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Self-Care

Thyroid Clues Part 5-Medicine Cabinet Culprits

Liz James · April 20, 2022 ·

Remember the fable about the Princess💃 and the pea🟢? You may recall that the true princess felt the effects of a pea beneath twenty mattresses and had a terrible night’s sleep because of it. After all we’ve discussed, you well understand that the thyroid🦋 is the discerning princess in the body……it feels everything!
 
It’s hard to pin down exactly how many people use medication chronically in the USA, but a rough estimate in 2017 was 66%. (I believe that number has risen significantly since 2020, but to date, official data has not yet been released).
 
I will forever and always say that there is a time and a place for medication, but that it should be used as a last resort whenever possible. Pharmaceuticals by very definition are a toxin to the body. While they may be performing their “FDA approved task” within the body, behind the scenes they are likely setting up trip wires, snares, and grenades elsewhere. Many commonly prescribed medications are quietly sabotaging thyroid hormone function as they outwardly “play nice” in their appointed tasks of lowering cholesterol, quelling aches and pains, placating gastric reflux symptoms, smoothing out moody days, etc.
 
Certain medications have the ability to affect thyroid hormones in at least four ways:
1. Some may alter the actual production of thyroid hormones.
2. Some may affect the release of of thyroid hormones from the thyroid gland.
3. Some may affect how well thyroid hormone attaches to (or utilized) at receptor sites.
4. Some may interfere with the conversion of inactive T4 into active T3 in the liver
Who are the thyroid accosting culprits?🕵️ As I hinted above, the gang is quite diverse. Nearly ⅓ of this gang of thieves bears a similar “tattoo”…….. They contain fluoride within their chemical structure. You’ll recall (hopefully!) that fluoride (and chlorine, another “tattoo” found in many medications) blocks iodine from its job helping the thyroid produce thyroid hormones. These small doses add up over time with chronic use medications.
 
Medications known to inhibit healthy thyroid function (in one of these four ways) with chronic use include:
💊Lipitor, Crestor, Vytorin, Zetia (cholesterol meds)
💊 Prevacid (stomach acid / GERD)
💊 Betamethasone, Clobetasol, Dexamethasone, Fluocinolone, Fluticasone (topical, oral or inhaled steroids)
💊Celebrex, Ibuprofen, Naproxen (NSAID pain)
💊 Lexapro, Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, Zoloft (mood stabilizers)
💊 Haldol, Risperdal, Lithium (mood stabilizers)
💊 Levaquin, Cipro (antibiotics)
💊 Synthetic hormone replacement therapies, birth control pills
💊 Amiodarone (treats ventricular heart arrhythmia)
💊Fluconazole (antifungal)
💊 Interferon Alfa, Sutent, Sorafenib (chemotherapy agents)
💊 Pramipexole, Ropinirole (for Parkinson’s)
💊 Metformin (Type II Diabetes)
💊 Furosemide (diuretic)
💊 Phenytoin and Carbamazepine (for seizures)
💊 Excessive Niacin (Vit B3) intake
 
(Note that this is a short representation of a very long list of medications!)
I am in no way inferring that you should stop taking medication that you may be currently on because it may be affecting your thyroid function. That is a conversation between you and your trusted health professional. According to an article by the Natural Health Research Institute, almost 75% of chronic illness can be improved or cured with improved lifestyle choices. Has your health professional talked to you about this as part of your treatment protocol?
 
Statistics like this are meant to empower you. Chronic disorders are generally where chronic medication use comes into play, and changing lifestyle habits can have a huge impact on health outcomes and on pharmaceutical needs.
 
Five significant ways your choices can impact your health include:
1. Reduce exposure to toxins (thank goodness for our YL Thieves Household Cleaner, essential oils that do “all the things” in a natural gentle way, Savvy Minerals cosmetics and the ART, Bloom, and Orange Blossom skin care lines!)
 
2. Making better food choices (and ditching the toxic processed foods)
 
3. Exercise. There is an exercise program / type out there that will work no matter what health situation you may be living with! (NingXia Nitro or Zyng 15-20 minutes prior to workouts elevates my gym workout routine!)
 
4. Sleep….Make sleep a priority. Improve your sleep hygiene habits! Some of my favorite sleep aids are YL’s Tranquil or RutaVala Roll-on…. Give ‘em a try and load your bedtime diffuser with oils like Cedarwood, Lavender, Peace & Calming, Frankincense, Orange )
 
5. Manage stress. Recall that chronic stress is as dangerous as a regular cigarette habit to the body. Even simply working on the four previous suggestions will have a profound impact on better management of stress.
 
In addition to making healthier lifestyle choices that lead to a healthier version of you (and protecting your thyroid🦋 in the process), here’s an added bonus: Annually, direct health care costs average $6032 out of pocket💰 for an individual with one chronic disease (that number goes up with each additional disorder). Indirectly, chronic disorders also have a profound impact on education, occupation opportunities, income, and social interaction. If your health professional has not offered up these five recommendations as part of protocols for any chronic disorder you may have, they are working as a dis-ease maintenance advocate instead of that as a healer. Ultimately though, it’s our personal responsibility to be our own advocates and in doing so, choosing whether to live in a space of dis-ease maintenance or healing. Care for that thyroid “princess” within your personal kingdom friends! It’s often the first organ in the body to recognize that something is amiss.
 
xoxo~ liz
 
 
#caringissharing
#becomingyourownhealthdetective
#BYOHD
#goodmedicine
#applicationofknowledgeispower
#supersleuthhealthclues

How Does My Feelings Affect My Thyroid?

Liz James · April 12, 2022 ·

Thyroid Clues Part IV: Emotions, Feelings, and the Thyroid
 
Mind🧠, body💪 and spirit🙏 are so deeply interconnected that it is impossible to be robustly healthy if this triad is out of balance in any way. The “spirit” of what makes us ….”us” is a composite of beliefs, life experiences, relationships, and memories. Outwardly, this clue set may be exhibited to some small degree by our personality. Frankly though, an individual’s personality is the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath the surface (feelings) always play a leading role in both sickness and health. No one holds the knowledge of your “submerged iceberg self” better than you, which is yet another reason why being your own CEO and chief health detective🕵️ is so utterly important.
 
Surely you’ve heard of people who have died of a broken 💔heart. This phenomenon has been closely studied and acknowledged by science. Interestingly, we (as a society) tend to lean more into accepting the role of emotions and feelings in a death than we do the role personal belief and hope plays in an abundant life, and we certainly tend to overlook them (emotions and feelings) as responsible parties in health and wellness in day to day living.
 
How does this fit into the puzzle🧩 of thyroid health? Quite well actually! Every organ and part of the body is affected at a cellular level by emotions, feelings, and memories, and learning to let go of that which doesn’t serve us is profoundly important in wellness and healing. The thyroid is, as you may recall, highly sensitive to changes in its environment. The “frequency” in which we “bathe” ourselves daily affects the health and performance of the thyroid. Frequency is not voodoo. It’s biology and physics. Everything (including our cells) is in a constant state of vibration, and any disease process will be evident as a disturbance in the structure and function of these frequencies. Positive emotions and feelings drive frequencies upwards (healthy), while negative emotions and feelings drive frequencies downwards (unhealthy).
 
Emotions and feelings tend to get blended together, yet they are not interchangeable.
 
Emotions:
🤨They may manifest either consciously or subconsciously, and are a physical state or reaction to an event.
🤨They keep us alive! They are a primal response, and are deeply coded into our genetic being!
🤨They happen before feelings evolve about the event that occurred.
🤨They can be measured by facial expressions , body language, blood flow, racing heart, tightening of muscles, skin response, pupil dilation (etc)
🤨They generally last anywhere from a few seconds to an hour. Once the emotion has passed, the body returns to balance ( homeostasis).
 
Feelings are quite different.
 
🤨They are experienced consciously.
🤨They are a reaction (caused by emotions), and often influenced by personal experience, beliefs, and memories
🤨Feelings originate in the neocortical region of the brain (the home of conscious thought and separate from the limbic system which houses emotions ).
🤨Feelings form when your brain assigns a meaning to the emotional experience, and are mental interpretations of a situation.
🤨Feelings don’t drift off after an hour (like emotions do). They hang around because of a vast network of personal experiences, belief systems, and memories we hold individually.
🤨Ultimately, feelings are psychological responses while emotions are biological actions.
 
The thyroid is the on location storage facility for some pretty hefty feelings. Some of these include:
 
🦋Conflict between the conscious and subconscious
🦋Feeling limited or stuck
🦋Struggling with love of self or feeling unable to speak up for oneself
🦋Feeling a need to be in total control or feeling out of control
🦋Feelings of humiliation
🦋Feeling fearful of self expression
🦋Feeling a deep sense of frustration
🦋Feeling chronically fearful of anxious
 
Pairing the storage site (thyroid) with the lower vibrational frequency of harboring any of these negative feelings long term, and you may unearth a clue that has tremendous value in your thyroid health journey.
 
Now, what to do with this clue? There are a couple of valuable resources I’d like to point you towards:
Who Switched off my Brain? Controlling toxic thoughts and emotions by Dr. Caroline Leaf
And…..
The Pathway to Emotional Healing by Jen McCraw
 
These two books are extraordinarily valuable resources for healing the damage that stored negative feelings can inflict on the body. Doing “all the other things” (avoiding gluten, managing your iodine and other micronutrients, exercise, sleep hygiene etc etc etc) will never be enough if your spirit is not at peace.
 
Some of the essential oils you may consider when working towards healthy feelings (and subsequently, a healthy thyroid) as you nurture your spirit might include:
💧Endoflex: supportive of mind, body (endocrine system) and spirit
💧Transformation: supports feelings of positivity and self awareness
💧Valor: supports feelings of courage and confidence
💧Envision: supports feelings of creativity and resourcefulness
💧Surrender: supports the desire to let go of either too much control or uncontrollable behaviors
💧Highest Potential or Awaken: supports an awareness of limitless potential!
💧Peace & Calming: supports a positive peaceful atmosphere and mindset
💧Sacred Mountain: supports feelings of strength and empowerment
💧Believe: supports and encourages feelings of faith and inner strength
💧Release: helps facilitate the ability to let go of anything that no longer serves you
💧Cardamom, Pine, Myrtle, Frankincense, and Lavender are additional oils that are helpful in supporting healthy (thyroid affective) feelings and letting go of those which do not serve.
 
Oils are not🚫 🧙magic friends. They are tools🛠 just as are the two books I’ve mentioned above. Neither the oils or the books will be helpful if they are bought and put on a shelf unused. The tools🛠 are there for the healer to use. YOU have the capability to be your own healer. It’s within you to do this. It’s hard work and it’s heart work, and you are worth the effort!
 
“Each patient carries his own doctor inside of him [or her!]. They come to us not knowing the truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.” ~ Dr. Albert Einstein
 
xoxo~ liz
 
#sharingiscaring
#becomingyourownhealthdetective
#goodmedicine
#mindbodyspiritconnection
#healthythyroidhealthylife
#dothehardthings

Weather Prepping

Liz James · March 31, 2022 ·

We live in north Texas and the “in like a lion and out like a lamb (with everything in between ⚡️🌪🌬🥴😳😱❄️💨💥!)” is certainly a possibility in nearly any given week in the Spring. And yet, we love where we live in spite of the “wait an hour and see what the weather’s got planned” springtime drama. We had just such a night a few days ago🥴!
This Mother Earth News article is a great reminder on preparedness. At the end of the article there is a nifty list of what to have easily available on hand.
One of the highly suggested items is a first aid kit, medication, and any special need health items. I’ve personally created my own first aid kit that is pretty exclusively YL essential oil based. Have you done this too? Let me say……. it’s saved our keesters on more than one occasion!
Categories of interest you might consider when you build your kit:
❓bites and stings
❓animal bites or wound care
❓bleeding
❓burns
❓ fainting
❓nausea
❓anxiety or nervousness (calming)
❓Whatever you personally use on a daily basis that you consider a “necessary” part of your daily life.
What’s in your kit? 🤔
 
xoxo~ liz
 
#sharingiscaring
#becomingyourownhealthdetective
#selfempowerment
#Stormpreparednessskilz
#whyyesIamtheWellnessPrepper
 
https://www.motherearthnews.com/…/storm…/…

Does Trauma Really Hurt My Body -part 2

Liz James · March 1, 2022 ·

 
The Enigmatic Endocrine System Part II: Supportive care for the Pineal, Hypothalamus, and Pituitary Glands
 
If I am able to drive home one thing in all that I share, it’s this: The body, mind, and spirit are interconnected, and if one is damaged, the other will suffer. Likewise, if nurturing, support, and healing do not occur within all three: mind, body, and spirit, healing will be impaired. Some of the deepest wounds to the physical body will never be seen by the human eye because of the trauma to the mind and spirit. Trauma dealt to the mind is not the same as trauma to the 🧠brain, though both may be affected. Does that make sense?
 
There are many physical ways to support healthy pineal, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland function, but the most important of all is to become proficient in the skills required to overcome traumatic stress.
 
For a gland so tiny, there are books and even a journal (The Journal of Pineal Research) devoted to the study of the small ( but mighty) pineal gland. Traumatic stress appears to affect the pineal gland in profound ways that man and his science may never fully comprehend.
 
Here is what we do know:
 
Traumatic stress disrupts the pineal gland which in turn also disrupts melatonin.
 
Rene Descartes (French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist of the 16th century) described the pineal gland as “the seat of the soul”. He postulated that what we experience on “the outside of us” becomes an integral part of the mind (not to be confused with the physical brain). He was pretty much over the target🎯.
 
Many current day studies suggest that repeated stress or traumatic stress experiences may disturb mind integrity, memory, and experience.
 
Melatonin (in addition to regulating our circadian rhythm) has a role in the synchronization of memory. When the pineal gland is damaged by traumatic stress over time, memory formation and consolidation, cognition, and emotional processes may be altered.
 
Thankfully, love, community, and social connectedness have the power to influence, improve, and overcome the effects of traumatic stress.
 
Do not underestimate the power of a close knit community of friends 👭👫👬….. This is your first and most important “how to” take care of your endocrine system…. Find your tribe and love them ….. And (importantly) also let them love you 😘.
 
The Holy Spirit dwells within all who call to Him. The Holy Spirit is also our comforter and healer and guide. Don’t underestimate, undervalue, or decline this gift from God.
 
Real Solutions:
 
Physically, there are a myriad of ways to support the brain’s glandular system:
🙌Chiropractic care. Yes, even a little time on the table with a fantastic chiropractor can improve the functional quality of the pineal, hypothalamus, and pituitary glands.
🙌Eating a clean organic diet. The body can only thrive if it is given toxin free nutrition.
🙌Control sugar intake. Processed sugar causes inflammation which affects pituitary function.
🙌Be active! High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is especially helpful…. One of the most helpful body movements is squats. Who knew!?! Boost your entire endocrine system’s function with regular sets of squats!
🙌Incorporate small amounts of iodine (not the kind found in commercial table salt) into your diet. Kelp is a fantastic natural iodine source (it’s a key ingredient in Young Living’s Multigreens!) Sadly, fluoride is found in many city water supplies, toothpaste, and mouthwash brands. Fluoride calcifies both the pineal and pituitary glands which, as you’ve learned, goes on to affect the integrity of the rest of the endocrine system. The Young Living Thieves Toothpaste ( available as Dentarome Plus, Aromabright, or the kiddos Kidscents Citrus flavor) and Thieves Mouthwash are fantastic alternatives to the fluoridated varieties, are immune system supportive and provide ingredients for stellar oral hygiene.
🙌Fresh organic beet juice. Beets contain boron and B vitamins… necessary nutrients for a healthy endocrine system. Beet juice also helps counter the effects of fluoride and heavy metals.
🙌Manganese (found in nuts, leafy greens, whole grains, and legumes) , Vitamins D, E, and A are all necessary for healthy glandular function. YL’s Master Formula contains kelp, boron, manganese, B vitamins, Vitamins D, E, and A among a whole host of additional micronutrients. If you are looking for a “one stop shop” this may be your “go to” supplement.
🙌Good sleep hygiene. There are dozens of natural ways to improve sleep quality. Healing occurs best in a well rested body. Are you making full use of all the tools you may already have in your home? Essential oils well known to enhance sleep include Lavender, Cedarwood, Frankincense, Roman Chamomile, Orange, as well as blends RutaVala, Tranquil, Peace and Calming, and Stress Away all tend to support a good night’s sleep. Immupro and Sleep Essence are two sleep supportive supplements that may also be called in for duty if needed.
🙌Sage (the plant and the essential oil) has some very interesting properties that appear to support the endocrine system. If you choose to dive down this rabbit hole in your research, use the key words “salvia officinalis”, and “endocrine” or “pituitary”. Salvia comes from the Latin word (salvarem) which means “to save”. It may be this plant that best signifies the “mind, body, spirit” healing aspect simply by its activity within the endocrine system.
 
One in eight women will develop a thyroid problem at some point in their lifetime. (It’s not quite that high in men). While many thyroid disorders have root cause found in the thyroid itself, as Yoda said…. “Slow your roll [downhill], you must.” The thyroid is a precision organ, and will not be able to adequately perform if the endocrine glands of the brain (and elsewhere) do not work well. Their work is worthy of our TLC, and giving it the nourishment and attention it needs to perform optimally. Each one of us is a finely tuned, amazingly made unique creation, and each body part is a part of a bigger design working in tandem.
xoxo~ liz
 
https://goodmedicine.info/my-book/ (it’s here! We’re keeping it at presale price for just a few more days)
 
#sharingiscaring
#ahealthyendocrinesystemisgoodmedicine
#becomingyourownhealthdetective
#goodmedicine
#ThanksYL

Essential Oil/Country Boy

Liz James · February 8, 2022 ·

Happy Monday friends! Here’s a little fun for ya, compliments of my friend Stacy McDonald (she just released an amazing book…. Truth Drops, Scriptural Protocol for releasing your past with essential oils….. so check out her website for info! www.stacymcdonald.com ) ************************

Well…life around here is kinda laid backAin’t much my old oils and me can’t hackIt’s Thieves on my feet and Valor on my back Thank God for essential oils!

Well a natural kind of life is what I’m lookin’ for.No chemicals for me, I’m healthy to the core.Even got an oil that hushes Daddy’s snores!Thank God for essential oils!

When I put the kids to bed and the sun’s settin’ low I grab my Peace & Calming and put it on their toes. They’re all fast asleep before I turn around to go!Thank God for essential oils!

When we get up in the mornin’ and everyone is fed We have our family prayer and drink our NingXia Red. Keepin’ everybody healthy – ‘sted of ridden to the bed! Thank God for essential oils!

Comfortin’ with Raven when the hubby is a-coughin’ And Digize is a staple when the kids are all a barfin.’ Peppermint’s important after pizza they’ve been scarfin’! Thank God for essential oils!

Well…I want a healthy lifestyle—one that’s a-lastin,’ Healin’ my core instead of symptom maskin’ “Are you ready to get healthy? “ is all I’m really askin’! Thank God for essential oils!

When my head is a-spinnin’ and the lights are awful bright My M-Grain is the answer so I can sleep tight Smellin’ awful good as I turn out the light Thank God for essential oils!

You gotta teach ‘em young how to pray and read their Bible Jesus took the time to teach and to disciple Same’s true here – teachin’ health is also vital. Thank God for essential oils!

Life around here is kinda laid back Ain’t much my old oils and me can’t hack It’s Thieves on my feet and Valor on my back Thank God for essential oils!

– Stacy McDonald, The Common Scents Mom

I wrote this a few years back, but thought I’d share it again! Happy Sunday! Be blessed! stacymcdonaldhttp://stacymcdonald.com.com

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