 your good girl. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Dr. Jill Live. I am here with my beautiful friend Isabella Wins. And if you guys have had thyroid issues or been anywhere in this world, you all probably know her. She's a bestselling author. And today we're going to talk about her new book. I can't wait. We were just talking a few minutes before we went on about how important this topic is. So stay tuned. I'm going to introduce her in just a moment. But before I do, just know that you can catch all of our episodes on YouTube, on my channel, on Stitcher, on iTunes, anywhere you listen to podcast. And be sure and stop and leave a review because that helps us to reach more people. And blogs, articles, all other content you can find for free at jillcarnahan.com. So today, like I said, without further ado, I'm going to introduce my guest and then we will jump right into the topic of adrenal transformation in her brand new book. So I've got here. We'll talk about this. It comes out on the 18th. So wherever you're listening to this, it may be the day of the podcast released, or it may be shortly thereafter. Dr. Isabella Wins is a compassionate, innovative, solution focused integrative pharmacist dedicated to finding the root cause of chronic health conditions. Her passion stems from her own diagnosis with Hashimoto's in 2009, following a decade of debilitating symptoms. As an accomplished author, Dr. Wins has written several bestselling books. Her latest Adrenal Transformation Protocol. And I love that the short is ATP, which we know is also like energy. It's so brilliant. So Adrenal Transformation Protocol, like I said, I'm going to show this several times during our interview. And is available wherever you buy books when this podcast comes out. And if you're catching us live on Facebook the week prior, hang in, you can preorder it. It will be out in just one week. But she's written several bestselling books, including this brand new one. The book focuses on resetting the body's stress response through targeted safety signals and features of four week program that has already helped over 3500 individuals. The program has an impressive success rate. I saw the statistics in here, and it's like the symptom relief is anywhere from like 75 to 99%. It's amazing. And it has a, again, up to over 80% in the average of participants improving brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, sleep loss, and libido. Thanks for bearing with me on that. Dr. Wenz, Isabelle and my friend, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Jill. And you, I don't know if you went through the acknowledgments, but you're actually in the acknowledgments of the book because I happened to come across some of these safety signals when I was in a time as a new mom, and you and I had a chance to get together a few times and you helped me and my family out through some challenging times. So I just really appreciate you and your friendship and your support over the years. And thank you. Thank you. I feel the same. It's just like so neat. And as we talked, we've talked over the years and like to see the babies born, the books and things over the years. Those ideas, it's really neat because we have the kind of behind the scenes view. So gosh, there's so many things I can't wait to talk about today. If you're listening out there, again, your previous book, the Hashimoto's book is so successful, so important. And I think let's first frame this because those of you who, those are the people listening who know you from the Hashimoto's information and book that you've put out for years. When did that book come out? The first one in 2013. So it's coming up on its 10 year anniversary. And then the second book, the Hashimoto's Protocol, that came out in 2017. And it's been like six years already. Where did the time go by? Right? So awesome. So if you haven't got those, those are also still available. But I want to frame because the thyroid adrenals work so closely. And this makes perfect sense to me about why this book is ready now from a thyroid expert. So let's frame it first. As far as these two glands, how do they work together? Why are both so important? And why do people who maybe have fixed their Hashimoto's are improved still have fatigue? And this could be the answer. Oh, absolutely. So people are like, Oh, are you no longer going to be the thyroid pharmacist? Are you like going to be the adrenal pharmacist? Like what's what's happening? And I've actually been talking about adrenal health as part of helping people overcome Hashimoto's and getting into remission from Hashimoto's eliminating their symptoms for almost a decade now, right? Probably over a decade now. And the thing is that, you know, our organs like they don't each live in separate vacuum sealed components of the body, right? They talk to one another. And there's a communication pathway between the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland. Our adrenal glands are our stress glands. So they produce a variety of different hormones, including the most well known stress hormone known as cortisol. And, you know, when I've asked my clients over the years, what was going on in your life before you got sick, typically they say, I was really stressed out. I was going through a really stressful situation. And this is kind of where that adrenal dysfunction comes in. A person will be under a lot of stress. And their adrenal glands will put on some stress hormones. In an acute situation, this kind of goes up and goes back to normal very quickly. Under chronic stress, people get stuck in that adrenal stress dysfunction. And this can lead to some alterations in thyroid hormones. So in some of the cases where we have too much stress or too much cortisol production, people will find that they have they produce too much of something known as reverse T3, which is a thyroid hormone, but not the not a very active one. So that gets into our thyroid hormone receptors. And rather than activating them, the receptors end up being blocked. And so active thyroid can't get in there. And a person may become quote unquote, hypothyroid without having a thyroid condition. And so that's kind of like one, one communication pathway, one road to get to to get to thyroid issues. And another road is when people have hypothyroidism, the body has this protective mechanism where it'll actually keep more cortisol on board. And so we don't break down our cortisol as quickly. And this person might be exhausted, but wired and tired, and they'll go to their doctor, they'll get some thyroid hormones if they need them. And what happens then is the thyroid hormones may actually unmask a cortisol issue is specifically a low cortisol issue, because then their cortisol clearance increases. And then I typically would see people that would say, I started thyroid meds, and I thought I was going to feel better, I felt better at first than all of a sudden I felt worse, I got like fatigue and brain fog. And, you know, just what is going on with me? And they'll go back to the doctor, they'll be like, do I need more meds? What's going on? And typically, it's usually in that situation, it's oftentimes the adrenal glands. And people are struggling with a dysfunctional adrenal cortisol production. Gosh, this is so relevant. Because again, a lot of patients do get treated for appropriately for hypothyroid. And like you said, they start to feel better, and then they feel worse. And I love that you're talking about this, because it's such an underlying thing that most conventionally trained physicians like myself, fortunately, I've learned functional medicine. So I understand what you're talking about. But why would it be that a patient might go to their doctor and say, I am exhausted, I was treated for thyroid, I felt like just the same scenario you just said. And then their doctor maybe doesn't understand to this depth. Can you take us through that? Because that's a common thing some of the listeners probably have experienced. So I think that some people will say, oh, I found this adrenal fatigue or adrenal dysfunction. Can you test me for it, right? And they'll go to their endocrinologist. And the endocrinologist will say, adrenals, okay, we're going to test you for addisins. And then the tests come back negative. So this isn't necessarily what we're talking about. Addisins is a serious and life threatening autoimmune condition. And what happens is the person is no longer able to produce their own cortisol. And typically when about 90% of the adrenal glands are destroyed, that's when this cortisol inability to produce cortisol happens. And that person, you know, this could be a life threatening situation, they often need replacement corticosteroids and mineral corticosteroids and just that there's a different treatment plan for them. And I think that conventional medicine for the most part has worked out really nicely. The tricky part is with this adrenal dysfunction, this isn't like a disease. So it's an adaptation to chronic stress where the body gets stuck in this stress mode. And so most conventionally trained doctors aren't necessarily well versed in it. I think the closest thing is with psychologists that maybe they'll recognize that somebody's like in a state of burnout. And they will do a really great job working from the psychological aspects. But then I feel like the physiological aspects of the of the condition are oftentimes ignored from the psychologist's perspective. Gosh, what a great way to explain that because that's exactly what I have trained in conventional medicine. And we're trained that you give an ACT STEM test, which is a part of a drug and the amount of that drug. So that's a drug that's from hypothalamic pituitary axis to stimulate the adrenal glands, which are little tiny triangular things that sit on top of your kidneys in your lower back. So as you mentioned in the book, some people will have lower back achiness at extreme phases because I'll actually have pain and inflammation around the adrenal glands and have physical symptoms. But I'll like to say medically, conventional docs are typically taught to give the dose of this drug. And the dose that they give is a one vile dose, which is about 1000, maybe 100, it's a lot, lot, lot higher than physiological. So I say it's the dose that could raise a dead horse, like it's massive amount. And that's why you get this, if you think about a spectrum of disease, right, you're like walking towards disease or walking away from it, always wear on the spectrum. And say this point right here takes you into a complete and total adrenal failure of addisons as you cross over that line, that percentage of people with some form of adrenal dysfunction, I'm just guessing, but it might be 10% or 5% or 2%. Whereas this whole other spectrum that you're talking about in the book is the average everyday person that goes anywhere from overwork, lack of sleep, stresses, you know, life situations post COVID and they're exhausted or tired and wired or then here where they're really bordering on that completed adrenal burnout. And we'll talk about the stages in a minute, but anywhere along that line up into addisons, you can feel really crummy. And yet your conventional doctor will say you're fine, right? Absolutely. And you know, the kind of big difference, the major difference with how we now understand adrenal dysfunction and the difference between that and addisons is with addisons, the adrenal glands can't produce cortisol. Our bodies with adrenal dysfunction, they still can. They're just not producing the right amounts at the right time, right? And so there's a disconnect between the brain and the adrenal glands and a person ends up perhaps producing too much cortisol at night and not enough in the morning. And they end up with this circadian rhythm that's out of balance. And part of that could just be causing their exhaustion during the day and trouble sleeping at night and not being able to regenerate and repair their bodies. Yeah, so let's go through like kind of you divided stages very nicely and talked about kind of how that progresses. Let's talk a little bit about that and you can kind of weave in the symptoms because I want people who are listening to be like, oh yeah, I recognize that and to know when they might look first of all to read your book and do the protocol, but also to know if this fits for them for symptoms. If you've been, that's a great plan. If you've been listening to like media or even some of the common things out there, you might have heard about high cortisol. And I feel like this is very much recognized in medicine that high cortisol can be problematic, right? And we know that stress drives high cortisol. This is actually the first stage of what kind of happens when somebody gets stuck in this chronic stress adaptation where rather than having, you know, high cortisol in the morning and then you go down a gradual slide and in the evening you have ability to like rest and regenerate. You start off, you just have high cortisol all the time. And so maybe that looks like you jump out of bed and you're kind of like irritable all day long. Everybody around you is slow and annoying. You have a million things to do on your list and nobody like, you know, you're the person that's weaving in and out of traffic trying to get to wherever you're going faster. You're at shopping, you know, you're shopping for groceries and you're just passing everybody up and you just feel like kind of like you drank a whole bunch of coffee basically. And trouble falling asleep is going to be very common in this stage. Now, the body will make adaptations for us because that kind of stage is not very healthy to stay in for long periods of time. And so if you're still exposed to the stress, the body will start compensating, right? And so you'll start seeing some we'll start seeing some of the cortisol drop throughout the day. And it might drop at like very odd times as the condition progresses. So like at 3pm, you might get like that 3pm crash, where you're just like, Oh my gosh, it's 3pm and I want to take a nap or like, you know, yell at somebody because you're just you have that drop in cortisol, you might feel very anxious. Then as time goes on, you might have a drop in your morning cortisol. And that looks like you're having trouble waking up in the morning. And you're kind of brain fogged. And maybe in the afternoon, you find it feel like a bit human. And then you might be, again, having some of the mood swings and irritability, then come the evening and you can't sleep. So this is like what I call a cortisol roller coaster. You can usually tie this to blood sugar issues. As time goes on, you know, you stay in the stage, if you're under stress long enough, you'll progress to having really low cortisol most of the day. And then in the evening, you might have an elevation in cortisol. And so that that'll look like I'm tired. I don't know where I am, who I am throughout the day. I kind of kind of get more energy as the day goes on. And in the evening, I'm wired and tired and I can't sleep. Then if that goes on long enough, and about 60% of the people that I've worked with, they'll have what I call flatline detrinals. So they will have very low cortisol in the morning. And as the time goes on, it's just low. In the evening, it's low. So they'll go to bed, but they sleep a long time, they wake up unrefreshed. And these are people that are like brain fog, fatigued, they're exhausted, they're overwhelmed. They try to do things like, they hear things like, Oh, you should, you should try running that'll make you feel better. And they try running, they feel worse. Yeah. Like people say, try intermittent fasting, you're going to feel so much better. They try it, they feel worse. And all of these things that are life's, I guess, stressors that can help us grow and build, they kind of feel worse with everything and just they feel very overwhelmed typically in that stage. And so these are some of the different presentations of what can happen depending on how long you've been stuck in that stress mode. Hey everybody, I just stopped by to let you know that my new book, Unexpected, Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine, Science and Faith, is now available for order wherever you purchase books. In this book, I share my own journey of overcoming life-threatening illness and the tools and tips and tricks and hope and resilience I found along the way. This book includes practical advice for things like cancer and Crohn's disease and other auto immune conditions, infections like Lyme or Epstein Bar and mold and biotoxin related illness. What I really hope is that as you read this book, you find transformational wisdom for health and healing. If you want to get your own copy, stop by readunexpected.com. There you can also collect your free bonuses. So grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine in finding resilience. Stress mode. That was such a great overview. And I'll just tell you from personal experience, years ago, I was at high court as I'll probably my first 40 years alive. Go, go, go and never. And it's interesting too, because even my body shape was different because I had more cortisol and I had a little bit more around the middle. And then probably three or four years ago, I always joke because I stopped working out intensely and I lost weight and got in the best shape of my life. But that was about the time my cortisol was going down or actually was still high. But what's happening when, so when you're in that first day and your cortisol really high, sometimes those high intensity running really, really pushing, you don't lose weight like you think you should, because you're actually doing stuff that raises your cortisol. And at that time in my life, when I pulled back, I started just hiking and walking with friends, doing some yoga and doing way less exercise than I thought I needed. And I actually gotten better shape because that high cortisol was sabotaging the weight. Now, since then I've gone to much more flat. And so I can very much relate with what you're saying in the sense of at that like seven to 11 o'clock at night, I used to be, you know, exhausted. I went to bed. I still sleep well, but that's actually now my most productive time. Whereas the morning has shifted to be it's a little harder to get going. So yeah, as you're aware of these curves, and what you can do is is we're going to talk about treatments and things that you can do on your own. And stress is involved. So before we go to like some types of herbs, adaptogens, things that people can use. What are the other things that are so critical? Because this is a stress hormone, right? So we have to address the lifestyle piece, which makes it hard, because that has to be addressed in some way. It is very tricky. And like you said, cortisol can have profound impacts on our bodies so we can be storing more belly fat when we have excess cortisol because we have more of these receptors in our bellies. And I feel like the hardest thing is probably changing your lifestyle and changing, you know, if you're a type A person, you're very driven. It's hard to say I'm not going to push myself so much, right? And there are various things we can do, like we can utilize hormones to like lift up your cortisol in the morning, or special kind of herbs to or nutrients to break down your cortisol in the evening if it's too high. But again, like that whole lifestyle and that stress, stress reduction component is so critical. And I always tell people, what can we do? Like what are you doing currently in your life that is making your body feel stressed out, that's making your body feel unsafe? And how do we change that, right? And so for some people, it's over exercising and under eating. For some people, it's like burning the bridge at both ends. For some people, it's not getting enough sleep, right? Having, you know, toxic relationships, some of these very like identical lifestyle patterns. And then I know, you know, something you and I are passionate about too is there could be hidden sources of inflammation in our bodies, right? So it could be something like mold exposure, you know, your area of expertise or chronic infections, or something else in our bodies that are kind of setting off that stress signal. So a big part of what I recommend doing, and I started, I've done a lot of various protocols over the years for adrenals with myself and with my clients. But what I've settled on is really focusing on things people can do on their own to make their bodies feel safe. And that will shift them into a thriving state that'll shift them into alignment with the circadian rhythm, no matter if their cortisol is too high or too low, or, you know, just kind of bouncing all around the place. Like when you do these things, which you can do in your own home, like you're going to be able to shift in three to four weeks versus some of the hormones that may take a bit longer to work and have to be, you know, I always feel like practitioners, if you want to do the hormones, you need to work with a practitioner. Because sometimes I get nervous about people utilizing them. I know I made a lot of mistakes before I was trained, I was like, oh, I'm going to take pregnant alone. And I ended up like a, you know, like a puffy bloater fish, right? Because I was taking too high of a dose or people will take DHEA. And that can be problematic for some women. It can over convert to estrogen, and they can exacerbate estrogen dominance and can convert to other things that grow chin hair. We don't want that. So, so there's a lot of different paths to healing. And I'm excited to share about the one that people can do right in their homes. Right? Yeah. So I love that. Because again, we start, you're going to root, which is really like the reason even in my story that I got there is I was pushing too hard. I was pushing myself to be on, it was actually, I always think of it now that I learned about safety and trauma and these things. I wasn't being kind to myself. I was like beating myself and pushing myself. And like, if I was, you know, whipping a race horn, terrible, but like, that's what we do to ourselves. It doesn't terrible, right? But that's what we do. We push and push and push and push. And I loved the word I heard you say multiple times. And I always, when I hear patients or clients say this overwhelm, I feel like adrenals one way to describe to the layperson is they're buffers to the world. They're basically there to kind of buffer us from stress from overreaction of allergens or mast cells or they're kind of that buffer, the cortisol buffers us from the world. It's kind of like if you're in that big, you know, bouncy ball and you're rolling around in the playground. And it's that buffer, right? So if that buffer is gone or not working correctly, you're going to, how you're going to feel this is things that maybe years ago didn't bother you, whether it's a conversation or a situation, or even the, I mean, loss or difficulties, you're going to be way more overwhelmed with the same amount of stress because you don't have that buffer that's helping you to deal with stressors as well. And this is tends to go when it goes down. So let's go to the root because I love that idea because I love adrenal adaptions. But what I did in my history was I want to perform, I want to go, I want to go, go, go on a produce. I want to, you know, and because of that, what I would do is I'd prop myself up with all these adaptogens and peptides and you name it. I had hundreds. In fact, I'm finishing my breakfast and it's in this little dish here. Here's some, you know, like this is part of my, my daily thing is propping myself up because I know what to do to make them, to force them to work harder. But what you're saying, I love, it's actually like, let's be kind and find out how we can actually nurture and create safety. So what are some practical ways that people can do that because that's way better than propping yourself up. And then we ended up flat lined. Yeah, so absolutely. And the program focuses on really nourishing ourselves, focusing on like just self-kindness, right? And then I also focused on building resilience throughout the program. And so some of the nourishing ways is we want to get back to baseline. If you're somebody that's exhausted and fatigued and you're burning the bridge at both ends, or you have been for a while, and that's, you're kind of like, okay, I am, I'm done. Like this is just too much for me. I can't function anymore. One of the things that's really helpful is utilizing adaptogens to build your resilience, replenishing some of the nutrients such as the B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, electrolytes. This will kind of get you to baseline, right? So this will kind of replenish all of the things that you lost during a stress response. And then we're also going to be focusing on utilizing mitochondrial support. A lot of times this is something that people with adrenal dysfunction, most of them have some degree of mitochondrial dysfunction. And a lot of the things that work for adrenals also help our mitochondria. And so one of the things that I've done in the program is really focused on the mitochondria, right? And teaching people how to really tune into their nutrition. So we're focusing on blood sugar balance, eating extra protein, eating more fat throughout the day, nutrient dense food. We're doing circadian nutrition. So we're eating when it's light outside, we're stepping outside into the sunshine, and we're really realigning with that circadian rhythm through, through some of the light therapy options like stepping outside when it's sunny, right? And getting that light into your beautiful eyes. So that when it's evening time, your body will know, so that it's morning time, your body will know to make energy. And then it'll be prepared for evening time when it's going to be time to rest. Part of how we do that is through exposure to outdoors. A lot of us, you know, we're stuck indoors at work or doing whatever, then we don't get that beautiful opportunity to tell our bodies naturally when it's time to be awake and have energy and when it's time to sleep. So that's kind of the first part of it. The second part of the protocol really focuses on building on your joy and self-kindness and self-compassion and really treating yourself the way that you would somebody you love, right? So think of a tiny little cute pet that you have or a child or a loved one who's just sweet and innocent and how you would treat them. So you probably, you wouldn't yell at them if they messed up, right? You wouldn't push them harder. You wouldn't put them on that rat wheel or whip them like you said, right? So you would, you really want to tune into that self-kindness and build on some of the hormones that help you shift into more of a rest-digest healing state. So oxytocin, the bonding love hormone, you can express that through spending time with loved ones, spending time with pets, even doing things like epsom salt baths, warm baths and lavender essential oil, getting some of that really great feeling into your body and then focusing on pleasurable activities throughout your day. So we're really focusing on, rather than being like on this to do list of I have to take care of my kids, I have to take care of my work, I have to take care of my parents, you're doing, you know, all of these things. We're shifting that and we're saying, today I'm gonna go and do some window shopping because just because this is something I enjoy without any kind of, you know, pressure or deadlines to really shift that. And then the kind of third part of that is like looking at the underlying reasons of why we got there in the first place and building the resilience. So I know you and I, we wrote your beautiful book and I was crying and laughing when I was reading your book on resilience and you and I both are passionate about letting freeing people from the things that weigh them down. Trauma is one of those really awful things that can keep us weighed down. So if you're, if you had a history of trauma and perhaps you think that your value in life is tied to your productivity, right, then you're gonna end up, you're gonna burn the bridge at both ends. And so we work really on rewiring all of these thought patterns and kind of the stress patterns so that you can show up and feel energized and happy and calm and sleep well and really be in that thriving state and come from a thriving state rather from a survival state. Oh, brilliant. And again, we're talking about the brand new book out on the 18th of April, Adrenal Transformation Protocol. And what I love this ATP, as you mentioned mitochondria, you and I, of course, know what that means. ATP is like the cellular currency to make energy from ourselves that the mitochondria produces. I love that. It's so brilliant because it really all ties together. And I also love, I just want to mention, I'm sure any of you listening out here can feel this from Isabella, but she just has this beautiful heart of compassion and sharing with the world. And it's what's beautiful is as I'm listening to you, I feel your love and your energy. And that right there is part of what makes you such a great healer because you transmit that genuine kindness and that genuine love. And you're actually showing us just by how you're talking, how we should be treating ourselves, right? So thank you for bringing because it's way more than just you're incredibly knowledgeable. You've written multiple bestsellers. This one's going to be right up there as well. But thank you for bringing that energy of kindness, sincerity, authenticity, because it really is that that's the start of healing. So thank you. Thank you. That you're so kind. I really appreciate that. Well, I mean it. And I know everybody listening is agreeing and nodding with me and probably commenting right along. You kind of mentioned this, but I loved a couple of things. I read in the book about how, yeah, consult your doctors with the hormones. I agree. I do agree. There's a place for hormones, but be sure and work with someone who's knowledgeable because those things can go down all different weird pathways. And if you're not watching where they're going, I have breast cancer history 20 years ago. So I'm one of those people would have to be very careful to make sure it's not producing excess estrogen like DHEA. So just be sure those can be appropriate, but use that with a guide. And then secondly, you talk about the four types of chronic stress. I like this, you know, inflammation, circadian rhythm, nutritional stressors and psychological stressors. Just briefly about those. You kind of went over them, but I loved how you really framed those kind of underlying causes of adrenal issues. Sure. So I think psychological stressors, people maybe are very aware of these because you have like an annoying boss or a stress job. It's pretty evident that this is going on. There's also those traumas, the past history of trauma that can be an incredibly draining psychological stressor that can actually shift us into that fight or flight mode. And this could be something that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago, but we end up stuck and we come from that place of feeling unsafe. And this is the person that a lot of research has focused on people with a history of trauma or child abuse or some of the terminology is known as ACEs, adverse childhood events, they end up being later on in life. They're more likely to have autoimmune issues, right? And their body is kind of stuck in that I don't trust anybody. I'm not safe here for good reason because they had such traumatic experiences. So part of what I recommend is working with therapy to rewire those experiences and to connect with what's safe for you in the present moment. Another part is going to be nutritional stressors. So if you are under-eating, if you are eating foods that are inflammatory to you, if you don't have enough calories on board, if you don't have enough macronutrients on board or micronutrients, this is going to send a message to your body that you're not safe. And I kind of try to think about what a cave woman do, right? If you were a cave woman and you were only eating greens and salad and skipping all these meals, then your cave woman self would probably think that you were in a famine, right? And so in a famine, what we tend to do is we tend to suppress our metabolism. And part of that metabolism being suppressed is like that brain fog fatigue and the weight gain, right? And the kind of sluggishness. So what I do recommend is making sure you're eating plenty of protein, plenty of fats, nothing inflammatory to you as much as you can limit that. And then making sure that you're getting plenty of nutrient-dense foods on board. That could be a really big game changer, like the blood sugar-balanced eating. People will say, like, I thought I had anxiety. Turns out it was my blood sugar, right? Yes. Oh, I've been there. That whole angry thing. I think I loved your little illustration there too. I'm not respond. I can't remember exactly what it said. It was like a little cute thing about how we can get when we have the love blood sugar. And we don't even realize it. I'll tell you a little funny thing. You know, as I started to date and be in relationships, I would always say early on, I'd be like, okay, if things, you know, if I get cranky or irritable, I'm like a two-year-old. I either need a nap or a snack. And it's true. Like, I would, oh, if I get cranky, I just lay down for 20-minute nap or get a snack and I'm fine. So it's all, and that's related to adrenals, of course. But it's like two-year-olds. If you act like a two-year-old, you need a nap or a snack that's probably adrenally related. And it's so funny because we don't recognize that in adults, but it is, it can be sometimes that simple. Are you eating enough? Yeah. And are you getting enough rest? So, you know, the whole circadian rhythm disconnection, people that are night owls, they're not getting refreshing sleep. They are exhausted during the day. So, you know, if you're not getting exposure to lights, we have this beautiful technology of indoor lighting, which has done so much for us, but has also taken the ability to connect with the circadian rhythm for us. Because we end up not knowing when it's night or day. Our bodies can't really recognize that without the cues of the outside environment during the day that it's time to have lots of energy. And then in the evenings, if we're watching Netflix or looking at our phones and having bright lights in our houses, like some of us are like, we end up thinking that we're night owls. I used to think I was a night owl for the longest time. It turned out that I just was disconnected from the circadian rhythm. And I would not get tired in the evenings. I would just be up until two or three a.m. and have trouble waking up in the morning. But, you know, I have a five-year-old son now, and we talk about nocturnal creatures. And I'm like, he's like, are humans nocturnal, mommy? That's awesome. I love it. It's so true. You're right, because we get disconnected. And one thing that I found really fascinating, I still do a little coffee. And coffee is a whole other thing. You can very well overdo it with adrenals. Often a little bit's okay, but you really have to have a fine line. I love your comments. But relate to coffee. So coffee will stick in adenosine receptors. And adenosine is what makes you sleepy. So it tends to be real low in the morning and then higher at night. And coffee just blocks that. So your adenosine is still there. So say you drink coffee at 7 a.m. and then by 10 or 11, you're like, oh, I'm really sleepy. It's because those receptors were unplugged from the caffeine. The caffeine got metabolized. And then you're still the adenosine making you tired. But what I learned is bright light, natural sunlight is the one of the things that actually decreases adenosine. Coffee doesn't. It just blocks it. So what I love to do is when I first wake up, especially if it's before daylight, I have that I have this sunlight bulb that I go and sit by and read and meditate. And so I'm being kind to myself by not running up your door. I'm more calm. I have that quiet time that I love. And I have this bright light. And I still sometimes have a cup of coffee, but I found that that light is so powerful at energizing me and helping me stay in this adrenal circadian rhythm. So that was a neat little pearl because coffee is only temporary and it can prop you up, but it tends to drain the adrenals long term, wouldn't you say? Absolutely. So one of the things I recommend is stepping outside and how to like grow that cortisol naturally, right? So if you can go outside or shine a light, if you don't live somewhere warm, right? There's like, there's sunlight stimulation lights that we can purchase their seasonal effective disorder lights that we can purchase to kind of give ourselves that bright light and that message to our eyes and our bodies and our brain that it's awake time. This can help us create cortisol naturally and help us kind of not feel so sleepy. The other thing I recommend is an adrenal pickstart drink. So it's got a little bit of OJ. It's got a little bit of sea salt, some protein and coconut milk. So typically people will have a little bit of low blood sugar if they're tired in the morning and they might have that low cortisol. And all of this will help them wake up naturally. If you can delay your caffeine just a little bit, that's going to help too. I actually, I don't recommend like, I know a lot of the protocols focus on getting off of caffeine for people. And I know I used to recommend that and people would be very unhappy with me, right? Because I'd be like, you want to kill your adrenals, get off the coffee. And they would be like, bye, right? Like not gonna work for me. So my plan is allows people to have caffeine when they're getting started. We kind of work with moving it a little bit. So like you said, caffeine can make us not realize that we're tired when we actually are because of the effect on the adenosine receptors. And so maybe you move your caffeine a little bit earlier. So typically I found if you're under 35, you can drink caffeine after 3pm. The day you turn 35, you cannot. So personal experience, a little joke here. But in general, caffeine after 3pm can keep people awake. And so I'll have them shrink their caffeine window and then really work on generating more energy through their bodies before we say anything about cutting out caffeine. And caffeine weaning is optional in my program. Most people do choose by around week three or four that they've been on it. They just naturally are like, you know what, I'm not like crawling to my coffee maker every morning, hoping for like a savior, like I can wean off of the caffeine if I want to, or I could still have a cup or two and enjoy myself, right? So it's kind of kind of, I guess a new approach. I really started to appreciate coffee when I was a new mom. And I was like, okay, this is this is something that I need at this point. And I know I need to heal my adrenals. So this is a way that people can do both, right? Maybe not eight cups of coffee at any rate. I love that you say that because that's where I really come to believe. And my experience was 2018 or 19. I went to the Swiss mountain clinic and part of their protocol was two weeks, no coffee. And it's funny because I literally packed contraband in my bag just in case because I was like, oh my goodness. And at that time, I was probably on like five or six cups a day, not not a mild amount. But what happened is I got there and I was like, I'm going to try the program. And I did. And I had no trouble going off coffee and within three days, I didn't I just felt really, really good. And I was like, oh, I don't need caffeine. I actually, and this was my adrenals were probably even a little healthier than they are now. But I realized, oh, and so then what you're describing and what I always tell patients, you want this relationship with coffee where you're not enslaved to the coffee so that you can choose. And even today, like I usually have a half a cup in the morning with my bright sunlight lamp, like we were talking about. And then during the day, if it's a busy clinic day, I might have another half a cup, but I never even finished them. And I probably have a max of two cups or two half cups. And years ago, I was drinking a pot pot and a half. So I really changed my relationship. And if there's a day like tomorrow, if I don't want to drink coffee, I'll be fine. I won't have a headache. I won't feel bad. And that's the relationship you want to have is you want to have freedom to if you don't want to have it, you still feel okay and you can function. But then like you said, new mom or I'm traveling, and it's a way too early time zone for me. Coffee is not a bad thing. And this evidence actually shows with liver and with diabetes, there's some good evidence of protective effect of coffee in that case. And it's an antioxidant. So it's not all bad. And I love that you embrace it that way kind of like both, both ends. Yeah, absolutely. And I, I don't drink coffee these days unless I am like the last few nights, my son's been sick. So if if he's if I've been up with him at night, then I'll have a little bit of coffee if I'm caring for him throughout the day. And it doesn't affect my adrenals, like it doesn't, you know, they're healthy enough and mitochondria my mitochondria healthy enough and my stress response is healthy enough where that stressor of the caffeine, it doesn't, you know, that doesn't drain me. Whereas if you have that, you're so depleted that you're like relying on the caffeine, that can actually be really tough on your system, right? I was thinking like, you know, the end of the toothpaste tube, if you are really depleted, it's like the caffeine squeezing out that last little bit of toothpaste, and you're actually left with less than the tube in the end or an empty tube, which is not good. I want to wrap up shortly. But the last thing I want to talk about, because I have an audience with mold and lime and these really complex, I love in the back, you talk about other potential root causes, copper toxicity, environmental toxins, which I love to talk about, gut imbalances, iron toxicity overload, not a lot of people are talking about that, but that's a huge one at copper and iron with adrenals, low stomach acid, mitochondrial dysfunction, which you build into your program, mold, which of course with nutrient deficiencies, reactivated epstein bar. That's a whole other topic, right? Gosh, there's so many things. So I just want to mention, and maybe you can talk just briefly about if you do the protocol and you're not, and you said in your bio is like 80% success. And I read some of the symptoms were in the 90% as far as your ATP protocol and the success rate is impressive. I just want to put that out there. But there are going to be some people who maybe don't move the needle. And these are some of those things. Do you want to comment on that just a little bit about these advanced complex things that could also be going on? Oh, absolutely. So there's so many causes of adrenal dysfunction. Adrenal dysfunction isn't a disease per se. It's the body telling you that it's overwhelmed by stress. And sometimes the stress is so obvious, right? It's like, ah, I've been burning the bridge of both ends or I wasn't sleeping or whatnot. You can kind of pinpoint it. But other times from a functional medicine perspective, these could be hidden triggers inside of your body, inside of your home. So maybe you're exposed to mold, right? You are going to be somebody that's going to be shifted into that stress response when you are exposed to mold. If you have an Epstein-Barr virus reactivation or any kind of viral reactivation, that's going to be very weakened on the adrenals. The beauty of it is that for most people, like in order to heal, they need to support their adrenals anyway. The program really focuses on, you know, adrenal support, a lot of vitamin C. It's helpful for Epstein-Barr virus, right? You have mold toxicity. Your mitochondria are going to be affected. And so the program utilizes carnitine, D ribose, magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin C, a lot of mitochondrial support that will help you feel better even if you are suffering from mold exposure. And I go through, it's a four week program where you get like very specific instructions on what to do. So you're not in like paralysis by analysis. It's like, you take a few supplements, you eat a blood sugar balanced diet, and you do these lifestyle things about 14 different safety signals that you can kind of see which one resonates with you. But then I also have a section in the back of the book that talks about like some of the advanced things. So if you're somebody that still isn't sleeping, what's going on there? Like what are some additional triggers and root causes to look into, right? And gives people a little bit more guidance on what to do, maybe doing some advanced functional medicine testing, looking into different causes. Because there are so many reasons why somebody can get into that adrenal dysfunction state. And really supporting your adrenals can be the first step to like overcoming chronic gut infections, right? Because when we're adrenally depleted, we end up being our immune system just isn't fighting off the, isn't keeping the Epstein-Barr virus in check. It's not going to be able to overcome the infections in our gut. So part of the program really focuses on raising your resilience to make you feel better and allow you to hopefully have enough energy and a bit more resilience to kind of deal with some of the deeper triggers if you have them. Yeah, it's brilliantly done. So we're talking about adrenal transformation protocol. You can get it anywhere you buy books after April 18th. And you can preorder now if you're watching this today. So Dr. Wenz, my friend Isabella, thank you. Thank you for putting together. You've already done such great work in the world. This is so needed. We didn't even talk about, but just as we end, even people who've had COVID, there's a certain percentage that are having adrenal dysfunction. So this is more relevant now than ever before. Where can people find it? Where would you send people to get more information about the book, about the protocol? My website is thyroidpharmacist.com. And I have a guide about the ABCs of Adrenal Support at thyroidpharmacist.com slash ABC. And then people can follow me on Instagram and Facebook. And my books are available wherever books are sold. Fantastic. And wherever you're listening to this, down below or in the transcription, you will see links to all of these. So don't worry, you can find them there. Thank you again, my friend. Thank you for being a light in the world for bringing such healing energy and more than important than that for putting together a protocol that can really help people to heal. Thank you so much for having me. It's just such a pleasure and honor to be here with you. And thank you for always being a guiding light for myself as well as everybody in the world with autoimmunity and thyroid issues and chronic health conditions and toxicity. So I really appreciate you and I really love you and the work that you're doing in the world. Thank you. Thank you, my friend.