Today we are talking more about anxiety and panic attacks and specifically,
we are going to talk about why they happen and how to manage them based on that why in physiology.
We are going to first cover what happens in your body, how it gets messed up, and then specific strategies to manage and how to test your brain at home.
This class is for you if you are the person who:
- Wakes up not hungry and can skip eating until lunch or even later
- Because you survive on coffee or a quick carb for breakfast
- You have major brain fog, no memory, and are exhausted
- You get super “hangry”, irritable, or groggy when you don’t eat
- You toss and turn all night, waking up every 2-3 hours
- You feel hung over every morning, even if you don’t drink
- You could sleep all day or you have to exercise and drink caffeine to survive
Now this is not a sexy new conversation about the newest supplement, or drug, or CBD oil to ‘cure’ your anxiety. Because using the supplement strategy is missing the core driver for anxiety. You know I love my supportive supplements and essential oils but what happens when you stop taking them? If you fall apart something is missing! You are missing what is actually causing the problem.
Here is the basics of how your body is working.
Your brain (specifically your hypothalamus and the paraventricular nucleus) manage your body. There are cells there that sample your body’s chemistry throughout every second and tell your body what to do to balance and heal.
Let’s start with what healthy sleep looks like. You go to bed, your last meal was dinner and maybe you had some dessert and then went to sleep. As you sleep your brain continues to need fuel to keep you alive. So it sends a signal out that you need food! But since you are sleeping and you don’t want to wake up, the brain then goes to the back up plan, which is the adrenals. The adrenals send out cortisol to the body (specifically the liver) to release energy in the form of glucose. That glucose then goes in to your blood stream and fuels your body. Normally this process occurs about every 2 hours while you are sleeping and the cortisol builds and builds up all night so you wake up with energy and hunger.
Where things go wrong: Your brain signals out for energy but your adrenals are tanked. So instead of sending out cortisol they send out epinephrine or adrenaline.
Hello! This is why you are waking up every 2 hours! Your brain is hungry and wants to keep you alive.
Now there is a scale here of mild imbalance where you toss and turn, intermediate imbalance where you wake up and have to read or move around, and severe where you wake up with panic attacks, heart palpitations, or even asthma attacks.
What does this mean during the day? This means that you wake up and you don’t feel hungry, but your brain and your body are hungry. So the brain is still putting out this signal of “feed me!” but because you ignore your brain or your body, or you are so nauseous from the hormone pounding all night, you don’t eat.
Your adrenals have to take over all day long, and that epinephrine and adrenaline is pumping all day long causing panic and anxiety attacks.
Your brain starts freaking out and learning that it will not ever get food, so it becomes in a constant state of fatigue and panic on it’s own.
How do you fix it? How do you sleep and balance your hormones?
- Have to eat food. Have to have enough calories to let your brain know food will be available.
- Eat within 30 minutes of waking up!
- And you have to eat enough calories every day. Not once a week. Never skip a meal again
- You have to eat before your symptoms start. That means for most people starting this plan looks like eating every hour, every 2 hours. If you have an anxiety attack every day at 10am, you need to eat a 9:30am.
- You need to eat to macros, meaning for most of us eating protein and veggies at every meal.
- Then as your brain begins to heal and learn food is on the way, your adrenals will not be as taxed and your blood sugar balance will calm down.
- Then, and only once you are healed, can you start looking at different eating plans like fasting or keto.
How do you test it?
- Basic blood work
- Glucose, hemoglobin A1C, LDH, triglycerides, etc.
- Auto-immune testing for your brain barrier and pancreas
- Gaba challenge: take powdered GABA and it has to be the only thing in the product.
- If you feel nothing: that is good!
- If you feel better: you have leaky blood brain barrier
- If you feel worse: you have a leaky blood brain barrier
Do you feel overwhelmed? Like this sounds like you but where do you start? Maybe you have already tried everything and nothing works?
Have no fear! Message me to set up a consult and we can talk about what has worked and what hasn’t. And we will order your blood work at a super discounted price and put the pieces together to figure out why you are experiencing your symptoms and how to get back to a healthy life!
#anxiety #panic #depression #bloodbrainbarrier #leakygut #GABA #supplements