Sympathetic dominance is a state where the sympathetic nervous system (your "fight-or-flight" response) is chronically overactive. Instead of turning on briefly for emergencies, your body remains stuck on high alert, leading to prolonged physical and mental stress without the counterbalance of restorative "rest-and-digest" functions. Here are 5 signs your nervous system may be stuck in sympathetic dominance 1. Hypervigilance A persistent state of heightened alertness and difficulty fully relaxing. 2. Sleep Dysregulation Disrupted sleep patterns, difficulty staying asleep, or waking without feeling restored. 3. Elevated Cortisol Activity Chronic stress-response activation that may contribute to fatigue, irritability, and impaired recovery. 4. Reduced Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Lower autonomic adaptability and reduced resilience to physical and psychological stress. 5. Parasympathetic Suppression Difficulty transitioning into a restorative “rest and digest” state necessary for recovery and regulation. Over time, prolonged physiological stress can reduce the body’s ability to properly shift into a parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) state. This becomes increasingly important after 40, when recovery and stress resilience often change. Who can relate to this? – Brian

Here are 5 things that vitamin D defiencies can be attributed to: 1. Mood and fatigue. Vitamin D is crucial for serotonin that regulates mood, sleep and appetite. Low vitamin D has been directly associated with depression. 2. Insulin and metabolic function. Vitamin D is needed for the production of insulin. Low levels contribute to not enough insulin secretion which causes the cells to not respond., worsening insulin resistance. 3. Thyroid function. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with decreased sensitivity to thyroid hormones by more than 50%. 4. Cortisol and adrenal function. When vitamin D levels are adequate, cortisol demands decrease, giving your adrenal glands an opportunity to shift resources back to producing sex hormones instead of being stuck in "fight or flight" mode. 5. Sex hormones. During perimenopause, when your ovaries are already producing less estrogen and progesterone, vitamin D deficiency compounds the problem. Lower levels of SHBG (sex hormone binding gobulin) and estradiol have been associated. Vitamin D is a crucial steroid hormone that can be synthesised through UV exposure of the skin. Only 10% of vitamin D comes from dietary sources, while the remaining 90% is made by your body through sunlight exposure. Production of vitamin D decreases by 13% every decade due to decreasing collagen in the skin, reducing the ability to synthesise it.

Here are 5 things that happen during perimenopause when sex hormones are imbalanced: 1. Slower metabolism. Your body reduces energy expenditure to conserve resources. 2. Increased hunger signaling. Your body increases appetite to encourage food intake. 3. Enhance fat storage. Your body prioritizes storing any excess energy as fat rather than using it. 4. Decreased satiety signaling. You don't feel full as easily. 5. Preferential muscle loss over fat loss. When in caloric deficit, your body breaks down muscle for energy while protecting fat stores. When most people think about sex hormones, reproduction is usually what comes to mind for most people. Fertility, menstruation, libido, pregnancy. As important as those functions are, they’re only a fraction of what these hormones actually do. Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are profoundly metabolic hormones. They regulate fat storage and distribution, influence insulin sensitivity, affect thyroid function, and affect brain function among a host of other things. However when your body is in a state of hormonal chaos, it interprets this as a threat. From an evolutionary perspective, hormonal decline signals aging and reduced resources. It’s at this point your body’s imperative is to conserve resources.

Here are 5 ways that perimenopause can affect thyroid dysfunction: 1. Increased inflammation. As estrogen declines, the natural anti-inflammation protection taht estrogen provides dimishes. Chronic inflammation impairs T4 to T3 conversion. 2. Sex hormone changes. Plummeting progesterone and erratic estrogen impair how your thyroid hormone works-independent of how much your thyroid is producing. 3. Chronic stress and cortisol dysregulation. Due to chronically elevated levels, impairment of T4 to T3 conversion occurs. 4. Natural thyroid atrophy with age. Thyroid efficiency lessens with age, but becomes more clinically significant during perimenopause. 5. Potential autoimmune activation. Any previous silent autoimmune conditions become active. Changes in the imune system, deteriorating gut health, and increased inflammation could be causation for Hashimoto's to develop or worsen rapidly. When your thyroid isn’t functioning optimally, your entire metabolism slows down. You’re burning fuel at a crawl rather than at the rate you should be. Your cells can’t produce energy efficiently. Your body temperature drops. Your metabolic rate plummets. No amount of effort can compensate for a metabolism that’s fundamentally running too slowly. Being told your thyroid is normal-or being on thyroid medication with a normalised TSH-doesn’t mean there’s not an issue. Ladies: if this is YOUR experience, we hear you; we see you; we understand Feel free to drop a comment if this resonates -Brian

Cortisol is often called the “stress hormone”. Produced by your adrenal glands, it’s designed to be short term and a quick adaptive reaction to immediate danger. However the stress response was never designed to be constantly activated. Daily life consisting of managing a career, raising children, financial pressures etc can lead to constant, layered and unrelenting stress. The body was never meant to sustain this emergency state indefinitely. In addition to the weight gain issues, you put yourself at risk for a slew of other conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, chronic fatigue, weakened immune system and a host of others. How cortisol impacts weight gain and the inability to lose weight during perimenopause: 1. Craving “comfort foods”. Also referred to as “emotional eating”, your body may be craving relief or reward due to elevated cortisol, and those foods give you a quick boost of “feel good” hormones. 2. Visceral fat. The fat located around your organs has significantly more cortisol receptors than fat located anywhere else. It signals fat to be stored on the visceral adipose receptors, leading to the “muffin top” look. 3. Breakdown of muscle. Cortisol is catabolic, breaking down muscle tissue and protein into amino acids to use as fuel (gluconeogenesis). 4. Insulin resistance. High insulin plus high cortisol equals maximum fat storage singling, especially around the middle. 5. Sleep impairment. The 3 AM wake ups leaving you with the “tired but wired” state, leading to dysregulated hunger hormones (increased gherkin, decreased leptin). If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Which part of this hits the most?