How to Naturally Balance Hormones with Infrared Light | Dr. Taz Bhatia

[Music] everyone welcome to the ancient Health podcast I am your host Dr Josh axe on today's episode I'm going to be interviewing Dr Taz baa and we're gonna be diving deep into how to balance women's hormones naturally or both men and women we'll get into we'll talk about the foods the vitamins and supplements also be talking about uh an incredible piece of tech that I use I Have in my home Dr Taz does as well they can help balance natural hormones we'll be talking about things like what's better cold plunge or infer and sonifer hormones

and answering a lot of those types of questions but uh before I dive in I want to introduce Dr Tash she is a board certified Integrative Medicine physician she's the founder of the center spring uh MD clinic and also she combines this is one of the things I love about interviewing her is that she Combines Eastern medicine with Western medicine to help people get the best results possible so we're going to talk about all things balancing hormones naturally Dr tavs welcome to show oh my gosh it's good to see you Josh I know we've talked

before and we always have such great conversations and I know we're both so aligned when it comes to this sort of east west approach to uh taking care of the body yeah absolutely you know one of the first things I want To dive into is is that there is a difference between men and women in their hormones and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about uh what you really pay attention to when you're looking at when men come into your practice you're working on balancing their hormones what do you look at with

men what are those key key numbers and things that you're looking at there and then what is it for women when you look at and what's really the difference Between sort of the you know uh men and women and caring for hormones you know it's so interesting that we're leading the conversation with men because part of me is like do I just flip the book that I wrote for women and put a blue cover on it and we apply it to men because I do feel like there's this open space where men are not getting

the attention around their hormone balance and what hormones really mean for them and I think we're also with the new Environment and changing genetics and all this other stuff we're seeing the threat to their hormones much much earlier than what we saw even a generation or so ago so you know for the men coming through the practice uh their hormones are honestly just as important is female hormones we start out by looking actually everyone wants me to say testosterone but we actually start out by looking at cortisol and understanding the impact of cortisol in Their

overall HPA access and sort of the hormone pathway because here's what we're finding is that as cortisol sort of ramps up in men right and they ignore it more they're not as they don't have a period like we do or a cyclical nature to their cycle like we do to really track what's going on with their hormones what we're starting to understand is that you know that high cortisol is crashing testosterone levels and is really bringing those Testosterone levels down so it's important to understand where cortisol is so that we can help men then track

what their testosterone is doing and it's not just about total testosterone it's also about how it's metabolized so where's free testosterone where's DHT where's dheas which is an adrenal hormone in addition to those two we also want to look at the thyroid and we want to look at insulin and I feel like those are like sort of four corners of a Square so to speak that we need to be thinking about when it comes to women's health so testosterone cortisol insulin and thyroid and then understanding kind of what the interconnectedness of all of that is

yeah it's so good so talk to me about women's health a little bit let me let me share this what I used to see in practice constantly when I was in full time I felt like the majority of men that came in again the issue was low testosterone And again it was low energy fatigue lack of motivation right all of those things and in women they actually had some overlapping s symptoms of fatigue you know lack of energy holding weight on their midsection but their's tended to be more of a what we you know a

thyroid issue in terms of what their what their uh blood would show I mean you see something similar and what are some of those root hormones uh that you really look at like hey this is the sort of Dominant that starts to crash all the other hormones when you look at women so I think it's almost a similar conversation right like we start with women looking at cortisol again because I think that spike in cortisol in fact I just was lecturing this past weekend to doctors talking about hypothalamic inflammation which is an area of the

brain that is very much responsible for how we sense our environment and we're seeing a lot Of the dysfunction in hormones really beginning there right and that's a cortisol story that's an adrenaline story so that's Universal for both men and women I think the more that cortisol is overactivated the faster you're going to see the decline in sort of the end organ hormones like estrogen progesterone testosterone all of those so I think that's a a unifier amongst men and women now the challenge with women is that we have this cyclical Hormone cycle right we have

fluctuating levels of estrogen we have fluctuating levels of progesterone and so when we take cortisol and we take the cyclical you know changing estrogen and progesterone someone's going to pay and in that sort of map of who's going to pay often times it's the thyroid usually it's progesterone levels dropping first then the thyroid following after that then estrogen dominance taking place which is not necessarily Rising estrogen Levels there's a lot of noise right now in the space saying estrogen dominance isn't real but it's not we're not talking about necessarily Rising estrogen levels we're talking about

a lot more stored estrogen which in turn then sets up sort of this domino effect for inflammation weight gain more fatigue you know uh diseases of of estrogen all of that you know all of that spiral so to speak so while the starting point might be the same for men And women we do definitely diverge and then uh The Fallout is a little bit different yeah and so so you said it's cortisol I mean that's that's the the main the primary hormone that you're looking at first now I know you're looking at the things holistically

but you're looking at first what are some of the top causes of cortisol getting imbalanced and what are some of the remedies and things that you tend to and listen I Know everybody's different and you and I are both big fans by the way again one of the things I love about Dr Taz is she's very she's into personalized medicine like I am like everyone listening to this show is really really unique but when you're looking at Big the overlap some of the general Trends what are the biggest things causing cortisol to plummet or it's

not Plum anyways calling it to causing it to be inbalanced and what are some things we Can do to start to restore cortisol levels definitely I mean I mean and I could probably have a 1 hour conversation on this but you know keeping it super let's go superficial to deep so keeping it kind of at a level where a lot of people have heard about cortisol a lot of people know the word stress right and we've been throwing that around we've been talking a lot about Stress Management and mindfulness so at its most basic cortisol

is our Stress hormone it reacts when we're under duress when we have a project even when we have something good right it's that hormone that gets released keeping it balanced is key we want it to be high and we want some cortisol on board when we need it but we want it to turn off when we want it to too but what happens with chronic stress and in certain conditions that cortisol level stays elevated first gets too high then starts to flip-flop then starts to get too low And so people find themselves in that trap

and those are the earliest signs of this like fatigue and brain fog and then trouble sleeping and then we have cortisol belly like all of these things were to progress from there keeping cortisol balanced is a lot about correcting the Sleep Cycle helping kind of keep the diet to where it's clean because we do know now that a lot of processed foods and packaged foods high sugar foods all of these things will Actually trigger cortisol spikes as well so keeping blood sugar balanced keeping the diet regular uh relatively anti-inflammatory and clean and then also engaging

in activities and even maybe herbs or supplements that bring cortisol down and bring that sort of stress response down and that could be everything from you know you're great about your 10 to 20 minutes of daily mindfulness you get acupuncture once a week or you do something like sauna Therapy at 3 or four times a week that's actually been shown to bring cortisol levels down the research is there you know so these are some of the things you can put into place and maybe pairing that you know with the micronutrients for proper cortisol balance which

are usually B vitamins vitamin C magnesium those are some of the critical ones so again you want to craft this plan especially if you're in a high stress state to bring cortisol down now the Trap here for everybody is like well what if you're like well I'm not stressed and it's not just about being stressed it's about understanding that chronic viruses can create this High cortisol state right can create this inflammation at the level of the hypothalamus that that pours out cortisol we understand too that trauma right a car accident you know any of that

these type of things can create a high cortisol State and there's so many Toxins out there now that create a high cortisol state so having an active you know plan that truly manages cortisol and brings it down I think is really important yeah it's great you mentioned herbs what are some of your favorite herbs to recommend both for women and then also for men is there any difference in terms of helping lower those cortisol levels definitely I mean I use a lot of ashwagandha across the board for men and women I feel like That's a

tried and true I feel like the mushrooms are really great too I love Rishi mushroom I feel like that one I can use across you know men and women um for women I start skewing a little bit more towards like Maca because it helps me a lot with the hot flashes and the night sweats as well that many women experience while helping a little bit with the cortisol component and then I've got a lot of women that you know find ashwagandha too simulating so for Them sometimes we're using like holy basil and pairing that with

Maca to kind of bring that uh cortisol response down so those are some of my favorites I mean there's so many more but those are the ones like I feel like I'm reaching for constantly makes sense I mean I love those you know again I the the mushroom I take the most personally is Rishi I do a lot I mean it's it's more gentle I mean I love CPS it's a little stronger of course and and but but again I think Re Rishi in terms of just longevity there's so much great research and history behind

that and ashua Ganda you're I mean it's just it's great for men and women so I love that um you know you you'd mentioned um you know uh infrared sauna and I want to dive into that more later but I do want to say I mean that is such a great practice I've had my INF foret sa for years now and um and I just love it I mean I just really feel like I mean There's a you know I hear a lot both about and you'd mentioned there's a study would you just kind of

quote that study what what was that finding on the benefits of you said doing a sauna infared SAA three times a week yeah I believe the study looked at folks using the control group uh had used a dry sauna 15 to 20 minutes about three to four times a week and had they found a couple of things it was super interesting they found first of all the Cortisol levels were down after use of the sauna but in addition to that they found that it actually lowered inflammation and even some of the cardiovascular markers so lowered

blood pressure for example improved heart rate improved heart rate variability so those are all things we associate with stress right and an exaggerated cortisol response so just having that as a tool you know to kind of really help you manage your day-to-day stress or even Just to help you with you know the envir environmental stress maybe you have to beat traffic maybe you flew a bunch and jumped on a plane you know for three weeks in a row definitely helping with some of those type of things that are triggering again I keep telling people to

to imagine sort of your brain the hypothalamus is sitting in the next inside of it it's sensing the environment and then it's deciding what to do and if it's got too many hits it's Pouring out cortisol so what can we do to calm that down becomes really a public health issue I think moving forward and we're not talking about it enough because I think so much can be prevented if we think about starting there versus you know there's a lot of conversation at the other end about hormone balancing or this or that or all those

other things what if we started up here so that our hormones didn't crash as quickly and as early as they seem to Be doing nowadays yeah you know I I have noticed the tremendous benefits in using my sauna I uh you know and and I think a lot of times people think well I'm going have to get in there a lot like like I'll get in there like like you said 20 minutes a few days a week and really feel so relaxed getting out feel energized I've noticed I sleep better so there's lots of benefits

there I've got a I've got a sunlighten at home and love it in terms of a brand but There's a lot of yeah so so great you know you were talking about this I want to talk more about infrared a little bit in in the sauna and so for everybody here uh if you've never been in infrared sauna it is an incredible healing experience I mean the whole family you know Chelsea post pregancy started getting in and to kind of help her blood flow and recovery after giving birth birth which was amazing um and then

anytime we're not Feeling well but generally just for longevity for health I'd love for you to explain the basic just a little bit of the science behind how infrared saas work and why they're so beneficial definitely so I think infrared son remember are Heating and we're getting kind of heated up from the inside out rather than just having a lot of heat come directly at us so by doing so again there's some science and some early studies that are showing that's Actually helping our detox Pathways that's the diff that's to me the biggest difference between

the infrared and the regular saunas that you know you're heating the body gently from the inside out which also means by the way you can go in it more frequently usually in a typical dry sauna you're only supposed to go about two to three times a week otherwise it can be a little bit too much for the body but with an infrared you can go a little bit more frequently If you want but this sort of activation of metabolic pathways and detox Pathways has a lot of benefits and I I can go to million different

benefits but I think you know one of the things that we've seen just within our own family because we have a sunlighten as well and you know it didn't take me long to say that it's working for everybody to find everybody down in it but my daughter is almost she's 16 years old and she's almost self-medicating with the sauna And she's she's got what many children and Adolescence have today a little bit more of those sensory issues right she has one of the MTHFR genes so you know she's prone to like some chronic inflammation now

with her hormones you know we're seeing sort of the the early PCOS stuff come out and I find her in there almost every day because I think she's self-medicating and finding that that is improving her detox capacity she feels better afterwards she feels calmer And she's even told me like you know noise and sounds and textures like she would yell at my husband for chewing like all of that stuff seems to really be tone down as she's used that um on a on a regular basis so I think the detox component is key the support

of liver function which is an indirect byproduct right of being able to support detox is the other part of it and there's some other studies too that are talking about you know 10% to 15% uh body fat Reduction over a period of time and even weight loss which is not really why we want to stress the importance of a sauna right because I think that's a byproduct of detoxing a little bit better but um but those are some of the benefits that I've seen for sure yeah there are loads of benefits you know I there

was a study I was recently reading recently on mitochondrial health and for everybody listening and I know you're familiar with this but you know your mitochondria Are your cellular engines I mean they create ATP it's the energy that literally runs your organs in your entire body and so the study found that if you get an infrared sauna even just a couple days a week for 20 minutes you are supporting something called mitophagy which is your cells are then going and actually repairing themselves they're cleaning up and getting rid of something called senescent cells these are

cells that create toxins cause you To age so really it's supporting anti-aging in a really powerful way in creating new and healthy cells and um and so yeah the benefits of infrared saas are are are immense and one of the thing I want to kind of take sonas now and talk about it from an Eastern perspective for a minute because what when you think about hypothyroidism okay now I'm going to mention I I know you've studied a lot of you've studied some TCM but also a lot Of ayurveda but in Chinese medicine when you look

at somebody who has hypothyroid we would tend to or the way that I would tend to call that is a kidney aqi and yang deficiency okay and that word Yang is there's actually a lot of times it could be correlated also with progesterone or testosterone some of those organs rather than estrogen also it tends to mean if you've got a Yang deficiency your body's too cold which we know that happens in Hypothyroidism what are your views from an Eastern perspective of the benefits of sauna and maybe even for specific conditions like hypothyroid or you know

where your body temperatures low or adrenal fatigue or some of those other other conditions it could help well I mean I tie it back to again you know like we were talking about we do a lot of personalized medicine so I'm always tying it back to the patient or the individual who is in a depletion state Right so in both ayurveda and Chinese medicine they talk about people and they talk a lot about their Shen or you know their overall you know Prana these are words they use to describe energy right like how much energy

does this person have and people that are in a low energy State you mentioned Cal plunge earlier like I don't want them Cal plunging that's more of a like shock to the system right that's a little bit harsher to them I don't feel like they're ready For that so what I am usually looking for is folks that are in a depletion State and depletion can be for many different things it can be you just had a baby it can be you had a surgery it can be you're just nutrient depleted your hormones are all over

the place it can be from lots of different states when you're in those depletion States we do want to warm the body right and and they talk about generating energy and warming the body their modalities were Acupuncture cupping moxibustion right that you would use that massage you know Shara there're all these ancient remedies that were all about warming the body and kind of stimulating energy sauna is doing just that you know infrared SAA therapy is doing just that you are heating the body in fact on some of my workups it'll say somebody it'll give them

an element and you can probably relate to this because we studied this stuff but like it'll say This person's Very Metal you know well that's someone who's cold and dry like they need heat right they don't need you know a lot of cold stuff so those are the type of people that really benefit now when I apply that same thing to hormones I feel like the benefit of son therapy for hormones is this it definitely helps with hypothyroidism because again you're warming the body you're generating energy people that are hypothyroid are depleted it definitely Helps

with adrenal fatigue so we're back to this cortisol issue and really trying to help them bring cortisol in Balance we don't want to plummet cortisol but we want to bring it into balance so and a fun way to track that by the way I don't know if you've done this before since I've been wearing this um Aura ring for a period of time something fun to track is like what's my HRV pruna and what's my HRV post sauna because remember your heart rate variability is a reflection Of kind of what your cortisol levels are doing

and you'll find that they will often improve and then I think the other hormone pattern where I encourage folks to get into the sauna are those with estrogen dominance because oftentimes when you have a lot of stored estrogen you have this boggy we called it liver stasis right in uh Chinese medicine you have this boggy heavy liver is the way they would imagine it we apply it to science we know those pathways are Blocked and by going in the we're again stimulating some of that activity to take place we're helping with metabolism of estrogen in

indirectly which then in turn helps blood sugar to come down insulin to come down and then that's the metabolic benefit so again there are clear hormone patterns where I feel like either because you're depleted that sauna is helpful or because you're congested where sauna is helpful if we're going to kind of apply the the Eastern mindset to this that's so good this is why I love talking to you it's so good you know you know and and so yeah as we're talking about just to add just a couple thoughts you know as we're talking about

TCM Chinese medicine really believed you know you and this is true I mean we we have to get more blood flow to an area in order to do that you need to bring heat to an area I mean really cool is going to kind of freeze things and right things will move less And heat will help help generate more movement in an area and because people move less today and just for everybody thinking about this okay if somebody moves a lot or too much for their body in a way I don't want to say it's

too much but in a way it is they'll take ice bath like think about I remember I I used to do triathlons and I was a big fan I love watching the tour to France one of the ways they recover is by doing ice bass and so if you're moving a lot a Tremendous amount let's say you're in a CrossFit competition doing it all day or you're doing run you run a marathon or you are doing a triathlon doing some ice and cold plun when your body generates that much heat it's a great thing and

that's why there are great benefits of cold plunge but also for most people we're not moving enough right I mean really we should be getting I mean we should be moving constantly all day I mean before up until a 100 years ago Most people were an Agriculture and farming and walking and moving all day long lifting heavy things I mean literally getting a hardcore workout every day and this is where if you're unable to do that especially and you're not getting a workout that day well get an A because now you're getting movement you're getting

blood flow you're bringing that energy to that area and so I think that's an important thing to remember part of this is due to modern Day sitting a lot this is a way to help remedy and support your body and healing due to our modern lifestyle very much and I think okay I told you about my daughter but I think for me you know I'm really good you know you know our lifestyle I you're probably the same way we're sitting a lot writing speaking interviewing seeing patience there's a lot of this right so I'm really

good I'm a motivated determined person I'm great about the morning workout I get it in That's not the issue whatever whatever it is but then you add on 8 to 10 hours of sitting and what I've noticed you know is that now like I almost stand up from that and I'm swollen like my legs are swollen like I don't know you know you I think a lot of women more so than men experience that but I almost just feel super super swollen that's another way way like if I can't for some reason get out and

you know go for a quick walk or use our equipment or whatever I'll Jump in the sauna that's one more way for me to get some blood flow some movement some lymphatic flow even if I can't go and get another form of movement so it's been a game changer that way for me too on days where you know for whatever reason I've tried to be better about it over the years but I'm just sitting and sitting and sitting and the hours are going away and I don't realize it yeah jumping back to a previous question

I asked you I just Wanted to add this as well you know I um did an episode recently I've done actually two episodes on the testosterone crisis in men I mean we are and then also some of the side effects of doing trt therapy too early yes for men yes oh my God yeah and and there are so many forever chemicals and thing you know things in our food supply I mean there are just so many chemicals that are contributing I think culture is contributing I think there's a lot of Things men just being sedentary

not doing hard heavy things that are contributing to this testosterone absolutely plummeting today but for those men getting that blood flow but also detoxification there was a study done that I'd read and I'm not going to list all the chemicals but I I I do believe that it said that infared saas help your body excrete and eliminate heavy metals including arsenic cadmium Mercury lead from your system and these Are things were exposed to that really negatively affect testosterone in men and we know also of course here's the other thing like a lot of women don't

understand especially how much the liver is connected to hormonal Health right and how it has to do with Ed would you explain that for a minute to I mean so feel free to touch on both so i' love you to talk for a minute about the testosterone and men and the the connection there and we were talking About sonas too with that but that and then also in addition women and how your liver is needs to be healthy in order for for to have hormone balance definitely and I think I'm going to back into both

conversations talking about the liver because I think you brought up a really important point so just uh just talking let's go Eastern medicine first in eastern medicine the liver is Ground Zero for your Hormone Health Ground Zero They knew that thousands of years ago that still holds true today if the liver was boggy or sluggish we've already talked about some of the patterns you would have estrogen dominance you would have you know issues with thyroid all of these different patterns would emerge now that is true for men and women and what we are seeing which

is a little con very concerning I think is that not only are women experiencing estrogen dominance men are too men have a lot of Stored estrone that storage form of estrogen is produced from the adrenal gland actually they're having a lot of estrone in their system and we're seeing it in our young boys not just in you know men that might have lived a little bit we're even seeing it in boys and so you can see it on the street if you walk the street you will see the high estrone levels without doing a test

you'll see you know sort of the what we call man boobs and young boys you'll see little Bellies and and younger teenage boys and things like that you see sort of this body composition shifting and changing you see it in the face too I mean you you see everywhere yeah you definitely see it so so this is the liver being attacked is kind of a universal issue for both men and women now the reason it's being attacked and this is where we start to layer right first of all we look at chemicals and we have

there's so many studies I could Talk about this forever of the load of chemicals and its impact on the liver we've got studies looking at glyphosate and how it impacts the liver and Liver Health and how it does lead to higher stored estrone or high you know estrogen dominance in both men and women we're looking at so many different forever chemicals right and there's so many categories your Vox your organophosphates your you know the stuff in your uh pans and all that other stuff So many of these chemicals are coming in and disrupting the hormone

access everyone gets that they're like oh yeah endocrine disruptor but this is why they are endocrine disruptors they disrupt the hormone Pathways in the liver and then what you have instead of a hormone being able to be a hormone it's in this in between State and I've been calling those dirty hormones those sort of pile up and build up and then impact the rest of the hormone balance whether you're Talking about women whether you're talking about men one of my greatest pet peeves and I'm pretty sure I don't want to speak for you but it's

probably too is that you know people start to have hormone issues men or women and then they run out and they go get hormone replacement therapy right that's got to be the answer but everybody forgot about the liver because if you're not cleaning up this liver and you're dumping more hormone on top of it guess what you're Just expanding your sort of intrinsic uh you know population of dirty hormones so that's only getting worse so you see a lot of people on this hormone kind of marry go around of you know my hormones are off

let me go get hormone replacement therapy the hormone replacement therapy worked for a second but now it's accumulating because the gut and the liver aren't working very well so now I'm in hormone imbalance again so that's kind of what we want to Break and we want to bring the conversation back and that's I wrote about it in the hormone shift and you know super passionate about people trying to understand that to balance hormones you really need to start with the gut and the liver before you start chasing individual hormones and replacing them because you're trying

to lay a healthy hormone foundation and that's actually true that's what I was joking like I've got the book right here This is a hormone ship but I can flip this to a blue cover and apply it to men because it's that principle is universal and very important so anything we can do which means cleaning up our diet right choosing the foods we can choose you know uh really being conscious of where things are coming from looking at products we're using whether it's body care or cleaners or you know our indoor air quality the things

that we can control we can't control everything but Then also assisting the body in the ability to move those dirty hormones out and you can do that with you know again the right diet with the right supplements or herbs but even with the right modality so this is where something like sa therapy has a role and helping the body to move those things through and activating the right Pathways so we don't have that boggy kind of heavy liver that can't do the work it's meant to do it's so good it's So good yeah you know

and and one of the things that I think when I started studying Chinese medicine uh that I was most surprised by was you know liver I mean again you know AB totally it is it is so important especially for again getting rid of these estrogens as you're talking about I mean starting to balance out uh estrogen in your body and it's really an epidemic I mean the low testosterone numbers I was doing a like I said I did an episode on my show the Do Josh a show where I went through um how over the

past it's about 50 years testosterone levels in men have declined by 33% wow so I mean and so on average a man in their late 20 a man in their 20s has the testosterone if you would to go back 50 years ago that was the testosterone levels of men in their 60s and so it is just an astronomical drop in testosterone and then men are going in their this is crazy in their 20s and 30s getting trt and Essentially it it's not common sense but it's happening is that that's causing male infertility yep and for

some of the men if they now it's one thing if they get on it for six months it may take another six months or year before they're back to normal based on these studies but if they're on it for five years in their 20s and then they want to go and have a family there's a good chance there's several studies showing The likelihood is actually pretty low and so there's a lot of men getting on testosterone therapy in their 20s and 30s and they don't they I don't think they fully understand I don't know if

doctors have told them this is the these are the side effects I don't think so I mean I think I don't think Western medicine thinks about the body holistically I think they think about hormones in a box they think about mental health in a box they think about They don't even think about the liver honestly until it's super diseased right yeah that was that was like eye opening for me and you know probably for many of us that have gone through traditional education you know so liver lives kind of off in the space somewhere and

is really not paid a lot of attention to and so when doctors are prescribing hormone replacement therapy that's not a conversation that they're having right because they're not integrating the body And it's only when we really change medicine to have this integrated approach and we understand that when we do something over here it impacts something over there you know that's only when we're really going to be able to heal people you know completely yeah you know one of the things that again mentioned this several times but it's only because I very much mean it that

Dr TS I love the way you practice and the way you think is that I I've said this For a few years is that there's really not two forms of medicine today there's really three levels you have conventional medicine where where the only thing that's happening is we're treating your symptom and then you have even integrative and sometimes functional medicine or General Nutrition where you're going a you're going layers deeper which is good right and you're you're saying hey I'm going to give you some vitamins minerals we're going to go Gluten-free we're going to change

some dietary we're going to do some things but there is a whole another layer deeper and a whole layer that is also more comprehensive and that's putting together a whole root cause protocol so because there's not one root cause there tends to be multiple things and so I wantan to I want to do this for testosterone and you can fill in gaps if you want and then I'd love for you to do this for women with hypothyroid the same The same exercise so if I have a male come in with whatever issues they're having okay

low energy low sex drive just not you know lack of strength all those things um I'm going to first again do some blood work we'll look at cortisol we'll look at DHEA we'll look at all those things but even without the blood test I kind of already know most of the time not every time but most of the time and it said okay well let's change your diet Okay so let's do that a lot of people do that let's start doing a lot more up your pro animal meats and organ Meats let's do a lot

of vegetables let's do some specific fruits let's do some nuts uh walnuts Brazil nuts some others on a regular basis so let's get a diet that's going to help boost in Chinese medicine your Chi and your yang your Kidney Chi your yang let's do that and then from there uh let's also do some herbs let's do some if you're over 50 probably not Younger but gin sing if you're younger let's do some ashwagandha let's maybe do some finea Greek you know let's get the gut healthy do some Pro biotics let's support the liver let's do

these things and then let's get in for red sauna let's get in there let's start detoxing your body stop doing stuff out of plastic let's get some glass let's start doing weight training and I could keep going my point is let's do all of these things let's get to the very root around Cortisol and insulin and your lifestyle and recommend you get sleep there's another huge one for people getting quality sleep and here's some natural lifestyle practices start walking get an INF Fred sauna and that sort of thing and so that is more getting to

the root cause and helping somebody reverse disease like I know in my practice and you see the same thing in your incredible practice in Georgia around The Atlanta area is that people are coming in with autoimmune disease we're seeing It reversed people are coming with type two diabetes we're seeing It reversed people with h hypothyroidism it's there it's being reversed and so walk through me if you have a patient come in with hypothyroid let's say a woman I kind of did men there what would some of those protocols look like uh for you definitely so

you know in some ways I'm I'm laughing because They're so similar but you know if someone comes in with hypothyroidism obviously we want to understand a couple of key things what's their diet it always begins with diet we have we see a huge relationship between hypothyroidism and gluten intolerance or something called Candida which is an overgrowth of yeast in the gut and candida can be the issue that's driving some of the thyroid stuff their genetics and stuff like that involved in there we won't get into all Of that but diet would be first and diet

modification is our first step our second step is nutrient support right because the thyroid is highly dependent on a couple of key nutrients magnesium's one iron iodine selenium you know even the B vitamins play a role in the ability of your thyroid to function effectively so those are probably our two big starting points now side by side as we're working on those two key issues we are looking at the other hormones Because as with men no hormone exist in isolation so if the thyroids off what was going on with cortisol what was going on with

progesterone in fact I was just talking to a group of women and I was explaining to them that oftentimes it's progesterone to be the first hormone that drops in women but that in turn is so depleting for women that the thyroid is the next guy to go so you know what's going on with everybody else do we need to support any of the other Hormones and once we establish sort of that caddy Corner then we start asking a harder question okay great we've got your diet on the right track we've got the nutrients moving in

the right direction but is your gut really where it's going to absorb anything or convert right T4 to T3 which is the more biologically active form of thyroid so if you don't have the right gut microbiome your thyroid is not going to work effectively so that's the next Place to go and then it's very highly dependent on the health of the liver and what the liver is doing to make all of this work kind of together in a symphony so then the next question after that is well what are we doing for Liver Health what

are we doing for General detoxification and how can we add something to this overall plan so historically we used to add like milk thistle a lot of these folks with thyroid issues also had estrogen Dominance so we might add calcium glucarate but you know there is a cap at which people can take things and that's where adding other modalities is super helpful in terms of supporting something like the thyroid or something like estrogen dominance so this is where sauna therapy might come into picture as well and be yet another thing that folks can do as

they're trying to balance out their thyroid yeah it's such a good point because again I think that doing Things as a full-on protocol because you can only take so many vitamins and minerals right you can only take so many herbs and diet but yeah doing all of those things together they're all going to start to contribute and uh thanks for thanks for doing that another thing I wanted to mention that I know there's some good research on and I think of course a lot of history on and that is light therapy so we've talked about

infrar infrared light I want to talk About the sun too and these different forms of light talk to me about the importance of using different sort of lights whether it be the Sun or infrared or others to support hormone balance you know I'm fascinated by light therapy you know it's an area I probably need to even dig deeper in because you know if you look back that was a form of medicine and that is what many you know of sort of our you know medical ancestors use to heal people but it's Really founded in this

fundamental idea that you know by receiving light and the right wavelengths of light at the right times of day you can reset the entire circadian rhythm but also the HPA access because again the two are so intricately linked together and so when we think about a condition like cortisol or adrenal fatigue what's going on there you have a lot of disruption of the Circadian rhythm a lot of those people are up all night women with hormone Imbalances can't sleep so what we want to do is try to help them reset the Circadian rhythm so for

them receiving light at the right times is so critical in reality was happening I'm just as guilty we're on our phones late into the night we look at our phones first thing in the morning that's not the type of light we need right so there's a specific wavelength to light that is healing and restorative and stimulating so we need sunlight first thing in the Morning we need no light as we move towards the latter hours of the evening but because again this pineal gland which sits right here with the hypothalamus and the pituitary kind of

buried deep behind you know we're receiving all kinds of wavelength of light is triggering that hypothalamic inflammation I was talking about that's then driving the cortisol and then disrupting um kind of the HPA access so we're having a huge issue that's also a Part of why I think we're seeing the hormone crisis right everyone's on this on these devices all day long they're getting you know this element of blue light they're getting electromagnetic radiation that is also probably contributing we don't know how much right now but probably contributing to this overall kind of uh hormone

crisis that we're having but infrared light at the right wavelengths right this is light at a particular wavelength that is Going to help to heal the body it's improving blood flow it's calming the nervous system down versus like the super stimulatory or even harsh and a little bit harder on our system so light therapy is is so important and I think that getting your light right right you know not to rhyme on here but getting it right to where you're receiving the right wavelengths of light at the right times is a part of overall health

and healing and we know that even if we look Back thousands of years yeah it's so good I know my wife Chelsea our SAA that we have at home she you know she says for her her biggest benefit she knows is getting better sleep you know she tends to do it around dinner time get in there a little bit or sometime in morning and just really notices a difference with that and the recovery from pregnancy has been great defitely know and there's some great on getting outside first thing in the Morning going on a walk

I've noticed myself the more time I spend outside the better I sleep I mean I just you know I now that I'm older when I was a CH kid I just slept like a rock and never woke you know just and now that I'm in my 40s I wake up a little bit more at night but again the more that I spend time outside the less the more I just sleep sleep well it's a cortisol I mean you know that's why we all crave the beach right I think the sun and the water and those

Nature elements they just instantly tone everybody down right they just instantly bring you down so I think um you know that's just needs to be we've gotten so far away from that like even our kids don't get outside time at school right everything's so like scheduled and all that other stuff but but I do think it's an important part of healing have you ever had anyone you know patience that you you you know obviously we recommend a lot of things we recommend a lot of Diet a lot of you know supplementation but have you ever

recommed anybody you know start spending time in the sauna and or infrared light and and they came back and just said wow this was a GameChanger for me oh my goodness all the time all the time in fact as a part of our treatment plans for the very reason we know that diet is a little bit of a journey supplements can get too heavy if you have too many on there you know what are the other modalities we're Always questioning ourselves what are the other modalities that might be beneficial to the person sitting in front

of us you know and you know folks that do take up that SAA therapy you know they're they feel better first of all they feel better they sleep better and then for me the doctor over a period of time we actually see some of their numbers improve right whether it's liver enzymes whether it's hormone balance you know we definitely see things improve so We know and and you know like I was talking about with my daughter and I don't think she'd care if I shared like you know there is that MTHFR gene on that on

my husband's side of the family and and with that there's that low grade hum of inflammation right so for those folks when they're able to go and do something that they look forward to and enjoy as a therapy or as a modality rather than yet another thing that they have to remember you know the great Thing about SAA therapy is you look forward to it you can't wait to get in there because you feel so good coming out of it when they can be consistent with something like that the hum of inflammation does go down

and it improves mood it improves just general energy definitely improves sleep so uh we hear that from our patients all the time you know it's it's a feeling of like I've been cleansed I mean there there is I mean totally totally yeah you Feel that coming out well I have a one last question for you yeah with people who are wanting to balance their hormones give me your like taz's top five like what are five things that people should start doing in order to start balancing their hormones and you can think about a little bit

it could be yeah I'm not I'm not going to answer it for you so but what what are T is top five I mean my top five I think food is still medicine there's no way to get Around that so upping your protein eating at regular intervals getting a lot of those plant-based foods and getting the junk out get all the how much protein do you recommend typically for men and for women to so it's I will look at their body weight honestly to make that decision um but I would say it's about point I

know it's about one gram per kilo is sort of the advice out there or one gram per pound excuse me is the advice out there I feel like that's A lot and it's hard for some women women to digest all of that so I'm more like 6 to8 if you can get somewhere in there so for most women for the average women that's about 70 to 80 grams of protein for men is closer to 100 yeah um but getting that and then getting it at regular intervals so women or men with low hrvs or high

cortisol shouldn't be doing a ton of fasting that's almost more stressful to the body they can cycle fast but they shouldn't be doing Every single day of fasting so that's one I think that getting the key nutrients for hormones right hormones need food just like we do so they need B vitamins they need magnesium you know they need omega-3 fats these are sort of the foundational you know nutrients vitamin D foundational nutrients when it comes to hormone balance and then the third is cleaning up the liver you know so I think really having some sort

of liver clean up and that could look like An herb it could look like milk thistle or dandelion tea it could look like sauna therapy that's another way to do it for sure but you need some way of cleaning up the liver and systematic way because of our environment and because of the fact that your hormones are probably off and your load of those um hormone metabolites maybe bigger than where you want them to be I would say sleep in movement not to be you know too superficial there but deep consistent Sleep 90 minutes of

RM sleep 90 minutes of Deep Sleep these are like non-negotiables for hormone balance I feel like those are things that you know the body really needs and then movement move when you can don't make it hard I I've even started telling people if it's 10 minutes you know like everyone feels like they've got to do this beautiful onh hour workout and that's the answer it's actually 10 minutes chopped up throughout the day 10 minutes in the Morning 10 minutes in the evening 10 minutes midday you know that's going to help keep your blood flow going

your lymphatics going and keep your blood sugar a little bit more balanced that's such good advice such good advice well to wrap up I just want to uh mention everybody your hormone balance is very important of course as we're talking about we have an epidemic today I mean men with low testosterone women hypothyroidism there's a lot of Infertility I mean some of these numbers keep crawling up and so if you're going to look your best be your best extend your lifespan for longevity you've got to really take care of your hormones and again I appreciate

Dr taz's coming and sharing all of her wisdom and how to do that everything from taking vitamins like vitamin D uh taking herbs like ashwag Ganda she mentioned she talked about you know getting more protein warming your body with things like Infrared more time outside and so much more so again I hope everybody's enjoyed this episode also want to mention a few things here about Dr Taz she has her new book the hormone shift uh get it uh you can see if you're watching here on YouTube let's see the cover again here there it is

hormone shift um awesome book and and if you have a friend who is dealing with hormone issues get it to them give it to them as a gift this is a great book bookstores Nationwide with so Easy to just go grab it on Amazon also want to encourage you uh she's got a show called the sup Superwoman wellness and you can follow her great advice on social media it's dotaz MD that's spelled D T azmd Dr Taz on social media there's a lot of other things we could talk about I mean we could talk for

hours and hours and again that long ago we'll keep keep having you on because again the wisdom Is so so great um thanks so much for coming on oh my gosh thank you you I enjoy it I love our conversations and I appreciate it so um thank you all right everybody hey thanks so much for listening to another episode of the ancient Health podcast remember subscribe and like and share this video if you felt like this was impactful for you hey text this to somebody let somebody know how to naturally balance their hormones thanks again

to Dr Taz And God bless everyone [Music]