Habits to ditch if you want a healthy thyroid
Are you looking to support your thyroid health naturally? While there are some steps you can take to enhance your thyroid health, there are habits that are problematic. These can lead to greater stress on the gland, increased inflammation and even feed into the autoimmune process.
Here are the habits I recommend that people eliminate (or at least reduce) for their thyroid’s sake.
Habits to ditch if you want a healthy thyroid
Skipping meals
Fasting is not your thyroid’s friend! There are a couple of reasons why fasting is not a good tool for supporting your thyroid.
Firstly, when you fast, you’re not taking in nutrients. And as we know, there are many key nutrients that help the thyroid to thrive. It’s often a challenge for the average person to get sufficient levels on 3 meals a day – so if you’re fasting on top of that, it’s even less likely.
Secondly, fasting is a form of stress on the body. A stressed body produces hormones such as cortisol that impair your conversion of thyroid hormones. Stress also feeds into inflammation, which is a big issue if you have an autoimmune thyroid issue.
Going too intense with your workouts
This is a common pattern I see with my clients. Their thyroid is struggling, so they pile on some kilos. To try and control this, they start going to the gym every day, doing HIIT sessions multiple times per week… and it doesn’t help anything. If anything, it makes the problem worse.
Intense exercise is another source of stress and inflammation for the body. And if you already have the start of a thyroid issue, this can escalate it quickly.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should stop exercising altogether. We know that physical activity is supportive for the entire body, including the thyroid! But keep the intense sessions to a maximum of 3 per week – and if your thyroid is unhappy, you may need to tweak it down further.
Skimping on sleep
Whoever said you can sleep when you’re dead is clearly not a friend of the thyroid gland! Sleep is not a time that your body is being lazy – it’s a time of resetting, repairing and rebooting for the next day. So if you’re not getting enough sleep, damage and inflammation can pile up. And as you can guess, that’s not good news for your thyroid.
If you’re not getting enough sleep OR if you’re not feeling refreshed when you wake up, your sleep needs some attention. There are multiple possible issues here – from struggling to get to sleep, to waking during the night, or simply not getting sufficient deep rest.
Need to work on your sleep pattern? Start here.
Letting stress pile up
If we know that intense exercise and sleep cause stress on the body, and that’s bad news – it’s clear that the same goes for actual stress.
While you might be able to tell between a physical source of stress like a sleepless night and a mental source like a difficult boss, your body can’t. It’s the same threat, no matter where it comes from or how silly it might seem to you.
When the body is under stress long-term, it goes into survival mode. And part of the survival mechanisms includes slowing down the metabolism, interfering with digestion and putting the immune system on high alert. All of these are bad news for the thyroid.
So if you want a happy thyroid, you need to take your stress levels seriously – even if you think you’re ‘coping’.
No idea where to start with managing your stress? Give these tips a try.
Using countless beauty & personal care products (without knowing what’s in them!)
When you look at the number of beauty products, personal care products and even cleaning products we use, it might not seem like much. But when you count up how many man-made chemicals are in those products, it gets scary.
Then when you consider that these substances have never been tested in combination before they were marked as safe and released to the market? You start to see why so many people are experiencing thyroid issues.
Your thyroid gland is far more sensitive to chemicals and toxins (or toxicants). There are many that have been found to interfere with thyroid function including the conversion of thyroid hormones.
That’s why I recommend understanding what is in these products and how they can affect your wellbeing. Whenever possible, switch to a low-tox/non-toxic option.
THE POWER IS IN YOUR HANDS
When you receive a thyroid disease diagnosis, there’s a good chance you’ll feel overwhelmed and powerless. It could even be that you’re not clear on what’s driving it or where it came from!
But even if you’re still uncovering the cause, it doesn’t mean you need to suffer the symptoms forever! Your daily habits can make a massive difference – all you need to do is learn about your condition and empower yourself.