Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Align to lead. I'm Dr. Megan Parks and today we're talking about real solutions for women's health, healing and balance.
[00:00:09] You're watching now Media Television.
[00:00:13] Welcome to Align to lead. I'm Dr. Megan Parks. This show is about what it really takes to lead from alignment when your mindset, your health, your capacity and your external responsibilities are all working together instead of competing against each other.
[00:00:29] So today we're going to talk about a pattern that I see in so many high performing women all the time.
[00:00:36] Number one, you are eating clean. Two, you're working hard and you're doing everything that you think you're supposed to do. And yet you're wired, tired, bloated, foggy, reactive, or simply unlike yourself.
[00:00:53] Before we talk about recovery, we have to understand the system.
[00:00:58] The stress is not just an emotion. It creates a physiological cascade that can affect sleep, blood sugar, thyroid signaling, reproductive hormones, energy and the way you show up as a leader.
[00:01:13] So first I'm going to kind of define the modern pattern of what a high performing woman who is doing everything right, but she feels wired, tired and bloated.
[00:01:24] So first off, we got to understand a little bit about fight flight and the rest and digest. So we've all heard sympathetic and parasympathetic and honestly they're both good, they both have a place. So many times we just always want to get into the parasympathetic which is going to be your rest and digest. But let's be honest, for us to show up as high performing women and to get things done, we do need that fight flight, we do need the ability, the energy, the sustainability to keep going.
[00:01:56] So let's go a little bit into that.
[00:01:59] I'm going to contrast what acute stress versus chronic stress looks like because acute stress is very, very good. Acute stress think it's going to be short, it's going to be adaptive, it's going to be protective. The whole reason why we had it in the first place is because back in the day when we would be chased by some kind of predator, we needed that. That explosive energy really did protect us. It also gave us all of that energy.
[00:02:26] But now let's look at today.
[00:02:28] Let's look at typical lifestyles, typical day to day, in and out of every single high performing functioning women where it's no longer just a cue, that's no longer just the short little time frame, but it's every day. Every day you feel like the massive amounts of stress are there every day. You're just trying to figure out how to even get by.
[00:02:52] So when stress response is persistently activated, imagine just feeling like you're being chased. You have to keep being on. You can't even relax.
[00:03:03] So there is a very big difference. Again, when we are constantly in that mode, you're fatigued by the end of it. You're also when you should be getting that rest at the end of your night, that cortisol is still pumping high. And now we're wired. But we're so tired because this is not just a one time occurrence. This is our life and this is every single day. The other part of when we talk stress, cortisol does mess with your blood sugar and it does have the response, the insulin response.
[00:03:37] And guess where that goes. Right in that midsection.
[00:03:41] So now noticing bloating, I'm noticing all of this other stuff that I really do not like. So already I'm feeling wired, I'm feeling tired, I'm feeling bloated, I feel awful.
[00:03:54] But why? What's going on?
[00:03:57] So let's explain a little bit. This thing called the HPA axis. Basically that means the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis.
[00:04:07] And I know some of you, your eyes may have just glazed over, but let's put it in simple terms and use language that makes sense.
[00:04:15] So here's the beauty of it. Your brain is going to detect whether or not there's going to be demands or any problems or anything so that it can go for it.
[00:04:27] It's also going to signal the adrenals and that adrenal response does spike your cortisol.
[00:04:33] And at the same time, as I mentioned before, we're either in fight flight or we're in rest and digest.
[00:04:40] So now we don't need the rest and digest. We need to survive. So it is going to mobilize any resources for survival.
[00:04:50] It does not care about you digesting your food and the fact that you're bloating. And it doesn't care that you need your sleep because it's trying to get you by, it's protecting you. So it's a really cool thing. But again, when we talk chronic, short term, fine, that's great, we needed it. When we talk chronic, then you may, we're going to introduce a thing called condolone steel, also known as progesterone steel.
[00:05:20] And when we talk about this, prolonged stress is protecting all of this. It's, it's, it's basically giving this away. So it's going to steal from the progesterone. Now progesterone is your calming Hormone. So now imagine that you're under chronic stress, you have to meet these deadlines, you have life, you have everything else going on, and nothing is stopping. So now my body says, well, okay, I try to be calm. So it is that is basically latching on to this progesterone, this calming thing is your lifeline going on.
[00:05:57] But here's the thing. Let's understand that when we talk reproduction and hormone balance, because when we're in a cycle, even when we're trying to reproduce, you need to have enough progesterone for you to even be able to conceive.
[00:06:13] So think about that. We are under so much stress, we're trying to produce and we're trying to be calm. Yet we're tapping that out. We no longer have the ability to actually bear a viable pregnancy. And we're just burnout. We're just running in where our hair is ready to fall out, where we're just going in circles.
[00:06:37] You've got to understand that physiology is more complex than just a single pathway.
[00:06:43] So let's also look at some of the other systems that it affects. It doesn't just affect your hormones. Well, it does your hormones. But we also got to look at other parts of the body, such as your thyroid.
[00:06:56] So again, stress does affect how your thyroid signals into conversion.
[00:07:02] Also, why fatigue, sluggishness and weight changes all can be stress. They also can be thyroid. We have to look at in a broader clinical picture rather than a single marker basically explaining everything.
[00:07:18] So another thing that the domino effect does is kind of alluded to this before, but you're talking about blood sugar and insulin.
[00:07:25] So when cortisol increases, also increases your glucose availability.
[00:07:32] This is a good thing. We're using our energy to get us through.
[00:07:37] But what if this is constantly increasing your glucose? We all know high glucose diabetes, weight gain, insulin sensitivity, so that repeated stress activation can actually contribute to, sadly, cravings, and usually not the cravings that we want to. It can do energy swings, because again, if I am constantly needing this extra energy all the time and it never ends. So you're going to be up, you're going to be down, you're going to be exhausted. Then cortisol gives us energy, but then now we get it to flatline. We'll talk about that more later. And then we also have changes, as I mentioned, in the abdominal fat area.
[00:08:22] So all recipes for disaster.
[00:08:24] I'm trying to do everything. I'm trying to show up as the best boss leader I can ever be.
[00:08:31] Yet I'm not feeling good. At all.
[00:08:33] And I am truly burning out. I don't know.
[00:08:37] Is this burnout? Is that.
[00:08:41] Is this weight gain? Is this hormones? Is this just a lack of willpower? Do I need to push harder? And all these things are going through our heads. There's so, so, so much more.
[00:08:54] So first and foremost, burnout should not automatically be framed the willpower problem.
[00:09:01] Let's be honest, my high achievers, myself included, we just find ways to push, push, keep going. You know, if, if I need to count calories and work out more, well, I'm going to work out till I am putting myself to the ground. And I am going to be so restrictive. And we're just going to keep doing this.
[00:09:21] Yeah, that's going to be a problem.
[00:09:23] And so everything that we're thinking we need to do, everything that we think that we need to do to continue ongoing is backfiring on us. And again, it has nothing to do with willpower in most cases, most cases, you. You have the desire, you're willing to put in the effort, but it's not working out for you. Because here's the thing. Persistent stress can produce biological adaptations that change your energy, your mood, your sleep, your appetite, and your performance.
[00:09:57] Again, let's think about that for a moment. I'm under stress.
[00:10:01] I'm really this type A personality. I want to help everybody. I want to be the best leader. I'm doing everything, everything I should. Yet at the same time, I'm not letting myself rest. I'm. I'm just pushing through, which then I'm depleting my energy even that much more. So I have nothing left to give when it's chronically going on. Let's look at my mood. Am I happy? No. I am so burnout. I'm so exhausted. I'm getting the lack of sleep because I am on flight and flight mode all the time. And talking about sleep. I'm not getting sleep. My body doesn't know whether or not I should be thinking and working or whether or not I should be sleeping. My appetite's messed up because of my cortisol and my insulin and the glucose is going all over the place and I'm craving these horrible things. And it's just making me feel worse than my performance is suffering. Because not only the stress, the lack of sleep, everything else that we just talked about, it becomes a recipe for disaster.
[00:11:04] So here's my thing. The first leadership move is recognizing that body may be single lean overload, other than just being personal failure. And I know a lot of us need to hear that because we just think of ways to do more. But it's not about doing more. It's about understanding we are under overload.
[00:11:24] So after the break, I'll help you separate what may look like burnout from what may be connected to perimenopause or other hormonal shifts. Because symptoms can overlap, but the strategy is very, very different.
[00:11:41] We'll be right back with more practical tools to help you feel healthier, stronger and more aligned. Stay tuned.
[00:11:48] And we're back. I'm Dr. Megan Parks and this is Aligned to Lead on Now Media Television.
[00:11:55] Welcome back to Align to Lead. Stay connected to this show and every NOW MEDIA TV favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in both English and Spanish on the move. Touch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv.
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[00:12:26] I'm Dr. Megan Parks. We're looking at the intersection of stress, hormones, energy and leadership.
[00:12:35] One of the hardest parts of burnout and hormone transitions is that it can almost look identical from the outside.
[00:12:44] Think about that for a moment. Brain fog, irritability, poor sleep, low libido, anxiety, midday crashes can occur more than in one physiological or psychological context.
[00:12:59] The goal is not to self diagnose from a symptom list because here's the thing, the symptoms are in both cases.
[00:13:06] It is to learn patterns that are worth tracking and discussing with a qualified clinician.
[00:13:13] So let's talk about the overlap matrix.
[00:13:16] So when we're talking chronic stress, would you have brain fog? I mean, think about that. You are constantly you're juggling schedules, you're juggling life, you're juggling kids, you're juggling family, you're juggling just everything and just trying to go from day to day. But there is no stop. Can you imagine not being able to think clearly?
[00:13:37] Well, let's look at it in a perimenopause, hormonal type of thing.
[00:13:42] So any of us who are in this perimenopausal thing can say, yes, the brain fog is so, so, so true. You'll be talking in mid sentence. You'll completely forget what you were meaning to do. So is it stress? It's a hormone. Now let's look at midday crashes.
[00:13:58] If my stress load is so stupid, high all the time, never ending, my cortisol does not know when I'm supposed to be sleeping or when I'm supposed to be working, but instead it's been fight like this whole time. So now I'm finding I'm not a napper. But I'm crashing in the midday.
[00:14:17] But now let's go into perimenopause or hormonal transition.
[00:14:22] My estrogen's this way, my progesterone's this way. I, I, I don't have a good sleep because I have flashes. Yes, another real thing. And so I'm having these midday crashes.
[00:14:35] I'm more lethargic because my hormones are here versus here.
[00:14:40] Now let's flip into irritability again. If we're stressed, every one of us know that we are not peaches to be around that same thing. Depending on where we are with our hormones and depending on when we are even if we were having a normal cycle, there's times that irritability is a true way of life.
[00:15:00] Poor sleep. I just already mentioned that chronic stress. You're not in rest digest mode. It is going to be so hard to get that quality sleep. But now let's look at the hormones.
[00:15:12] I am sweating all of a sudden and it is freezing outside.
[00:15:17] I am tossing and turning.
[00:15:20] I can't get. My mind's racing. I'm not calm. I have all of this other stuff going on. So again, are we talking stress? Are we talking hormones? Because there is an overlap.
[00:15:31] Let's hit upon low libido and if I'm always thinking about that or okay, I'll be, I'll be real. I have some of my women who will say actually that's my stress reliever. And it might be your stress reliever.
[00:15:47] However, are you showing up loving and wanting to connect or are you just looking at an outlet? Because there's a very big difference. I'm not connecting with my partner. I'm not trying to be affectionate during those times of stress. The same thing if my hormones aren't there.
[00:16:05] So again we got to look at it as which one is it? And they do they overlap. And this is going to affect our resilience just to show up whether it is stress or whether it's hormones.
[00:16:15] So the biggest thing thing when we look at the overlap and why this is so important, we really need to understand context, timing, history and even pattern recognition because they are going to matter more than just a little symptom checklist because as I just said, it occurs in both of them.
[00:16:34] So let's look at some clues. So this is an all encompassing and yes, it is going to overlap on some. Let's look at. What are some burnout clues?
[00:16:43] Okay, well, emotional detachment or cynicism. So what that's going to look like? I used to, like, love being around my team. I used to love getting excited and sharing, and now I'm putting up a wall.
[00:16:58] No, I want to protect myself. Or I'm being cynical about everything that's going around me, and I'm not that person.
[00:17:04] I'm looking into the negativity rather than, you know, yay, team.
[00:17:10] You have persistent exhaustion. And this is going to be a big thing after I have time off because, let's be honest, we are so drivers. Our executed executive women. We, we go, go, go, go. But then you get your vacation and we're sitting on the beach, we're trying to relax. Well, not even trying to relax. We are relaxing.
[00:17:32] We have a complete restful situation. We're restoring ourselves.
[00:17:38] Yeah, I come back to work and I still feel exhausted. There's definitely a clue that you may be on more burnout than anything.
[00:17:47] And same thing. Let's look at. You have a clear overload or lifestyle triggers like you can handle maybe not as well as you think you can, because if you talk about all the rest of the people, they're really knowing these issues.
[00:18:02] But you feel like you're handling everything.
[00:18:04] But someone gives you one more thing, and that one more thing may become two more things, and then the two more things becomes the normal workload. And then this next day, I get another thing and I snap.
[00:18:19] These are definitely burnout clues. But let's take a look at. Let's shift into now. Perimenopause hormonal clues that we may need a look. So first off, I love the symptom tracker. It really helps. And we're going to take off our halos. We know. We know what's normal around what cycle. We know when we're Zen. We know when, oh, my gosh, everything's going to annoy me. We know when we feel crazy energy and we know when we're not. So let's take a look at all of that. So again, when we're in cycle, if you're tracking it, it can kind of start telling you what is normal. It's not. Especially before we get into the perimenopausal symptom phase, we should know ourselves.
[00:19:01] But now let's. Let's talk.
[00:19:03] We're now maybe moving into this and we don't know if we are.
[00:19:06] Well, are you having night sweats?
[00:19:09] Because if you're having night sweats, there's a Chance that may be lower. Let's also notice the changes in cycle because here's the thing.
[00:19:21] I can tell you personally, during my first phase I am a little bit tired too, but I usually feel more energetic. I usually am okay. And then I have a few weeks that I'm really good. I really like the Dr. Megan that's going to be here the week before.
[00:19:41] Oh my. I used to jerk around that it was the hawk having pms. And so I knew that that week before. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to try to get this together. I'm really going to have to fight for this.
[00:19:53] But now we're in the perimenopause or the hormonal shift. And now instead of having, whether you have a 28 day cycle, a 35 day cycle, you might only have a day cycle.
[00:20:07] So where the first week maybe I was exhausted and the second week I am irritable, but I have at least a couple weeks that I'm pretty good.
[00:20:15] You no longer are having that.
[00:20:18] So again, is that stress or is that hormones? Well, yes, a little bit of both. But something's off. This is not my normal. That's going to signal that maybe we got a hormonal thing that we should start looking at. What about the timing or the flow? Are you always light or are you always heavy? And now we're, now it's completely different.
[00:20:38] Probably a shift going on in your hormones because typically they're going to be similar from month to month, especially if you've had this your whole cycling life.
[00:20:48] So now let's kind of look into another factor. A tired but wired experience.
[00:20:55] It's lovely. It happens at 2 to 3 in the morning.
[00:20:58] I'm waking up and I have symptoms. But again, this can be multiple causes and it deserves a contextual evaluation rather than a single cause assumption. Because I'll be honest, before getting into the perimenopausal realm, if I heard tired but wired, if I actually heard someone say, and myself say I'm waking up at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning, I instantly, well, I would say new, but I. That's not always the case. Now I instantly thought that that person must have had really high cortisol and cortisol is a factor. But is it from stress or is it from hormones?
[00:21:35] Because again, if I'm getting woke up and I'm having night sweats and I'm also, I'm depleting my, my progesterone. I have the progesterone steel and I Just keep pushing and I'm not working with my hormones and this is going to be a reality. Sleep is going to elude me.
[00:21:53] So next let's take a look at even what happens when we have poor sleep along with prolonged stress.
[00:22:03] Because now let's look at it in this way. How's it going to affect your motivation?
[00:22:08] I'm stressed all the time and I'm not getting sleep. Am I really going to be motivated to show up and do the job and be the best version of Megan as I can be?
[00:22:20] Let's look at it as a reward processing.
[00:22:24] I don't have good sleep, some really good care less and I have prolonged stress.
[00:22:30] The reward doesn't matter because let's be honest, I don't see a difference. Rewards great when there's short term stress, but when I have this day in and day out, it is no longer worth it to me. My passion is no longer there. And what's my mood like again? I am exhausted and on top of that I am stressed out to the max. Do you think I'm going to be a wonderful person and have a great executive function? No. So here's what happens. So many of my women in leadership interpret this as a depleted capacity and that they're losing ambition. It really could be your physiology and recovery systems are truly under strain and that strain is not letting up.
[00:23:13] So biggest thing that I want everybody to take from. You can't just look at one thing. This could be hormones, it could be stress, it could be sleep disruption, it could be depression, it could be thyroid disease, it could be medication effects. It can even be an overlap in all of these things.
[00:23:31] So I want to leave you with. You simply cannot out rest every medical problem.
[00:23:37] And I hate to break it to you, there's no supplement or hormonal strategy that's going to be able to compensate for an unsustainable schedule indefinitely.
[00:23:47] Coming up next, we are going to move from pattern recognition to data if you feel far from normal, but unfortunately keep hearing that your labs are normal.
[00:23:58] What should actually be evaluated and what can testing realistically tell us? We'll be right back with more practical tools to help you feel healthier, stronger and more aligned. Stay tuned. And we're back. I'm Dr. Megan Parks and this is Aligned A Lead on Now Media Television.
[00:24:18] I'm Dr. Megan's Parts. We're talking about overlapping symptoms. Now we need to talk about measurement.
[00:24:26] Data can be useful but only when it's the right test is ordered at the right time and the right clinical Questions are being asked.
[00:24:35] Because here's the sad part. A single lab value can be so many things at once to so many different people. On someone, it may be reassuring.
[00:24:45] Another person, unfortunately, could be misleading. And even in a third person, it can be incomplete, depending on what you're trying to understand.
[00:24:55] So the goal is not to order every test under the book, but to use testing strategically.
[00:25:01] So here's the problem. I adore standard labs. I absolutely love them. But let's explain why that one fasting morning snapshot cannot answer every single question or every single symptom that does fluctuate across the day or a menstrual cycle.
[00:25:21] So most of us are very familiar with having annual or biannual CBC or CMP panel done. And what that stands for, CBC is your complete blood count, and your CMP is your comprehensive metabolical panel.
[00:25:37] Now with this, a lot of times it's done fasting. And it's done fasting because they are also a lot of times looking at your insulin, your A1C, your glucose, even your cholesterol. And so we don't want food in there. And what if they had a sugary thing and it spiked it versus not. So they want to see what your body, what your baseline's doing, but where this becomes a problem, where this becomes not really helpful at times, or maybe reverse, hey, the person's good, but we're missing a whole bunch of different things.
[00:26:12] So for example, when did you take that, that test? Did you take it in the first part of you just had your period within the first week?
[00:26:22] Because if you just had your period in the first week, well, progesterone's not going to be high. So if I'm even examining you on some of the hormones and I'm trying to see, is your progesterone where it should be, or are we getting into the not being able to carry a kid or not being able to show up or any of that? We shouldn't have a lot of progesterone then.
[00:26:47] But let's say we take it during that last half and we're about a week before our period. Well, I expect your progesterone to pretty high. Your estrogen is going to be low, though, at this time. So we can't just say, oh, this is what's going on. And then. And then again, let's look at age, let's look at all different things. Let's look at your symptoms, what is going on? Because I've even seen people who have had an autoimmune disease And Hashimoto's and a thyroid issue. Their labs are looking normal. And we're going to go a little bit more into that here in a minute. The labs are looking normal, but it's not normal. It's not normal because we're in the early phases. But if I don't know what your symptoms are or what's going on, that lab's not going to tell me the information that you truly need.
[00:27:36] Let's just go a little bit. And we talked about stress, we've talked about hormones, and let's talk about specifically cortisol, because cortisol, in fact, when I see it on a lab, like a blood lab, I like to. I'm going to be honest, it's worthless to me. It's worthless to me because that is not telling me what that person is actually doing at that moment. Because you're picking it in the morning.
[00:28:02] Well, what is. What's morning to you versus what's morning to me? Morning to me. As I am up at five in the morning, you might still be sleepy.
[00:28:12] By the time I'm at 8 or 9, my cortisol better be raising up because I am ready to go. I've so usually done quite a bit. I've worked out. I've done different things at this point. But maybe you're just giving up. Well, in the morning when we first get up, that cortisol is going to still be low. Then it's going to slowly rise because we need that energy. We need the energy to keep going and then it should kind of peak dinner time, you know, that would be ideal. But let's say my cortisol is not where it needs to be.
[00:28:44] And let's say I. But I'm only doing it in the morning. Well, it's low. Okay. So I have low cortisol. Okay. I'm not stressed. When you could be ragingly stressed or worse, flatlined because of it. So again, this is not telling us anything. It should also drop as we go down. So what is it doing? So blood is never the ideal way to tell what your cortisol is doing. You either need saliva or you need a urine test to actually give you an accurate definition of what it is. Otherwise it's telling you truly nothing. It's not helping you out, it's just adding and causing. Like this, I'm going to say noise going on.
[00:29:25] So again, when we talk cortisol and dhea, you need saliva or you need urine. Most of us are very familiar with the Dutch test and. Or there's one that Dr. Statea came out with, it's called the UMAP, which is believe it's hormone Urinary Metabolic Assessment Panel. I think I got that right. But it also does urine. The beauty beautiful part about this is not only are you able to see it in the morning and see it as it's the cortisol is going up and see is it going down where it's supposed to, is it flatlined, is it different things? So now we can kind of even see what's the endocrine going, what's everything going.
[00:30:07] But then also how are you clearing your hormones?
[00:30:11] You know, is your estrogen there? But aren't you, are you not clearing looks at these things totally different than a single morning fasting blood. But again, doesn't tell us much.
[00:30:24] I kind of talked about it a little bit earlier. But when we talk thyroid evaluation, here's the problem with standards.
[00:30:31] Standard does not look at everything that it probably should.
[00:30:34] So when we do a standard thyroid test, it's missing a lot because you're not just looking at but three T4 to three T3 to the thyroid antibodies.
[00:30:47] What's your reverse T3 doing? And so if you're not looking at all of them again, you may feel oh I'm, I'm doing good. In reality, you are not doing good whatsoever. And if we're relying on these standard tests without having the right answers or the right questions or knowing what we're even looking for, you're missing a whole part of the picture or misdiagnosing or not even giving that person the correct help because you're doing it on partial data.
[00:31:15] So again, let's talk about sex hormones for a minute. When we are cycling or when we are even getting into that perimeter cause point, the ideal time to typically test is about a week before your period. Why a week before your period? We know progesterone should be higher at this moment.
[00:31:35] What also happens when we start entering into getting into menopause or progesterone is going to be the first to drop. So if it's supposed to be high and I'm not, okay, well that's going to give me a better idea of what's going on. Okay, but how old is the person?
[00:31:53] Because if I have someone in their 20s and 30s, I'm expecting and they're in their child birthing years to be a little bit higher, it better be, otherwise they are not having a viable pregnancy.
[00:32:07] And so, but again, what if I have a woman who is 85 and do I expect her progesterone to be high? Well, no, but if I don't know what, who is in front of me or what is going on, I might just assume, oh, they have low progesterone, but maybe they should at this point.
[00:32:29] So questions matter so much more than interpreting a single estrogen or progesterone number in isolation.
[00:32:38] Again, symptoms are going to matter. Different things are going to matter. Like, are you raging when you shouldn't be? Are you?
[00:32:46] You know, I always remember feeling like, oh, estrogen was this terrible thing. Well, here I, after I got put on high dose estrogen, I was like, oh my gosh, have I been low my whole life? Because I'm telling you what, it became so different, but nobody tested it and people don't test it. There's so much more. They're just going on a snapshot. There's so many more. There's so much more information that needs to be said, needs to be asked to figure out what's going on.
[00:33:15] So let's kind of hit upon a little bit high cortisol versus flattening curve because again, why I don't like cortisol as a blood marker or getting it from your blood is it should, it should be low, it should go high, it should peak around dinner time. And then as I'm getting ready to rest, you know, the rest and digest, as I'm really getting ready to go to bed, it should start going down because if it's up, I'm not sleeping, I'm wired, I'm tired, but I can't sleep, or it's waking me up in the middle of the night because it's high when it should be low.
[00:33:49] So some people will say, okay, well, how do I know between high cortisol and there's a thing called a flattened curve. And again, unless we're looking at it through saliva or urine, you're not going to see that curve. It's just going to be a little snapshot.
[00:34:05] So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go a little bit deeper into this.
[00:34:10] Having stage three burnout, AKA adrenal exhaustion, is not the same as the formal diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency.
[00:34:21] So let me explain that.
[00:34:23] So if I am constantly under stress, if I'm in stage three burnout, and I am, my adrenals are exhausted because they're constantly pumping this, this cortisol. My cortisol is going to be high. It's just going to be super, super, super high. Now let's look at it in a diagnosis of Adrenaline sufficiency, I've let it go so long that it no longer has the ability, it's insufficient. It can't even give me into that, that curve or if it's a spike, it's super, super, super low.
[00:34:55] So now it's flatline.
[00:34:59] So this persistent fatigue and abnormal symptoms you want to look at so much more. Do we have a sleep disorder?
[00:35:09] Do we have anemia?
[00:35:11] Is that a thyroid disease? Could we have a mood disorder? What kind of medications are you on or what kind of supplements that may be maybe interacting with each other? Do you have a metabolic disease? Or what about any other causes? Because again, so many things overlap and if you're only on a one track mind, you are missing everything else.
[00:35:34] So objective data, it can move you from a conversation between everything looks normal, but data should be interpreted in context and not treated as a diagnosis by itself.
[00:35:47] So here's the big thing and here's the takeaway.
[00:35:50] Ask better questions, better clinical reason and a plan that matches the actual problem.
[00:35:57] So in this final segment coming up, turn all of this into a practical recovery playbook such as nutrition movement, nervous system regulation, sleep supplementation and operational boundaries that protect your capacity to lead.
[00:36:15] We'll be right back with more practical tools to help you feel healthier, stronger and more aligned. Stay tuned. We're back. I'm Dr. Megan Parks and this is Align to Lead on Now Media Television.
[00:36:28] Welcome back to Align to Lead. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in both English and Spanish on the move. Download the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv.
[00:36:49] from business and news to lifestyle culture, finance, law and beyond, NOW Media TV is streaming around the clock. Ready whenever you are.
[00:36:58] I'm Dr. Megan Parks and this is where alignment becomes action.
[00:37:02] Recovery is not about doing one perfect thing. It is about reducing unnecessary physiological load while rebuilding the habits and boundaries that support energy, resilience and leadership capacity.
[00:37:17] The recovery strategy should match the person. Again, we're all individual. So this means food training, sleep, stress management, medication, hormones, supplements and work boundaries all fit inside a larger clinical and lifestyle picture.
[00:37:36] So one of my things that I tell people first with food, everybody's going to be different.
[00:37:42] But one of my things that I can tell my high achieving women and what I can tell even my women navigating the perimenopause menopause is you really need to do a protein forward breakfast early in the day.
[00:37:56] One it's gonna help stabilize your energy.
[00:38:00] It's also going to help kind of numb the morning strong morning stress activation.
[00:38:08] And part of the reason for that is because think about what we, what we're putting in our body.
[00:38:13] If you're putting in a sugary, well let's say coffee and you're also eating a donut and you're eating a lot of these carbs and high sugar content, what's going to spike, you need it to be stable. And here's the thing, women when we're into that realm you need more protein to begin with because as we get to the more menopausal range our estrogen is going to drop and when our estrogen trap we can't metabolize the protein as much. Think about that for a minute. I needed to support myself, I needed to help burn stuff, I needed to keep my structure and keep me lean.
[00:38:55] But I can't even metabolize it as much. You've got to start that first. It's going to help you feel stable. It's not going to be like the sugary carby type things where you go up and you're down and you crash and you got the energy right away. Then you, you feel like you're having a mid morning crash. I really, really really recommend protein first. And also when we talk meal timing this there's no one size fits all.
[00:39:19] Some people do very well with with small little windows. Some people need more often everybody is different and you've got to explore and what works for your friend may not work for you sis and I'm sorry but that's the truth.
[00:39:35] So let's put a little bit on that one because two of the big things that are really popular now are fasting and high intensity exercise and you can go on the Internet I always call it Dr. Google and find article upon otter cup about what what the benefits of on these but when be counterproductive to the person.
[00:39:59] So let's look at it this way.
[00:40:01] Aggressive fasting.
[00:40:04] First off does fasting and HIIT workouts work? Yeah, 100% they do. And I can, I can have so many articles to back that up and so can you. We all have heard this but let's say I'm under recovered and now I'm fasting and I need that protein and I need that food source to heal but I'm fasting. Is my body going to heal? What what's going to happen? Or is it going to create more inflammation, is it going to cause more stress which is Going to spike my cortisol, which then again I'm going to lose sleep, then I'm going to spiral and then I've already under stress.
[00:40:44] What about that person who struggling just to have enough energy, they just feel like they're walking through mud and I'm asking you to aggressively fast. Is that going to help you? You don't even have enough energy. Now I'm taking, I'm restricting your calories.
[00:40:59] Now let's flip into the. Okay, well I can get my diet under control, but my workouts, you know, okay, so I'm going to do a high intensity exercise but I'm undercover.
[00:41:11] Am I going to cause more inflammation? Am I going to cause more damage? Am I going to cause more stress in my body? Again, cortisol, belly fat, I'm pushing so hard, yet I'm not getting the results. What about if I'm struggling with energy on that energy availability and now I'm trying to do high intensity. I don't have the energy to make it through the day. I am bottomed out and starting to lead myself to having insufficient amounts of cortisol and, and getting into that adrenal failure rate.
[00:41:42] So again, we got to work with our body.
[00:41:45] So one of my things I, we talk about was the, the cycle. Where are we women? Because here's the thing again, estrogen gets a bad rap. Estrogen is not bad. Estrogen, Goldilocks, everything in the right too much, not good, too little, not good. You want, you want it in the good good marker. So estrogen tends to be higher in the beginning of our cycle. The beautiful part about estrogen, you could get to the hiit and the high intensity density. Breathless. Oh my gosh. You can, you can get into your, your body's ability to create hormone. It basically amps up your body's ability to be lean and burn calories and pr. It is phenomenal, ladies. And HIIT workouts great during that time.
[00:42:37] But let's look about the second half or I'm now into the perimenopause range and my progesterone is now starting to drop. It's not where it's supposed to.
[00:42:47] Well, if progesterone is where it should be. Well, I'm exhausted, so I'm exhausted. I'm in the calm mode, yet I'm trying to push myself. Now I stressed out my whole system when I should be getting ready for that rest and digest. So during that second half, right before you're starting your period the week before, swap out the high intensity, maybe move towards strength training or that lower intensity movement walking, yoga or just even getting that extra sleep sleep to get yourself ready for the best you afterward.
[00:43:26] We can also do non sleep things such as relaxation. I mentioned yoga, breath work are all really good to help down regulate and help with recovery.
[00:43:39] Now one of my things I it just drives me nuts and and I do it too. I or I did it too was what supplements should I be on? You know I get asked all the time should I be taking magnesium, B vitamins, adaptogens such as Ashwagandha or Loyola.
[00:43:55] But here's the problem that is a loaded question because ultimate may be the B vitamins which typically if you don't need them, you're going to just urinate them out and it's going to be this lovely neon yellow.
[00:44:10] They can interact with the medications you're on or a medical condition. Sometimes where most of these things are great, you may, it may be the worst thing for you so me to say here's a one and done. Take this. That is not helping you out. Instead of looking at supplements to fix the problem, I tell you to start setting operational boundaries. Protect your sleep window.
[00:44:35] Quit trying to go to bed at 2 in the morning and then midnight and then going all over and you're your credit school is never going to know what, what where it should resell.
[00:44:46] Also protect and try to reduce chronic overallocation. Are you trying to multitask? Are you trying to do 20 things at once and use it as a badge of honor? Because I'm telling you what, you're going to burn out.
[00:44:59] Also training your personal capacity as an unlimited business resource and you know what I mean, oh, I can do it, I can do it. I'm just going to do it. It's going to be easier for me to do it than explain it to you. And we just keep going and going. This is not a badge of honor, sis. It is a complete recipe for disaster. Not only on the stress and the burnout aspect, but also on the hormones and all of the lifestyle and showing up aspects.
[00:45:29] So I'm going to return to the leadership principle because effective leadership requires alignment between internal health and external output.
[00:45:40] My biggest things I want to leave with you guys is please, please, please start tracking your patterns again. You know, you know what's normal for you, what's normal for you is going to be completely abnormal for me. You know, my husband would like to say like he, he jokes, he's like, you're not, you're not normal. Which you kind of know that. But I will wake up like I'm either on or off. Like that. That's, that's my normal. If I'm up, I'm. You give me five minutes and I'm this energy like from five minutes and waking up most people, it takes a little while. That's my normal. If I, if I was groggy and it took me an hour to get around, which is my husband's normal, I would be sick. I would be thinking, okay, something's wrong with me. So his normal and my normal are going to be two different things. My other thing I'm going to tell you is to seek qualified evaluation when your symptoms persist or worsen. Symptoms are not something you just have to deal with. Symptoms aren't something that, that should be getting worse. If it is, it's your body signaling, kind of like that light coming on saying, we have a low pressure tire gauge or we're low on gas. Your body's trying to tell you something and maybe it's showing up as irritability, maybe it's showing up as a lack of sleep. So you really, really, really need to seek out someone who's qualified in evaluating that.
[00:47:02] You also need to build a recovery strategy. And this is going to be huge, guys. That is sustainable rather than extreme. Again, does fasting work? Sure. Does hiit workout work? Sure.
[00:47:16] At certain times should not be done. If you're causing more things to be stressed than not, you're not benefiting.
[00:47:24] And I'm going to start by saying a biggest thing is for me becomes mindset because again, I'm talking even to myself as a high executive, high stress leader out there.
[00:47:40] It wasn't about was I willing to do it because yeah, give me, give me this and I'll do it. 2023. I did 2023 miles just because I wanted to say I could and I was working out. Now was I getting the result?
[00:47:54] No, I was getting the results on the 2023 miles, but I wasn't looking the part. I was stressed, I was angry, I was glubby. I was gaining a tire in the middle because that's not. I was stressing out my system so much more and I was screwing up my hormones during the same time. This is not good. So I really highly recommend that you get with an executive coach such as myself and if you want to work with me.
[00:48:22] I don't work with a lot of people one on one. But if you are willing or wanting to, I only work with the people who are really wanting to get results. And you can email me at Dr. Period Megan Megan@integratedmedical grp.com and just put now media or align the lead. Then in the body put help or application and I can send you an application to see if you would.
[00:48:48] We'd be a good fit. If not, there are so many other amazing executive coaches out there that can help with your situation because showing up as the best you and just pushing what you're doing, you are doing everything right. It's not a willpower thing. It is a you need help thing and you need someone coming along with you.
[00:49:09] So if there's one idea I want you to take from this episode, it is your capacity is not separate from your leadership. When your body is asking for recovery, ignoring it does not make you more disciplined. It eventually changes the quality of your decisions, your relationships, your energy and your ability to lead.
[00:49:31] If your symptoms are persistent, severe, new or affecting your daily function, use this episode as a starting point for a conversation with a qualified healthcare professional, not as a substitute for one. I'm Dr. Megan park and this is Aligned to Lead.
