this, but the reality is that a root canal-treated tooth is a dead tooth. It— the very procedure is killing a nerve So you are killing the life force, if you will, of that tooth, which then leads to infections. And all root canal treated teeth over time, obviously there are degrees, but it happens, Debra, they get infected. And all of this, including gum disease, spit out a little blood in the sink, And I can't tell you, Debra, how many people, millions of people are affected by these 3 things alone: mercury-based silver fillings, infected root canal-treated teeth, and gum disease that largely go undetected. Women aren't talking about this with their conventionally trained dentists. It's never coming up in conversations at home with family and friends. And this is going back, Debra, to what I spoke about before. What is it that's that constant physical toxic stress that literally is spilling, mixing with your saliva, spilling into your digestive system? You swallow that. And Debra, a lot of people listening to your program, I'm sure they can understand and appreciate leaky gut syndrome. This is not a good thing. So what happens is we get unwanted debris that gets passed through our digestive system into our bloodstream. Our bloodstream bathes every cell of our body. It absolutely hits the thyroid gland and adrenals. And so these kinds of things, this toxicity, then end up affecting downstream the health of thyroid and adrenal health. This is— these are big issues, and we need to really take them seriously and, and get with a good biological dentist to really talk about these things and, and clean that up as soon as possible. Because the more we can remove stresses, the more we can live the life of our dreams. That's obviously what the goal is of all this.

You were right, you, you got that for sure. And everybody wants their energy back, right? But I think here's the quick fix, right? I'm gonna have some caffeine, or I'm gonna be searching for a little sugar, as opposed to, wait a minute, stopping and saying, hey, look, I have a fairly— I have a fairly healthy lifestyle. I'm, you know, maybe trying to exercise, but looking at the root cause, looking for what is really the reason that I'm reaching for this because I shouldn't need this sugar. I think for every woman listening, you know, if you are, or maybe if I just gave you a reason to pause and say, you know, on a regular basis I have a habit here, there's a pattern, and I'm doing this, I'm reaching for it, you know. And I think the other question is, in the morning If you didn't have your regular matcha or you didn't have your regular coffee, would that be okay? Like, it wouldn't be as ideal. Maybe you like it, you like the ritual, but could you get up with energy? I think giving yourself a reason to say, am I relying on this? Do I have to have it? Or what's true for me? So let's flip this. So if they were— somebody was like, this is me, I think I've got that. I've I've got all those things and how do I fix it? How do I fix these issues?

Right. Obviously, this is not something depending on the severity of the issue that you can do just by yourself. We can talk about some of the at-home self-care tips that are absolutely amazing. But let's just first say that you can go to the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. IAOMT.com or.org. It's gonna get you to the same place. And you will look for biological dentists in your area. There's well over 1,000 throughout the world at this point. It's always growing. You may have to travel, but Debra, I cannot emphasize this enough. You get a good biological dentist that you really feel you can talk to, talk about your issues. Chronic fatigue, what a wonderful thing that you actually said. That is the first sign of, and the basis for all other kinds of serious health issues. Because the fatigue, Debra, is a sign that cells aren't communicating well. And the very first step, sure, you may be eating some organic food, You may be exercising a bit or doing some meditations, doing the best you can. But if there's toxicity that is overflowing in the bathtub, if you will, and spilling out all over the floor, obviously the first step is we've got to turn off the faucet. We've got to clean out that tub. We've got to take care of that immediate issue because just meditating alone, all due respect to it, is not going to take care of this toxicity it's pouring in. At home, now let's say you have gum disease, right? That is something that you really can reduce the risk and eliminate the threat and keep it away from you the rest of your life. This is a biggie because the health of your gums has a lot to do with the health of your teeth. And if your teeth stay healthy and strong, then you don't get the cavities, you don't get the driving need for the root canal treatments that you're going to eventually be pushed into by conventional dentistry. And so the list goes on and on, and you'll be less likely to have those mercury-based silver fillings put into your mouth. The bottom line was that last part is you do have to remove them with a good biological dentist. That's for a whole other program. But you do need to get those out of your mouth as soon as possible. The self care tips are hydro flossing. Sure, you can brush and floss each day, everybody I think gets that. But a hydro floss unit, a bucket of water with a tip on the end of it, where you turn this machine on and it's, and it's spitting out that water and blasts, it will get under the gum lining. And when your gum pockets are large, that's not a good thing. That can easily be measured with a simple probe. Any dentist can tell you what your pocket size is. You want them to be between a 1, 2, or 3. You start getting into bigger numbers, the pocket sizes are bigger, and that's when infections can brew and you have all kinds of issues. The HydroFlossing really keeps the mouth clean. And even if you were bleeding when you brush, you can notice within days that you absolutely can get rid of that bleeding and really improve the health of your gum tissue. Another big thing before we get off the topic, Debra, so big, is you can use saltwater rinses. Just swish around in your mouth to kind of reduce inflammation. There are essential oils, a drop on your finger. I use a blend with peppermint oil, clove, and neem. These are essential oils, great anti-everything, if you will, that we don't want, bacterial, antimicrobial, you know, all these things that we want in our life. You just take a drop of that on your finger, Rub it on your gums. So simple. Each day you could do that, especially if you have gum disease. And there's oil pulling. There's lots of video and lots of programs on oil pulling. A little, you know, coconut oil. You put a little bit in your mouth, you swish it around for 5, 10 minutes, and then you spit it out into the garbage pail. But this really keeps the mouth healthy and fresh It's a great feeling. And then, of course, Debra, the big things are minimize that sugar intake. Really start moving from more, eh, these are sugars I really don't want. Let's just call out the ones like chocolate cake, you know, regular white sugar, processed treats, and move to more natural sugars. But really minimize the sugar. Which is gonna greatly reduce the cellular inflammation. Boost up the quality of your fats and protein that you're eating. Obviously, I'm a big advocate of organic food, but you know, you're looking at coconut oils and avocados, things like this, some olive oil, walnuts, nuts and seeds, organic nuts and seeds as snacks are wonderful quality fats to get into your life every day. And as we mentioned lastly, Debra, think more about what you want to say and just say it. I know that's like, whoa, Jonathan, you were just talking about sugar and seeing a dentist. What? Think more about what you want to say and just say it without anger and upset to move yourself towards your desired goals. I think a big part of taking better care of thyroid, the thyroid gland, and your adrenal glands is really taking a, a better look at yourself. You're of value, you're of worth, your life is important, you have great things to contribute in this world. And it's very important to just think more about what exactly you want to say and do that is gonna greatly improve the quality of your life. What could be more important than that?

Absolutely nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. What does mindset have to do with this though? Talk to me about, I mean, lots of people want it. I think anybody listening would agree, yeah, I want that. I want more energy, I want more vitality. Talk about the mindset of change, because doing the changes to get the change, I mean, that's where there's the gap, right?

Where the rubber hits the road is, I think, always starting off. Look, we're all surrounded by negativity. We all get it. We have people in our lives that are just always negative. That can be a real downer in your life. You have to really be careful I'm sure, Debra, your audience must have heard the term energy vampires. Am I way off here?

No, but we should tell them just in case.

Right. So energy vampires are those people, our family and friends closest to us, that maybe aren't the best people to spend the most time with. So when we want to improve our mindset, We've got to immerse ourselves in podcasts like this. Listen to people, surround yourself with better people in your business and your personal life, your financial life. Always look to surround yourself with these very well-grounded, positive, practical, realistic people that really have look, let's just say it, a brightness about them, right? When you leave a time with them, ah, that felt so good. I can't wait to spend more time with them. What could be more important than that in helping you to maintain this really healthy mindset? But you did ask a very important question, Debra. What does that got to do with thyroid and adrenal health? Remember, we're tying this all into my hormones are off. And it really is so much more than just let me do a test, Jonathan. Stop with all this other stuff. Let me find out what hormone, hormone I'm low in. Let me just take a pill. I'll jack it up and I'll just feel really on fire. My energy will be better, my mindset will be better. That's sort of the Western approach, a pill for every ill. And Debra, I'm here to tell you, with over 35 years experience in this industry and spending most of my time really full tilt in the last 12 years with some of the best integrative healthcare providers in the world, well over 300 of them. They're all saying the same thing. It just doesn't work for millions of people. We have to look at our mindset, improving it, our emotional well-being. It's not really a selfish thing, although sometimes it's put that way, I guess, maybe in the personal development space of, like, you know, be selfish, think of yourself. But the way I look at it if I can suggest, we take good care of ourselves, better care of ourselves, so we can be of better service to the people that we love and we care about around us. It all starts with us. And so I think it's about losing the baggage, really taking an also an honest assessment of, hey, I grew up in a very dysfunctional household, there was a lot of stuff I heard. There was a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want to hear that was told directly to me. You're too heavy. You're not good enough. You're too slow. You're not this, you're not that, or, you know, you'll never get this and you'll never get that. And so a lot of people, even on a very subconscious level, it gets pushed down and we just sort of like, brush it aside over the years, we tend to have this very deep-seated subconscious belief that nothing's really going to work out. I've tried everything, Debra, and I never seem to succeed. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You haven't tried everything. There is so much more you can do, and you absolutely can feel so much better by working on yourself, surrounding yourself with good people. And it works both ways, right, Debra? We think and feel better things about ourselves and others. We lose the idea of resentment and anger and guilt over the past. We try to bring ourselves into the present. We do those things, and we want to actually physically take better care of ourselves. And the other way around as well. We may feel so low, but we get it. We've got to physically get our house in order. And as we improve our diet, as we clean up our mouth and get rid of toxicity in our life, physical chemicals, pesticides, you know, better cleaning agents in the home. And it goes on and on the list. By doing those things, we actually improve our mental and emotional well-being. So it really works both ways to have this physical, mental, and emotional improvement in our life. It improves our hormonal balances. And then, of course, downstream, our thyroid gland and our adrenals will be functioning so much better in the end.

You know, Yep, absolutely love that. And you said so much there really about, you know, the self-care, the domino effect that it has on— I mean, nobody wants to get up in the morning with aches and pains or feeling good, or, right, or have to sit on the bench, you know, or the bleachers while other friends and family are doing the activity and you're waiting forever to be done because you can't participate. That You know, we wait until the end of our lives too often, to our retirement, to have the time, and then we, we end up not having the health necessarily. So, um, I want to really, really backtrack. So this is kind of going to seem a little out of the blue, but you mentioned, you know, more natural sugars, you know, as opposed to processed sugars, obviously. But I'd love for you— well, let's unpack where are sugars hiding that many, many of our listeners may actually be feeling like, why, I eat healthy, that's not me, they're not talking to me. But where might somebody be eating more or a higher sugar diet than they suspect?

Right, I don't know if I can honestly say that it's hiding, but I think we just have to take an honest assessment. Let me give you a personal example, right? I've been doing organic food and I'm this natural health guy for years. But Debra, for years, I was having organic oatmeal, carbohydrates. Oh, they're so healthy for you. Oatmeal, such a nice meal. It's good for you to start your day that way. And Debra, guess what I put inside? Organic, the most highest quality honey. Oh, it was so delicious. Well, Debra, that's like a dessert. Okay. It's like, you know, I mean, I am laughing about it now, but that was just one of the many things. Maybe I had an organic sandwich for lunch, or, you know, I make a pasta dish for dinner with all kinds of veggies and it's all organic. That's just wonderful. And I was athletic as well. Okay, great. So besides those things, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make myself a delicious organic smoothie in a blender. But wait a minute, how much blueberries, how many strawberries, how much fruit am I putting in there compared to quality proteins and superfoods, herbs that I can put in there? A great superfood powder that you can put in for energy is maca. So, this spoonful of maca gives such a rich, tasty flavor to your smoothies, but getting that, you know, good quality protein powder in there as well and toning down the fruit. So, that's another thing or just simply snacking on fruit. So, we take like a half a pint or a pint of organic blueberries and Wow. You know, your blood sugar spikes up and then you just want more sugar and it's never enough. And then please, please, please don't shoot the messenger. Bagels, crackers. Hey, all organic, but cookies and pretzels and chips. You know, you might dunk in with some guacamole and it seems like such a healthy thing you're doing. But it's all the floury products. So you've got your flours and you've got too much grains and you have too much fruit in your diet and 100% organic and it's still way too much sugar. Especially Debra, we're speaking to the people that want to get their game back. They want to get their energy on again. They want to feel well-rested in the evening. Too much sugar at night before you go to sleep and you're going to get up a lot more at night. And that's a really bad thing because at night we need our restorative sleep. We can finish up with some other little solutions that I'd love to talk about. But the bottom line is that's where the sugars are. Of course, don't eat chocolate cake, artificial sweeteners and chewing gum and, and beverages. Those sports drinks that are out there, they're terrible, toxic beverages and chewing gum and snacks that are out there. And even those organic chewy bars that are very high in sugar. Just read the labels, understand the kind of food you're eating. What are the ingredients? And if it's higher in sugar, just look to start replacing with more of those higher quality fats and proteins. Your appetite will be so much more satisfied. You won't have those wild cravings like, I've got to get that sugar to pick up my energy, and I've got such cravings. And that will be such a good thing when those cravings are going away and you feel very stable for hours and hours without having to go for the munchies and eat something. That's going to be a sign that you're eating really, really well. Amen.

Yeah, and it's not just the elimination of sugars, getting that out of there, but I think making room for even higher quality nutrient-dense foods. I always like to have someone think of cravings is not necessarily the body's way of saying you're hungry, but saying that you're micronutrient depleted. And it's, it's knocking on the door. Unfortunately, it's not going to tell, tell you that you need kale and salmon. It's, you know, if there's chocolate cake nearby, you're going to think, oh, that's what I want, right?

You're 100% right, Debra. That is so good. A lot of times, not that I'm a big proponent of you must drink so much water during the day, but in so many cases when we want to eat, we're actually simply looking to take some hydration in. You know, it's like you're going hours, you're taking care of children, a husband, a wife. You've got job responsibilities, you have financial strains, you have demands of family and friends and a regular schedule every day. And you go for hours with a tremendous amount of mental, emotional, and even coupling that with physical stress. And when we eat, we just want to hydrate ourselves. So it's funny when you mentioned kale, all the vegetables that we can snack on and eat, they're so delicious with a little pinch of sea salt. Maybe you drizzle a little olive oil on it as well. And you sprinkle with some herbs, when you're snacking on this, you're getting in such great quality structured water. And it's such a wonderful feeling when you start shifting yourself over there. Look, it doesn't happen overnight, but man, when you get there, it feels really good to do those things.

Yeah, I so love it. And you have given so many nuggets and points of clarity on thyroid, on adrenals, on things that may be contributing to a lack thereof of thyroid and adrenal health that potentially someone has not put together before. So I so appreciate that. We have had guests on that have talked about— that have been biological dentists, and yet I don't know that we've put these two things and the idea and the concept together quite as clearly as you did today. So Jonathan, for listeners who want to follow you and learn more from you, where's the best place for them to connect?

Well, let's focus in on this topic, and we do have a special destination for everybody that's listening to your program. And Debra, thank you so much for the kind words. We, we try really hard over here at our Natural Health 365 programs to, to get this kind of information out in detail and, pardon the pun, easy-to-digest format. So, they can go to Natural Health, like to be healthy, naturalhealth365.news/flipping50. If they go there, they're gonna get great information about thyroid and adrenal health, a wonderful program, no cost to them. Thanks to you, that they can get involved in and listen to amazing, holistic, natural-minded, really great physicians that are in the trenches helping people every day to feel so good. Again, it's naturalhealth365.news/flipping50.

Fantastic. Tell me one thing. Flipping 5-0 or Flipping 50 spelled out?

Flipping 5-0.

Okay, perfect. I got it. All right, listeners, if you're walking, you're lifting, or definitely if you're driving, we've got you covered. The link will be in the show notes, so I want you to come over here to flipping50.com/thyroidandadrenalhealth to get all the links and meet with Jonathan for more information and something special based on this podcast. And what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today.