MORE BLOG POSTS — Stress

If your fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c are normal, you may assume your glucose metabolism is working just fine. But that’s not always the case. In fact, the metabolic changes that eventually lead to prediabetes can begin years—sometimes a decade or longer—before your blood sugar officially crosses into the prediabetic range. If you’re gaining weight around your middle, craving carbohydrates, crashing in the afternoon, feeling hungry two hours after eating, or wondering why the same strategies that helped you lose weight ten years ago now barely make the scale blink, your body may be telling you it’s time to...

Many of us celebrate every pound we lose with a high-five and a moment of gratitude for our trusty bathroom scale. But before you get too excited, it's important to know exactly what you're losing. Shedding body fat is certainly something to celebrate—but what if some of that weight is coming from muscle instead? The truth is, the number on your scale doesn't tell the whole story. If you're losing muscle instead of fat, you could actually be slowing your metabolism, weakening your bones, and making it harder to keep the weight off in the future. That's why successful weight...

One of the most common complaints I hear from my female patients over 40 is that they're losing more hair than they used to—even if they haven't changed a thing. Sometimes it's the growing collection of hair wrapped around the shower drain. Sometimes it's the increasingly crowded hairbrush. Other times it's a ponytail that seems noticeably thinner than it once was. The truth is that some degree of hair shedding is completely normal. Most people lose dozens of hairs every day as part of the natural hair growth cycle. But if you're noticing more hair than usual in your brush,...

Hot flashes. Anxiety. Insomnia. Heart palpitations. Headaches. Brain fog. Random itching. A nose that suddenly behaves like it’s allergy season year-round. A glass of wine that used to feel relaxing but now leaves you flushed, wide awake at 2 a.m., and questioning every life decision you've ever made. Sound familiar? I thought so…. Most women assume these symptoms are simply part of stress or aging. And to be fair, many of them are. But there’s another player that often flies under the radar—one that can quietly stir up a surprising amount of chaos—especially during perimenopause and menopause. Meet histamine, an...

Many women don’t realize that prescription and over-the-counter medications can affect the levels and patterns of the stress hormone cortisol. I’ve worked with countless women who had many symptoms of stress system dysfunction—fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, sleep issues—but their system couldn’t course-correct because some of their medications were tying its hands behind its back. In some cases, medications are necessary. But it’s important to understand which ones can affect cortisol and the stress system—and how they do so.   Medications That Affect the Way You Perceive Stress Your brain constantly scans your environment looking for potential threats—whether that’s a...