Why Are Our Kids So Anxious?
Have you ever asked yourself why our kids seem more anxious than we were at their age? Have you spent time being good, supportive parents, accepting of their individual gifts and showing encouragement at every opportunity. Most of us have done our best and continue to do so. Let’s be honest, our parents probably loved us just as much, but didn’t feel the need to do as much. So, why does this generation seem to be even more anxious than we were? They are having panic attacks, they stress over homework or sports, they can’t sleep, they break out with everything from acne to hives. They have issues we never thought they would have, including depression and social anxiety. It’s painful to watch this as a parent. As I mentioned before, we have tried so hard!
You won’t be surprised by the statistics. Recent studies have shown an increase in the use of anti-anxiety meds in children ages 10-19, up almost 50% from 2001-2010. Overall the greatest increase in the “adult” population has been in young men ages 20-44, with a 43% rise in the same time frame. So, yes, something is definitely wrong, and it’s not just an increase in “diagnosing”. Putting our head in the sand is not only useless, but dangerous. It is a disservice to our kids. It’s easy to point fingers at ourselves: we’ve coddled them, we’ve spoiled them, we’ve given too much, we’ve over-protected them. While there may be some validity to that in some cases, it’s just not enough. They don’t seem to have the HEALTH that we enjoyed at their age, they don’t seem to have the same stamina, or the same coping mechanisms. When we were teens, everything was huge, a slight from a crush was a catastrophe- but this generation has this drama on steroids, and have actual physical symptoms to go with it. With newer technology and research, science is finally able to provide concerned parents with answers, and in doing so, give us direction and hope in helping our kids.
First, let’s look at what can cause all this extra stress today:
1. Our Leaky Gut …
We need to accept that every single cell in our body is made by what we put in our mouths, worth paying attention to! Our gut is the ultimate organ intended to take our food and turn it into vital “nutrition”. Our gut is amazing. It is a well tuned machine that uses specific enzymes, symbiotic bacteria, and an incredible surface area with its own built-in immune and nervous system, just so that we can be at the top of the food chain. We don’t have to eat the whole antelope, a steak will do.
Unfortunately, fast food has become a staple of our kids’ diet, especially once they get a driver’s license. These foods have little nutritional value, few vitamins, little protein, the wrong fats, and yes, lots of calories. Stress slows our metabolism, so these useless calories are not needed by the slowed down metabolism- and they’re stored as fat. This is adding to the weight problem in the developed world, and in our children. Blood tests in seemingly healthy adolescents and young adults are showing decreased absorption of vital nutrients, making them even more tired. Their livers are in overdrive trying to neutralize the toxins that they are ingesting, many since birth. By the time a child born today is 6 years old, it is estimated that they will be carrying the same toxic load that took us 40 years to accumulate. This is major stress on the anti-oxidants and detoxifiers in the body.
The main stressor related to nutrition is called a “Leaky Gut”, and is all over the internet today. It affects most of us, young or old. However, if you have a Leaky Gut from birth or childhood, you are all the more stressed and unhealthy. Leaky Gut seems to be more prevalent in young people because of their food choices, and even their birth histories.
When a child is born, they have an essentially sterile gut, or intestinal tract. The baby has been in a uterus, and not exposed to bacteria throughout its development. As it passes through the birth canal, the newborn is inoculated with its mother’s normal bacteria. Then, the newborn is exposed to the mother’s breast (more bacteria) and colostrum. Colostrum is the first liquid expelled from the breast. The intestine holds up to 70% of our immune system. Colostrum is thought to turn on the right immunity through our intestinal wall. It seems to tell the immune cells which bacteria are “good” bacteria that the body needs to keep to help digest our food, versus the “bad” bacteria, or pathogens, that need to be passed out in our stool. Soon, the newborn has developed a healthy Microbiome in it’s gut that will serve it well. This precious Microbiome will help it digest the right nutrients, make energy, and keep the gut wall intact, thereby keeping unfriendly and dangerous bacteria out of the blood stream. This intact gut wall is a barrier to infection and auto-immune issues. The stuff that is supposed to pass through the gut, is meant to be flushed out of the body, it is not needed and it is harmful. It is FECAL matter. If your gut wall has holes in it, it is a Leaky Gut, and what was supposed to be flushed down your toilet is getting into your blood stream. Gross, but true. The blood stream connects the entire body- so it is not a stretch to see this connection to inflammation and infection everywhere, even the brain. Also, if we are not able to absorb the right nutrients for the biochemistry of our brains to make the right neurotransmitters, we end up with an imbalance that can cause anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, etc.
Many children are born C-section, and many are not breast fed. Add to that the preponderance of antibiotics for ear infections, and other seemingly harmless medications in childhood. These antibiotics kill bacteria without differentiating the good from the bad, thereby killing off the healthy microbes that are needed for digestion and immunity.
As the children grow, they are exposed to pre-packaged foods with poor nutritional value, and high sugar and gluten contents. The gut wall gets more inflamed, and more porous. Gluten leaks through. The protein in gluten is gliadin, and it is a large molecule that is often confused for a thyroid molecule by the immune system. This then triggers auto-immune thyroid disorders.
Any of the molecules that leak through the gut wall can cause inflammation, and as they are passed throughout the body, they will cause the problem wherever the child has the genetic predisposition to react. Whether eczema or asthma, depression or anxiety, they often have the same root cause in the gut. This constellation of symptoms just gets worse as the years go by, and we end up with anxious or depressed adolescents that don’t have the proper balance of neurotransmitters in their brains. They may have weight issues, or acne from the bacteria entering their bodies through their gut walls. They may have decreased digestive enzymes because their sick intestinal wall can’t make these enzymes, further decreasing their ability to absorb important nutrients. Even Vitamin D absorption is affected, not just because of the over use of sunblock, but because (it is believed) from the lack a particular gut microbe needed to absorb a key nutrient that turns sunlight into vitamin D3, which would then be able to act on the cells. A microbe that our generation probably has.
As of this writing, I have seen adults that work indoors with higher levels of Vitamin D than their teens that are playing outdoor competitive sports. This has been across the board, male and female alike. Low Vitamin D leads to not just poor healing and poor immunity, but also fatigue and possibly depression. Fortunately, even the lowest Vitamin D levels respond well to oral Vitamin replacement, even with a poor gut. Many people don’t bother to check Vitamin D levels on seemingly healthy teens, and they are often missing a problem that is not hard to fix, especially before symptoms even appear. Why wait?
2. Sugar !
The American Diet is high in sugar whether we know we are eating it or not. It has been estimated that the average American consumes 160 pounds of sugar every year. You don’t think you eat that much sugar? Well, maybe not, but that means others are making up for it- and many of those “others” are our children. Just look at their school lunch program- the salad line is the fast lane, it’s empty- they get “Bosco Sticks”.
Sugar is hidden as high fructose corn syrup in soda and many other foods. Unbelievably, soda is the highest single calorie source in America. Pre-packaged and prepared foods are loaded with sugar and other toxins. Read any label on our food and you’ll be over-whelmed with names of chemicals that we’ve never heard of. I don’t recognize them anymore either. Honestly, I have an advanced degree in science, why do I feel stupid when I read these ingredients? Probably because most of them didn’t even exist when I was in school, and certainly weren’t in our food.
In the gut, all sugars cause havoc by feeding Candida, or yeast. This is technically the same yucky, sticky, white yeast that women have with vaginal yeast infections, but now it’s lining the intestinal wall. In fact, it is really happy there. Candida wants to live in the gut wall so much that it will send signals to the human brain to crave more and more sugar, or even processed foods (fast food addictions, and sugar cravings, are often caused by Candida overgrowth in the gut). It’s a bad cycle, and often overcomes the will power of even the strongest among us. How much more does it affect a child or adolescent?
Another problem with sugar is the insulin response. As sugar enters the blood stream, our bodies need to bring it down- high blood sugar is dangerous. So, the pancreas puts out insulin to take whatever sugar (glucose now) is not used within a few minutes and store it in fat cells for later use. Once the sugar is safely stored, our blood sugar levels drop in response to the insulin. This can cause a roller coaster effect that then makes you want more sugar. Low blood sugar “feels” bad. You get cranky, or tired, or sweaty, and even light headed. This up and down affects the brain and the whole body with more inflammation and oxidative stress. Pretty soon, we need the sugar to stay “happy’. A bad cycle. Studies have shown improvement in symptoms of ADD/ADHD when sugar and gluten are taken out of the diet. Teenagers have the same emotional swings that we had at their age, so isn’t it likely that the hidden sugars in their diet and corresponding insulin surges can make these swings much more pronounced?
3. Neurotransmitters and Inflammation- adding insult to injury
Again, we need to make every cell in our bodies with what we put in our mouths. Food is meant to provide the building blocks for everything from skin cells, to hormones, to neurotransmitters. Our biochemistry is very advanced. We can dismantle food down to its elements if need be, and rearrange these building blocks to suit our purposes. It’s really quite amazing, and the more we learn in science, the more we are amazed. To absorb the specific building blocks from our food we have developed synergistic relationships with billions of bacteria that we allow to live in our digestive tract. These microscopic organisms help us digest our food. We eat, our food keeps the bacteria alive, they put out the right stuff to keep us alive. It’s a great system. We are in harmony with our environment, and didn’t even realize how much until recently. The human Microbiome Project is huge! However, take some of these micro-organisms out of our internal ecosystem, and things go out of whack pretty quickly.
Without an intact GI tract and the proper micro-organisms that go with it we cannot make our normal neurotransmitters. It’s that simple. Most scientists estimate that 90% of our serotonin is made in the gut. We need serotonin in the brain for mood elevation, appetite suppression, libido, etc. The precursors to serotonin (5 HTP) need to be absorbed from our food, through an intact intestine. These precursors can then cross the blood brain barrier to be made into the vital serotonin needed in the brain. We cannot just take serotonin in a pill- since there are so many serotonin receptors in the gut, taking serotonin itself would cause tremendous amounts of cramps and diarrhea while never being able to actually get into the brain. This is why pharmaceutical companies invented SSRI’s for the treatment of depression. They are a class of drugs that are Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (Lexapro, Paxil), and as their name implies, they keep whatever serotonin the brain has made from being taken back into the inside of the neurons, so more of it stays floating around and working on the nerve cells that they need to stimulate. This helps you feel less depressed, for a while. The side effects are horrendous for many people. As time goes on, since the reason the patient didn’t have enough serotonin to begin with was never addressed, the serotonin in the neurons runs low. SSRIs often become less and less effective over time, and depression returns, so pharmaceutical companies have introduced even more drugs to try to boost their efficacy.
Our brain works by using a combination of several neurotransmitters, some to excite, some to calm us down. This is why a balance in these chemicals is so important. There’s a difference between normal happiness and excitement, versus anxiety and panic. In the world of neurotransmitters, GABA (gamma amino butyric acid) is our brain’s transmitter of choice for its calming effect. The other neurotransmitters, dopamine or serotonin for example (there are more), rely on GABA to balance them out. We make GABA by using an amino acid called glutamine (hopefully from a protein source in our food). This chemical reaction needs 2 specific cofactors to work: zinc and Vitamin B6. These cofactors have to be obtained from our food supply. You will not be surprised that many young people, most of whom do not have the right Microbiome in their gut, and then consume a fast food diet, are having difficulty absorbing zinc and B6. In fact, blood tests often show these deficiencies, and more- it is just difficult to get parents to draw blood work on young people that they presume are healthy. So many of these kids go undiagnosed for years, often taking medications to help control their overwhelming anxiety. Yet, these anxiolytic drugs are just bandaids. Sooner or later, without recognizing and addressing the root cause of these symptoms, the drugs stop working just as the SSRI’s do. More drugs have to be added… and it goes on and on. Every drug has a side effect, or ten. These have to be dealt with, often with other drugs. You see where I’m going here? We’re doing this to our children. But I guess it must be OK, because it’s covered by insurance.
Fortunately, independent research is giving us some clues to help support our own production of neurotransmitters. By closely monitoring symptoms, and the judicious use of blood, saliva, or urine testing, we have a window into what’s going on inside the brain. The right supplements can help target just what a person needs to start feeling better, less depressed, less anxious. It all works together- healing the gut, taking the right supplements, decreasing our toxic load, and decreasing our stress response. It really is do-able.
4. Toxins
Toxins are the chemicals on or in our food that are not natural to the human body and cause harm when they add up. They may be pesticides or herbicides. They may be dyes or heavy metals. Monsanto makes Round Up. Round Up kills weeds. Then Monsanto makes GMOs. These are genetically modified seeds that grow into plants that are resistant to Round Up. A farmer can now douse the whole field in Round Up, killing only the weeds, and leaving the genetically modified plants that are resistant to Round Up. These plants are called “crops”, they are our food, or the food of the animals we eat. Round Up is glyphosate, a toxic chemical that is now in the soil and water that is getting sucked up the roots and into the vegetable, or whatever animal eats that vegetable or grain. We humans then eat this stuff!
We know that correlation does not equal causation, but we also know that we will not get unbiased, double blind, scientific studies by companies that stand to lose billions- companies that spend a lot of money on lobbying. So, let’s just try to use some common sense. Our kids are sick.
In either case, toxic chemicals at the very least clog up the systems in the body that are meant to neutralize toxins. Our toxic load today is so great that our cells, intestines, livers, and kidneys, just can’t keep up. This leads to a build up of these toxins, and the normal by-products of metabolism. These by-products of metabolism are what we call free-radicals. They are charged oxygen (in general), hence the rise in the media of “anti-oxidants”. Our parents weren’t concerned about eating extra blueberries because they were “anti-oxidants”. Who ever heard of such a thing? Now we have to help our bodies get rid of the extra heavy metals that we ingest. Metals like Mercury, Aluminum, and Copper have a propensity for brain tissue. They have been linked to Alzheimer’s and depression, or even anxiety. The body has mechanisms in place to rid itself of these metals when there is too much in the system. Guess what- there is way too much in the system now. So, we have to take extra supplements, and help our bodies detox regularly. We have to read labels, and choose natural substances to put on and in our bodies. Deodorants have aluminum, it absorbs easily through the skin, so buying a deodorant without aluminum helps- even making your own is easy, and a lot less expensive. Exercise and sweating are a way to detox, infrared saunas help to detox, liver cleanses help to detox, certain essential oils help to detox, even the correct breathing with meditation helps us detox. Just understanding how it works, and giving it a go, is helpful. Knowledge is power.
Try to buy organic and pasture raised (grass fed) if you can afford it. Period. The words “cage free” are a marketing ploy- the chickens are just in a big barn rather than in actual cages- standing room only (often on their own feces), and they may never see the light of day, or walk on grass. Chickens are meant to be outside, picking at the ground. They are eating little bugs and grubs, that’s their protein source. Cows are meant to ruminate grass, not be force fed corn. If we mistreat our farm animals by putting them in unnatural surroundings and feeding them foods they are not meant to eat, they are stressed their whole lives. These are mammals, they make cortisol too. We then eat the muscle (steak, hamburgers, chicken wings) of these sickly animals. Why wouldn’t that high cortisol or stress get passed to us? It just seems obvious. An animal in the wild lives a natural life, until a predator bigger than he is chases him down and eats him. That’s nature. They get that spurt of adrenaline to run from that predator, but throughout their lives they weren’t putting out constant cortisol because they weren’t being abused. Even if you are not into animal welfare for its own sake, think about your welfare and that of your children.
5. The Immune System and Inflammation
Because 70% of our immune system is found in the gut, a messed up gut wall will, in turn, mess up our immune system. It’s logical. If food isn’t sterile, we have to kill the bad bacteria with our badass stomach acid. Yes, we are supposed to have a lot of stomach acid. Our stomach pH has to be well below 3.4 to kill bacteria, and to begin the job of breaking down our food. We have to have an intact barrier to bacteria and other pathogens in the form of a gut wall, and the soldiers on that wall are our immune cells. If the wall breaks down, the immune system goes into hyperdrive trying to kill all the bad stuff leaking through. This triggers auto-immune responses all over the body. If you have a genetic predisposition to asthma, you’ll trigger your asthma. If you have a genetic predisposition to arthritis- your joints are going to swell. If you have a predisposition to anxiety or depression, it could also be triggered. One of the biggest rises in autoimmune disease that we’ve seen in functional medicine is in auto-immune thyroid disease. Called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, when your own body attacks your thyroid gland, it is often triggered by gluten leaking into your blood stream from a Leaky Gut wall. Hashimoto’s can cause anxiety, and fatigue. Inflammation from the gut can show up anywhere in the body. From fat cells and joints, to the brain. A blood test came out recently that looks for LPS (lipopolysaccharides) antibodies in the blood. These LPS molecules are big, and are normally not found in the blood unless they leak through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. LPS have been shown to cause inflammation. Patients with increased LPS in the brain have inflammation in the brain. Inflammation in the brain is often undetected at this stage, except for its symptoms. Depression, anxiety, and even a relationship to future onset of Alzheimer’s has been linked to inflammation in the brain. Low B12, B6, iron, glutamine, and many other nutrients are needed for brain function, a deficiency of any could also lead to anxiety.
The controversy over childhood vaccination rages on. I personally don’t believe we will get clear, non-biased studies on this either. Everyone has an opinion, many are adamant, but how did they form these opinions? From the recommendation of the American Society of Pediatrics, from an article they read? Research costs millions of dollars, pharmaceutical companies often pay for this research in the form of grants. They then publish what they want. Sometimes they argue that they publish everything, however, if you publish what is favorable to your company in a major medical journal, and then publish the studies that come out “not so favorably” in a minor journal that no doctor has ever heard of, or has time to read, well… you did publish it, right?
So let’s be honest, we don’t have any way of knowing what all these vaccines are doing to our children. Babies are receiving 4 and 5 injections at a time during well-baby checks in the first few months of their lives. Their immune system is in hyper-drive in that time. A chest X-ray of an infant or toddler has a large shadow in the middle of the chest, this is the thymus gland. An adult does not have this shadow in their X-ray because the thymus has done its job when it was most needed, when we were children, then it withers into something that we can barely find, even in surgery. Trust me, I’ve scrubbed on thoracotomies before- it’s hard to find a thymus in a grown up. The thymus gland makes T-cells and many other immune cells. The reason it’s so big in an infant is because everything they touch is a new bacteria, or possible pathogen. Their little bodies are made to mount an immune response to everything, to decide whether the substance is good or bad, and to decide whether to make antibodies to it. This is how it’s supposed to be. Giving these tiny babies these injections fires up their immune systems, and I would argue that common sense tells us that it wouldn’t take much to go into an overload state. It’s so obvious when we see the rise in eczema, asthma, and all sorts of auto-immune diseases. How many children have died of anaphylactic shock due to a peanut allergy, compared to the number that would have died of chicken pox? How about holding off on the vaccines until they are a bit older and more developed. Better yet, how about only taking life-saving vaccines, and then spreading them out, or how about doing real studies that aren’t paid for by the pharmaceutical companies that stand to profit from these vaccines? I’ve seen an (Spectra-Vision) energy scan on an infant 2 months after having their “routine vaccines”. The energy scan lit up in the central nervous system of this baby (something that had not shown up in a previous scan, prior to vaccinations). Again, correlation does not equal causation, but why don’t we real it in a bit? Let’s figure out if we’re doing long lasting harm to either their immune systems or their brains.
6. Oh Facebook, what would we do without you?
The real question is, what has it done to us? That includes all of the internet, of course. We have no idea what the exponential increase in the the Electro-Magnetic Field that surrounds us is doing to our brains, our cells, our hormones (future infertility?), our bodies, our psyches. There are no true, unbiased studies. We could say that we are all just willing guinea pigs. No cellular company, no internet provider, is going to fund such a study. It would be potential financial suicide. Why go there? The government isn’t going to do these studies either. If you think they are unbiased, you obviously have never heard of lobbying. It’s extremely expensive to run for Congress- ‘nuf said.
When my first child was born in 1992, there were few if any cell phones. We used a big yellow book to look up phone numbers. I had a pager, so did drug dealers. When we were teens, we broke up with a boyfriend and it was mostly between the two of us- with the possible exception of a few nosy friends. Now we have Facebook to be our judge and jury, to remind us of our own likes and dislikes (“Like” us on Facebook, no really!). Bullies were always around, and I suggest that they were even meaner than they are now because they had to bully you face to face. That took more courage, and most bullies are cowards. But all we had to do was outrun a bully- make it home- lock the door behind us, and we were safe for another day. Not so today. Cyber bullying is real, brutal, relentless, and doesn’t stop at the door. Any little weasel at school has the potential to destroy you because they can hide behind a computer screen. Many of our kids literally sleep with their cell phones in their hands, this generation’s “binky”. Just try prying it out of their hand! We have new verbs: Facebook me, Google it,Tweet it, Pin it… who knows where we’d be without them.
Adults are stressed with cell phones, constant access, and work emails. Our kids are stressed with EVERYTHING. Twitter tells them that everybody else is having a great time, so they must be losers if they're not in on it. They have YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, Reddit, and who knows what else. Why don’t we just tell them the truth? They’re not that interesting. Nobody is that interesting. They are ruining their good names with nonsensical emotional rants on line that will follow them forever. Most of the stuff they read is BS. Even selfies are photo-shopped with some new app that makes you skinner, or your teeth whiter. We got to be kids. We got to make mistakes. We got to go to college and hit the “reset” button. We could re-invent ourselves. They can’t. Such a shame. What STRESS!!!
We have studies that are now showing a major decrease in testosterone levels in young men. Some relate it to carrying cell phones in their front pockets, along with the ubiquitous plastic water bottles that leak xeno-estrogens, further decreasing testosterone. Young men today have a significantly lower testosterone level than their father’s did at their age. I’ve personally seen these lower testosterone levels on blood tests of healthy young men- actually less than half of their father’s levels. That’s just not right. By the time they are in their thirties, they are having symptoms of low testosterone, including fatigue, decreased libido, sometimes even ED. Scary. Is infertility next? We don’t know. Low testosterone is also a reason for depression and anxiety. But who checks this on seemingly healthy young men and teens, with no symptoms of low T yet? Young women are not immune, their PMS is often worse than ours ever was. It actually affects their lives and relationships.We are literally raising an unhealthier generation than we were, possibly for the first time in history.
When discussing stress, let’s not forget the birth of the great 24 hour news channel in 1980, thank you CNN. These news channels are playing for ratings, so that they can charge more for commercial time. The more people watch, the more they make. Who knew eyeballs would be this valuable? The media literally refers to us as “eyeballs”. So the more shocking, the more graphic, the more interesting, the more they play the scene over and over. The barrage of bad news is hitting our psyche like never before. We see these things in our living rooms so many times that it starts to feel like it happened down the street. Like it happened to someone we know. Like it could happen to us. Years ago, psychological studies told us that watching the news too often led to depression and anxiety. We saw the horrible things that were happening on the other side of the world, we empathized, but we had no real power to change it. Why? because it was on the other side of the world! It still is. This normal human empathy that is part of us can’t shut down. We stress because we feel helpless, and the news cycle is not going to give it a rest. People born after 1980 have been the victims of this barrage since birth. Just because they don’t know anything else, doesn’t mean that their very human bodies don’t respond to the stress.
The Main Culprit: Cortisol
In response to stress, mammalian adrenal glands (a small gland above each kidney) put out 2 main hormones. The most well known is the adrenaline put out in response to a short term stressor, such as a bear attack. Adrenalin shunts blood from what it perceives to be non-vital organs, to the organ systems needed to get away from the bear. Your heart races, increasing your cardiac output to get more oxygen pumped to your muscles -the famous fight or flight response. Blood, oxygen, and nutrients aren’t needed just then for digestion, reproduction, metabolism, or even higher thinking. So, that blood gets shunted to the muscles too. It makes sense, right? You don’t need to digest that meatloaf if you aren’t going to live another 5 minutes because of that pesky bear (poor Leo in The Revenant!).
Cortisol, also from the adrenal glands, is up next. The human body’s main hormone for long term stress, cortisol’s job is to keep mammals like us alive during longer periods of stress. Whether real or perceived, adrenals can’t tell the difference, it’s all a threat to them. However, historically, long term stress was an inconsistent food supply. If you could make it through the famine, you could live to propagate our species. Again, common sense for survival.
Cortisol slows our metabolism, and even shunts precursors away from making estrogen, testosterone, and other “unnecessary” hormones- you shouldn't procreate if there’s not enough food, both you and the baby are more likely to die.
The human body perceives a threat and puts out cortisol whether it’s a physical stressor, or a psychological one. Again, it makes no real difference. Famine is no longer our problem. Now, we have a tremendous amount of cheap food on every corner. Yet, this food is calorie dense, and nutritionally sparse. It has the wrong stuff in it, and our bodies aren’t fooled by the pretty package or catchy slogans (think Heart Healthy Cheerios). But our brains fall for it ever time.
As we study cortisol more, we find that it even decreases the blood supply to the pre-frontal cortex of our brain. We don’t need to use our higher thinking center to survive, so it’s perceived as “unnecessary” and a waste of precious energy. I’ll talk about how the effects of cortisol affect our weight, sleep, fatigue, libido, even hot flashes, in later posts. For the purpose of this discussion, remember that high cortisol levels actually decreases the blood supply to higher thinking centers. This can be seen in a Functional MRI of the brain. In her book, “Choke”, Dr. Sian Beilock, of the University of Chicago, sites an interesting study from Cornell University’s med school comparing Functional MRIs of the brain of students in high stress situations to students in low stress situations. The high stress students (in this case taking an important medical school exam) had less blood going to the pre-frontal cortex than the others. This may explain why some students choke on exams, in particular, high achieving individuals. High achievers feel the most stress to perform, and their bodies are responding in the worse possible way. For a teenager, this can be even more difficult. The teenage brain is going through a major growth spurt, and to add insult to injury, it’s now being doused with a bunch of new sex hormones that it never knew existed. The pre-frontal cortex, the higher thinking center, is still developing- but it’s what is supposed to keep this growth and hormone surge in check. If a teen is under stress, with the ensuing elevated cortisol, the blood to this frontal brain “control center” is impeded, and chaos rules. Raw emotion with no filter leads to them saying and doing things that sound crazy to us, things that may be self-destructive or dangerous to others. The modern term is Acting Out. They just don’t have good impulse control. Sound familiar? Today’s stressed out teens and young people are behind the eight ball here. They have way more stress than we did. They are less healthy. They have Leaky Guts which makes them not have the right building blocks for their own very necessary neurotransmitters. They can’t even absorb what they need to make normal hormone levels. They are literally strung out, depressed, and exhausted. They need puppies and hot chocolate.
However, we need a NORMAL Cortisol curve every day. We are mammals. We are supposed to sleep at night, in a dark cool place (think cave), and awaken with the sun. Our circadian rhythm is very important. Mess it up for even a short period of time, and you can’t make melatonin or serotonin.
We need sleep, that’s been well established. In one study, young men in their 30’s were deprived of sleep by decreasing their normal 7 hours of sleep to 5 for just 1 week. In that short time, their average testosterone levels went down by 13%. That’s in just 1 week! Many studies have even shown the effects of lack of sleep on weight gain, along with depression. Cortisol is put out by the adrenal glands during the day following a specific curve. It is high in the morning to help us wake up, then drops throughout the day to a low level at night allowing us to fall asleep. Without enough cortisol in the morning, we are tired, hit the snooze alarm, and are said to not be “a morning person”. Under continued stress, the adrenals try and try to make enough cortisol throughout the day, finally getting some going- but at the wrong time. They are like the “Little Engine That Could”. Now, it may be hard to fall asleep because your cortisol may be going up just as you’re laying down for the night.
Young people are often under so much stress that their bodies are making tremendous amounts of cortisol, but at the wrong times. This is seen in a four point saliva test. Here are 2 different patient results from salivary cortisol tests:
In these graphs the normal cortisol levels would land in the green areas. The first graph shows someone who’s under stress and has fatigued their adrenal glands to where they can’t quite make enough cortisol, even in the morning. These people are usually “not morning people”, and wake up exhausted, even after a full night of sleep. How well does a young person do (or any of us) when they have to perform on a test with this exhaustion? These people guzzle down coffee or Red Bull like it’s their job.
The second graph is common for patients that are under stress but have not yet depleted their adrenal glands. This elevated cortisol in the mornings does not make them “morning people” either, here it’s expressed in a much different way. A teen in particular, with this type of result, will be irritable in the mornings. They have too much cortisol, which will cut down the blood supply to the prefrontal cortex and leave the back part of their brain (amygdala in particular) to rule unchecked. They have little control over their emotions, and may be difficult to have a reasonable discussion with. In spite of the elevated cortisol, they may still be tired. If you look more closely, their cortisol is actually starting to rise at bedtime instead of lowering. This makes it hard to fall asleep. They have insomnia, and then wake up tired and wired at the same time. They too may reach for caffeine or sugar just to get going, but they are actually making themselves worse. Does this sound like a school morning at your house?
Fortunately, the right supplements, at the right time of day, can help bring this curve into the normal range. Lifestyle choices that brought on these inappropriate cortisol responses (stressors) can be addressed better once a person is feeling better, and once they can have a meaningful conversation. This is especially important in young people. If they understand, and get on board with their own health, they will have better, and longer lasting health- both mental and physical.
Here are some of the effects of cortisol on the body:
Higher and more prolonged levels of circulating cortisol (like those associated with chronic stress) have been shown to have negative effects, such as:*
Impaired cognitive performance
Dampened thyroid function
Blood sugar imbalances, such as hyperglycemia
Decreased bone density
Sleep disruption
Decreased muscle mass
Elevated blood pressure
Lowered immune function
Slow wound healing
Increased abdominal fat, which has a stronger correlation to certain health problems than fat deposited in other areas of the body. Some of the health problems associated with increased stomach fat are heart attacks, strokes, higher levels of “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lower levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL), which can lead to other health problems.*
Chronically lower levels of circulating cortisol (as in adrenal fatigue) have been associated with negative effects, such as:*
Brain fog, cloudy-headedness and mild depression
Low thyroid function
Blood sugar imbalances, such as hypoglycemia
Fatigue – especially morning and mid-afternoon fatigue
Sleep disruption
Low blood pressure
Lowered immune function
Inflammation
In a Nutshell
Young people today were born into a time of increased antibiotic use, increased vaccinations, new psycho-social stressors (internet and 24 hour news feeds), new chemicals and toxins in their food supply and environment, and even new Electromagnetic Fields that have never been seen before, and all simultaneously!
They are dealing with a poor diet, laden with sugar and lack of nutrients
This has led to a poor Microbiome with the wrong bacteria and yeast overgrowth in the intestine
The above causing a Leaky Gut, with all these toxins, chemicals, and pathogens leaking into their blood streams
More chronic stressors from lack of health, poor nutritional status, and toxic overload
All adding to chronic Cortisol elevation- leading to decreased blood supply to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, whole body inflammation (including the brain), weight gain or weight loss, poor sleep, irritability, and fatigue- just to start with!
They have chronic deficiencies in the nutrients needed to make essential neurotransmitters for stable mental health and mood, along with decreased hormonal health in general
They suffer from poor immunity as the majority of the immune system is in the gut, the body is battling pathogens that have leaked through the gut wall, and the autoimmune system is overloaded and confused, attacking it’s own body. This leads to a rise in asthma, allergies, etc. and poor healing from injuries
They suffer from real chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depression at an astounding rate
Is there any wonder why they struggle?
Now, let’s help these kids!
In my next post I will outline the latest methods of diagnosing which nutrients are missing, which hormones are off balance, what level of adrenal stress an individual is suffering from, and what we can do to turn this train around. This is a growing science, and advances are sure to come as we continue to search for answers. To stop searching is to give up, and blindly accept the status quo.
I have 4 kids myself, I feel I owe them all the health I can give. After all, I was the one who opened the box of Mac and Cheese when they were small, I gave in to the video games, I caved when they wanted cell phones in middle school and lap tops in high school, I unwittingly added to the stress of college applications thinking I was being supportive…