Do you find yourself constantly battling your hypothyroid symptoms? Many women have told me their doctor is continually increasing their medication. The dosage will be ok for a while then symptoms return and back to the doctor they go. They are never told what is causing the increasing dosage and what they can do to help. Most women aren’t sure if they have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism. Each has it’s own root cause and without knowing, autoimmune healing is difficult.
Hypothyroidism can have many root causes that either causes hypothyroidism or autoimmune hypothyroidism. In this post, we are going to focus on the autoimmune hypothyroidism, because most hypothyroidism is caused by autoimmune dysfunction. Any of the tips discussed will help with all autoimmune healing, not just autoimmune hypothyroidism healing.
Autoimmune Hypothyroidism
Autoimmune hypothyroidism, also known as Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, is part of the autoimmune umbrella. Autoimmune disease is caused by the body making antibodies that attack certain cells in the body. In thyroid disease, the antibodies are created to attack the thyroid.
When the thyroid is under attack, the thyroid can’t make enough of the thyroid hormones. Without enough thyroid hormone, symptoms can occur. If you have hypothyroidism, you know these symptoms well. They may include: fatigue and extreme tiredness, cold sensitivity, dry skin, muscle pain and weakness, constipation, brittle nails, hair loss, anxiety and depression, and more.
Many of the symptoms make motivation to find autoimmune healing difficult, but there is healing.
Autoimmune Healing
Finding the root cause to the problem is where you would start to find autoimmune healing. When helping women with autoimmune healing like healing from Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, I do something called “clear the muddy waters”. I help women clean up the lifestyle habits that are known triggers. From there, we are able to gain more clarity on if there is a deeper rooted problem. Many times this goes a long way in autoimmune healing, but there are deeper problems occasionally.
Lifestyle Habits Wreaking Havoc on Your Autoimmune Healing
Not focusing on HOW to eat
We all know how to eat right? That’s easy…put food in, chew and swallow. Your body will do the rest.
If only it was that easy! In our world, we have the mentality that we can’t sit because we won’t be productive if we sit. We may be viewed at as lazy. So we rush through everything. We even rush through our meals.
Because autoimmune diseases tend to start in the gut, that’s where I start with autoimmune healing. Focusing on the HOW to eat is the farthest upstream you can go when fixing your gut. Some things you can start on immediately is to Smell, Pray, and Chew. Smell your food before your first bite to start salivating and turn the rest of your digestive system on. Say a prayer of thankfulness to help calm your spirit. And chew until your bite is almost liquid.
Staying Stressed
Stress does a whammy on your health. Stress causes the body to be in the sympathetic part of the nervous system, aka fight or flight. Women that have autoimmune diseases don’t know how to switch back into the parasympathetic part, aka rest and digest.
When in fight or flight, you aren’t able to rest and digest. Meaning, you can’t digest and break down your food well. Bloating, gas, constipation, fatigue all increase because you aren’t utilizing the food you’re eating.
Learning how to switch into the parasympathetic part of the nervous system is an essential part of autoimmune healing.
Eating High Glycemic Index Diets
Foods high in processed, simple carbohydrates (white bread, sweetened drinks, desserts, candy, chips, pretzels, fast food) are considered high glycemic index foods. The glycemic index is a scale of how fast a food will increase blood sugar. The faster the blood sugar spike, the higher that food is on the glycemic index.
The problem with that is the insulin release. With blood sugar spikes comes insulin. Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas that tells the cells to take in the blood sugar. With high glycemic index diets, the pancreas gets overworked and the cells can become insulin resistant. Insulin resistance can lead to weight gain, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and inflammation.
Staying Sedentary
Living a sedentary lifestyle creates problems in every system in the body. For autoimmune healing, movement has to be part of the plan. It doesn’t have to be marathon training, just movement everyday. Some people find it helpful to have a pedometer to count steps. Shooting for 8,000-10,000 steps a day is a great place to start.
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