Finding the Root Cause of Adrenal Fatigue with Dr. Tricia Pingel

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Hey, this is JJ Virgin.

Welcome and thanks so much for joining me.

This is Ask the Health Expert. Here I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top people in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways.

To get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, detox, and lots more.

So if you want to get healthy.

And get off that dieting for life.

Merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better fast. Okay, what's been the unanimous thing over the last year? Stress. So I have an amazing adrenal fatigue expert with me today to talk about what that's doing to us. I think we probably have a pretty good sense and more importantly, how to recognize the symptoms and then what is critical to do. What are the four things you must do? You're probably doing three of them, but I'm betting you're not doing the fourth, which means you may be stuck a little bit in some of the symptoms. We've got you covered. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Patricia Pingle. She's a naturopathic medical doctor and an expert on adrenal fatigue and the physical impact of stress on the body. How did she get here? Well, she was struggling with multiple symptoms throughout her life that were routinely dismissed as normal. And she started digging around. She discovered naturopathic medicine and was able to eliminate her symptoms by focusing on the root cause of disease, which was stressful, and turning it around with proper diet, supplements and stress management. And then she started digging around and looking with her patients and realizing all the stuff she was seeing over and over again had one common root to it and you guessed it, stress. So that's what we'll be digging into today. She's the author of Total Health Turnaround, which has sold over 60,000 copies and she has been on mindbody green. Our buddies over there eat this, not that health magazine and more. And by the way, we also have her cookbook. You want to grab this? It's going to help you eat more veggies deliciously and you'll be able to get that@jjvirgin.com Dr. Cookbook. And that is Dr. Cookbook. I'll be right back with Dr. Trisha Pingle. Stay with me.

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Doctor Tricia Pingle, welcome to the show. Super excited to be talking to you. So we are going to be talking about adrenal fatigue and stress, which it's certainly timely if, if someone didn't have it in prior to this last year, I'm sure they probably got it now. So to kind of dig into this, I'd love to first get into your story as to how this was interesting to you, why you've decided to become an expert in adrenal fatigue and expert in stress. What got you into it?

Well, when I went into naturopathic medicine, you know, when you come out of med school, you think, I'm going to try everything and dabble in everything. And what I kept finding is that every single condition I dealt with, whether it thyroid or gut, health or hormones or nutrition, all linked back to stress. Or we're aggravated by stress and we live in a stressful society. And over the course of the last, I don't know, 10 years, for sure, we, you know, have these cell phones that bing at us all the time, and it's now, now, now, now, now. And that's having an impact on our body and the way that our body absorbs nutrients and the way that it metabolizes and is having an impact on our health. So when I looked at all of that, I found that all of our main medical conditions that we have in our country, as well as all the medications that we regularly prescribe, link back to stress and can be helped by managing stress. So I kind of just, you know, I found a hole of an area of medicine that a lot of people weren't talking about and they weren't talking to their patients about, and they weren't working with them on. And I thought, I'm in. I love it. I think it's great. And then I started to see. I started to see all these amazing recoveries and all these people who, you know, were extremely tired or fatigued or had thyroid problems or hormone irregularities, and all of a sudden they started to lose weight, they started to feel better. You know, their skin, their hair, their nails, their mood, their sleep all improved. So, yeah, so I've spent a lot of time in this arena because I just think it can't hurt to take better care of yourself and reduce your stress.

Right. It's definitely not going to have some kind of side effect. That's horrible. Oh, my gosh. She got better sleep. So why do you think it is that as you're digging through and it seems to be, like, at the root of all of these different problems, it wasn't being addressed. Is it just that it was hard to quantify or what?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with time. I mean, the time that most physicians spend with their patient, you know, it's like, well, hey, are you feeling okay? Oh, well, Doc, I'm kind of depressed or I kind of feel stressed out. Okay, well, here's your script for your antidepressant, and take care, you know, see you next year. So I think a lot of it had to do with not a lot of time for people to really feel comfortable, to dive into what stress is. I also think stress is far more accepted. We don't recognize necessarily the stress we're under at times because we're just go, go, go, go, go all the time. So I think it's a combination of a lot of that. And once you start recognizing it and seeing how it's impacting your health. You know, you can start to make valuable changes, and I love the outcome from that. So, yeah, I think if we talk about it more, we ask people more about it and help. Help you understand, you know, what. What's going on in your body when you're under stress physiologically, and what can we do about it?

Okay, so there's two cool things to dig into then. The first is how would you recognize that you're having it, that it's an issue? Because, you know, we're all going to have some stress. The body needs some stress. It's like, when does it get into distress? And then what is that? The impact that this is having on you. So let's take the first part. Like, how would you recognize that stress is an issue?

I think what most people find when they come to see me is that they just don't feel well, but nobody can find anything. It's like, oh, I know my thyroid's impacted. I'm gaining weight, I'm tired, I'm not sleeping well. And then they have their labs done and everything's fine, you know, or these little symptoms are happening and I don't recognize it. So I think whenever someone's feeling something, but there's no underlying example of what it is, or they're being told they're fine when they know they're not fine, that's a good indication that there might be some stress there that needs to be addressed. I think all of us, I mean, I'm a mom of two. I have two boys. I have a family. You know, I have family responsibilities. I have jobs. I have all these things that I manage. And anytime that I'm feeling that, trying to think how to describe it, like that feeling of just overwhelmed. Like, I use this example, like, my child could walk in and say, hey, mom, can I have a sandwich? You know, And I'm like, oh, my gosh, not now. No, I don't have time, you know, and it's like little things, things just kind of, you know, all of us have it. But I find yourself overwhelmed with the little things. And you can't add one more thing to your list, or I don't have time for that, or I have to do the word have to. There's a lot of power in the word have to versus get to or want to. So when you find yourself saying, I have to. Oh, no, now I gotta do this. Oh, I've gotta be here. Oh, I have to, you know, so and so made me do this. I think we need to take a good look at stress and really take an underlying look at not only are you under stress, but how far has it impacted your health nutritionally, emotionally and physically.

So then the first off thing is I think most people would be aware that there's an issue if a huge life event. Like I had a huge life event where my son was hit by a car while crossing the street and left for dead and was in the hospital for four and a half months. Obviously huge stressor. In fact, my buddy Dr. Hyla Kass, who's written by of stress books, came to the hospital that night with like a big bag of, of all of these stress supplements and stuff. But, and you would expect that. But that's not most people. Most people it's these little things upon little things upon little things. So how would you then know, like what are then these signs? Like what's it doing to you?

Yeah, well there you're right. The external stressor is very easy to identify. And I think there's been numerous times where I've been speaking, speaking to someone and I say, are you under stress? And they're like, no, my life is good. You know, because they don't have external stressors, but we also have internal stressors. So for example, if you take a medication that causes a stress on the body because it has to adapt to it, right. If you have a certain medical condition that causes an internal stressor, you have a nutrient deficiency, you're low in vitamin C or antioxidants, those have internal stresses as well, and those then cause more stresses. So we end up kind of in this hamster wheel of ever going stress. Some of the symptoms of that, fatigue, hair loss, weight gain, skin changes, hormone changes, low libido, snappy mood, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, I mean pretty much heartburn. I mean pretty much anything that we deal with that could be assigned to a bunch of other medical conditions that aren't being diagnosed as those.

And why does, why are those things happening? Like what is happening in the body to make those things happen?

Yeah. So I like to use this example. If you were in the woods and you saw a bear, your body adapts to that moment, right? Your heart rate goes up, you divert all the energy to your muscles to run. You don't remember where you run, you don't think about anything. You just go to your destination and when you get there, you're there. And ideally we're supposed to recover from that. And I think in our current times we don't it's like you get away from a bear and you look and you're like, oh, man, there's another bear. And then you got to run again. And then you got to run again. And so what starts to happen is cortisol, which is released in that moment of seeing the bear, is adapting your body to that stress. And if it doesn't have that opportunity to calm down and access the nervous system in our body that calms us and rests and repairs, which is the parasympathetic nervous system, we end up in this fight or flight, this running from a bear all the time. And then cortisol has an impact on our insulin, it has an impact on our heart rate, it has an impact on our inflammation, our immune system, the way we utilize thyroid, the way that we manufacture and store hormones. So I see a lot of estrogen dominance. I see a lot of subclinical hypothyroidism. I see a lot of poor immune function. That could be anything from autoimmune disease to just getting colds and flus regularly or being more susceptible to illness. You know, I see a ton of heartburn from this because you're not going to digest your food when you're running from a bear. You're not going to stop and have sex when you're running from a bear, and you're not going to remember how you got there. So I see a ton of brain fog. A lot of people complaining about dementia, losing my mind. Am I going crazy? Why can't I remember anything? And of course you can't. Cortisol puts us in that fight or flight in order to save our lives, but we have to recover from that in order to repair.

All right, so let's talk recovery, because let's say, so you're under chronic stress. And I remember the first night in the hospital, standing there, getting heartburn, going, oh, shoot. You know, all the stuff you're like, shoot. But that was. That was an acute set of stress. But that became chronic, obviously. And I think for most people, it's not the. It's not the. You know, it's not the car accident. It's what happens afterwards. It's the day in, day out. You're all of a sudden the CEO of your house and making sure everything's good with your kids. And then you're also running your business, and then you're also, you know, all of these things piled up at once. And. And the other thing is, there might be great things like you're moving or you're getting Married, but they're all stressed. So you've got this chronic stress. And it's not like a lot of these things can be. It's not like you can give your kids away. I mean, I guess you could, but that's frowned upon. So, you know, you've got some things that can't really change. So what does one do?

Yeah, well, exactly. Well, first of all, I think getting a good lab workup, talking to a physician about what is going on and seeing.

Well, what would the good lab work be?

Yeah, so going into things like looking at the full, full thyroid. Most, most doctors don't screen thyroid effectively. They screen Just a TSH. And I look at things like TSH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, also looking at inflammatory markers, cortisol levels, DHEA levels, hormone levels, and taking a really good intake. Because here's the thing, cortisol has, you know, touch points on pretty much everywhere in our health. So if you have little bit of symptoms in every single arena, often you can link that back to a root cause. And finding that root cause is so imperative because then you can start to repair it. We all have stress, as you said, sometimes very extreme. Sometimes it's just that phone in our pocket that buzzes at the wrong time that causes that cortisol output. So looking at a full lab workup and then I focus on four main aspects of repair. First of all, diet, nutrition is so important because when you release cortisol, you deplete nutrients. The ones that are the most depleted, vitamin C, which is a very potent antioxidant and very important for our immune system. I see a ton of depletion in methylated B vitamins like B5, B6, folate, B12, tons of deficiencies in magnesium. In fact, I think last time I checked, magnesium was like one of the number one deficiencies in our society. So you get a lot of muscle aches, pains, fatigues from that as well.

You can't get good vitamin D levels if your magnesium's low 100%.

And also, you got me excited. So also, vitamin D also is made from cholesterol. Well, cortisol is also made from cholesterol. So if your body has to divert to running from a bear, it's going to down regulate everything else it has to do because it's not important. What's important is getting away from the bear. So, yes, vitamin D, huge and huge in the immune system, very commonly deficient in adrenal fatigue, thyroid problems. So, so focusing on diet and supplementation for the Nutrients that are lost is important. The second thing is exercise, wherever you may start. I always say to people, they think that if I say exercise, they think they have to be full bore, two hours a day. You start where you are and you continue to grow in exercise because exercise helps the body repair. And in many cases somebody who's really stressed out, they don't have the energy to go do a hiit workout. And that's okay. You start with yoga, you start with stretching, you start with walking. Things that also have the mind body aspect, which is another prong of that gratitude. Reframing, taking that stressful situation where my child walks in and asks for a sandwich and recognizing, oh, hey, I probably shouldn't have said that. I'm just under stress. And repairing that relationship or reframing the situation is always important. So yes, diet, exercise, supplementation and mind body is kind of the four, four step approach to really honing in on repairing those adrenal glands. And it's all individualized based on that lab work and based on that evaluation, because there are no two symptoms or people that are the same with adrenal fatigue. We're all different, you know, and that's why it's not a diagnosis, it's a syndrome, because it's a collection of symptoms.

I know.

I'm wondering why. I remember, I think it was probably 20 years ago. I was working one day a week. I would go to LA and work out of a doctor's office and I was running a lot of adrenal salivary indexes on clients because I was in LA and everyone, everyone was messed up. And the doctor was, was like the worst of the worst. Had, couldn't control his blood sugar, couldn't lose weight, had chronic issues with, with heartburn. And so I was like, gosh, you've got, you've got adrenal exhaustion. And his wife was a professor at the medical school at usc. And she goes, there is no such thing as that. I go, let's just call it burnout. Okay?

Things burnout.

Yeah. I'm like, all right, we'll just call it that. But I mean, even back then I remember people saying, you know, there's no such thing as that. There's no such thing as leaky gut. I'm like, okay, huh? I wonder what the heck it is that I'm seeing over here. But it's like, when are we going to recognize this as a syndrome? I mean, how much? Like, if this last year hasn't proven it out, I don't know what it's going to take. And when are we going to start prescribing, like meditation and exercise? And I think exercise is a tricky one. You know, I've had some, some doctors out there go, okay, well, if you're adrenally exhausted, don't do anything. I'm like, well, that's, you know, no, you know, you need to, you've got to start to do a little bit so that your body can start to recover. The answer isn't to do nothing. So I'm glad that you said that. It's like, see what you can do and build on it. You don't have to start out with like a massively intensive high intensity interval training workout. But, but once you can get those in, my gosh, they can do so much for training your sympathetic nervous system to handle stress better.

We're meant to move, right? We were born to move. We're creatures of movement. And you know, on the, you're saying in the last year. I just read a study just a couple weeks ago and it said they did a survey on moms in 2021 and 93% reported burnout.

Did. The other 7% just weren't paying attention. They were asleep or, you know, too.

Exhausted to respond or maybe they didn't recognize it and they just thought they're in that, like, super, you know, because the earlier parts of adrenal fake, you feel fatigue, you feel great.

Yeah, that's. You never see anybody. When I was back working one on one, I never saw people in the early stages, they were like, yahoo. And then it was like, I'd see them when they started to gain weight.

Yes.

And I think this is a really important thing and I'll share this. You know, for someone going, ah, I'm not going to pay attention to that because it's not as easy to quantify. But there's so many quantifiable metrics. Like one of the ones that I see the most is you're eating well, you're exercising, but your blood sugar's high. You know, your triglycerides are good, but your blood sugar's high. It's like, okay, wait a minute, you know, that's a stress one. But I started doing Dr. Joe Dispenza work last year. I went to three of his workshops, started doing a lot of his stuff. Crazy thing is, so here you are now, meditating hours a day. Nothing else changed. Same diet, same exercise. But I added in at the workshops, your meditating hours, I added in every day, doing anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes of meditation. I dropped £5. It's the only change. And I was telling him about it, and he goes, yeah, that's called the no thing diet. Because he has this whole thing about being nowhere, nobody, no thing. It's the nothing diet. But it's an important thing to look at in terms of stress, because if you are struggling with hair loss or breakouts or gas and bloating and you've done the other things, like, you've gone, okay, I'll fix my diet, but I'm still running around like a crazy person, and I'm not going to take the time. Like, you talked about those four pillars, that mindfulness pillar is the most challenging because it's not as easy as, like, I'll take some 5,000 milligrams of. Or I use a vitamin D. Okay, check. I'll do my HIIT training. Check. You know, I will pull out my food intolerances. Check, check. But then the other part's so, like, amorphous. But. But if you've done all those other things and you're still struggling, it's all parts of that equation have to be in place or it's not going to work.

And that's hands down, the hardest aspect is the mind body. I have found that all the way across forward, people will do the diet, they'll do the workouts, they'll do the supplements, and they'll be like, but I don't understand why I'm not losing weight. And I'm like, that's why. Like, you know, you have to start where you are, and not everyone starts in the same place. And I think there's a level of acceptance that has to come from that, that a lot of people fight and accepting where you are, you're here. I have a sign on my wall at the office that say, you're in. You're here in this moment because you're meant to be here, you know, in this moment. And you can only make any change that you can make right now. You can't worry about what just happened or what's going to happen. It's great to set goals, but I think also there's a lot of value in what you're in right now and what you've been through as part of the process. Healing is a process. Losing weight is a process. If you want to lose weight for a long period of time, for the rest of your life, it's a gradual and progressive growth, and there's a lot of value in that growth. And it is. It's probably hands down the most difficult part for people to recognize. Hands down. And it's hard for me to meditate even I have a difficult time with it. But I usually go outside. I find if I go outside and I take a walk or something and just kind of lose myself in nature, I am able to kind of release the stress without having to formally sit there and meditate because I do have a busy mind, which many people do.

Well, I listen. I have to listen to guided or I'm off. I'm off on my to do list. But I think that's another important thing is to find that thing that works for you. And remember, I remember I used to teach this course for doctors called Overcoming Weight Loss Resistance. And people would do, they try to do all of it but leave out one piece. And I go, yeah, that you can't bake a cake and decide you're just going to like selectively leave out like the flour or the egg. So you have to do all these pieces. So if you've been listening to this going, you know, yeah, I've got all, I've got almost all of it. Look at that piece that you're resisting because it's probably the piece that's going to do the big shift for you.

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Now, I know you have a great cookbook too that you're giving everybody. I'm going to put that cookbook over@jjvirgin.com Dr. Cookbook. Dr. Cookbook. What's in there? Tempt us.

Well, one of my favorites is a sweet potato curry. You know, I'm really big on vegetables now. I'm personally vegan. I don't think everyone should be vegan. I think everybody has the diet that works for them that they come to work towards. But I do believe, and the studies all show that lots of plants and rotations of good organic, non GMO plants and foods are better for your health. So all of these incorporate that. So it's a way to make working with plants and cooking with plants a little bit more fun. My husband would always say, I don't want to eat salad every day. You don't have to eat salad every day. You can eat all sorts of wonderful things with great flavor and still get a lot of rotation of plants. So this book will kind of help you get a kickstart with that.

Nice. We're always looking for good veggie recipes. There's always a, you know, it's like, that should be the biggest part of your plate. So definitely an agreement there. So excellent. You can get that again@jburgin.com Dr. Cookbook, Dr. Cookbook and Dr. Tricia Pingle. And I was just saying before we got on, like, if you can see her, if you've seen seen her, you're watching this on YouTube. Her, her. You are like the perfect Dr. Pingle. Like, it just fits you. It's like, I don't know why either. Anyway, thank you so much for being with me today and sharing all of this super important information, especially now.

My goodness, yes, absolutely. So take care of yourself and take care of your health and your, your health matters. So we can't help everybody else if we're not healthy, right?

Exactly. Thank you. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

For more info on this and other health topics I cover or to rate and review, find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojay.com thanks again for being with me this week.

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