Do you experience weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, hormonal imbalances, sleep problems, gut imbalances, high cholesterol and/or blood pressure, digestive problems, chronic headaches, regular illness, depression, anxiety, pain, or autoimmune conditions?
Have you sought help for these issues and nothing helped, or perhaps even told you were a difficult patient or that your symptoms were “all in your head?”
Chances are you are experiencing adrenal and/or thyroid challenges in what Dr. Aviva Romm calls, SOS, or Survival Overdrive Syndrome. This is a state of being in repeated or chronic stress, which puts the body into “survival mode” to protect itself.
Because the brain doesn’t differentiate between a perceived danger or threat (that endless to-do list and deadlines) and a real one (life-threatening situations), it instructs the body to react in the same way with both. The results are chronic inflammation, under-functioning of the internal detoxification systems, poor sleep, dietary allergies, blood sugar imbalances, disruptions in gut health, autoimmune conditions, and even viral infections. Dr. Romm divides these further into SOS-O – being caught in constant activity overdrive – and SOS-E – when you hit the wall and are deeply exhausted.
Whichever it is, when we are stuck in unrelenting stress, our protective mechanisms get stuck, too, causing a mass of symptoms such as those listed above. In time we don’t recognize the source problem as being chronic stress but search for other answers. Many find results with herbs and natural remedies but most end up on endless medications.
This and more is dealt with by Dr. Romm, a 30 year herbalist and mid-wife – and East West graduate – who decided in her 40s to become a medical doctor. Her marriage of Western medicine sciences with herbalism and natural remedies gave birth to her newest creation, The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution, (HarperOne, 2017). In this book,
Dr. Romm provides a thorough and easy to understand explanation of how the body responds to stress and what to do about it. It also demystifies the crucial roles of the adrenals and thyroid in the stress response and their impact on health. And it shares how to deal with the many symptoms that result, along with even more importantly, their five root causes. This book is packed with informational charts, questionnaires to decode your SOS types, and multiple solutions for a number of related health problems, all personally tailored to fit your unique symptoms and needs. It takes the holistic perspective of replenishing “cell to soul” to outline in detail a three-week SOS program following the five approaches of reboot, reframe, repair, recharge, and replenish.
It addresses the all-important microbiome gut repair along with how to get a good night’s sleep as well as boost immune support, detoxification, and hormone balance. Written not in a preachy manner but from a very supportive perspective of one woman to another (although I believe this book is important for men, too), it is clear, easy to understand, and thorough in its explanations and resources. It provides a lifestyle approach rather than a “quick fix” plan for lasting health changes and benefits.
List upon list of herbal and natural remedies are provided for different root cause conditions along with multiple day-by-day guides, charts to track your patterns and progress, a self-care repair kit, shopping lists, sample menus, and recipes for all dietary approaches. The entire three-week plan is completely laid out so there is no guesswork. Dr. Romm even provides charts on various lab tests with guidance for how to read and understand them. Beyond that, there is an entire chapter on how to hit the pause button, one of the hardest things to do when living with chronic stress. As well, her remedies address the root causes for lasting results rather than giving short-term cures.
This book is especially for those who want to take charge of their own health and lives, who have not found the final answers from traditional Western medicine, or who want to find natural alternatives to multiple medications.
The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution provides women with a way to think about their symptoms and medical conditions as well within their power to control – not as something beyond their control with life limitations, medications, and the downward decline Western medicine likes us to think is inevitable without dependence on medications.
It teaches women to recognize, address, and reverse the five root causes of diseases that affect metabolism, hormones, mind, mood, immunity, and inflammation with natural tools that are within our hands. It also provides a blueprint for MDs and other professional who want to change their approach to be more woman-centered and chronic disease prevention savvy.
I have personally seen in my own over 33 years clinical experience how such a whole-person approach can bring renewed health and change people’s lives. If you follow The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution’s guidance, it can definitely change your health and your life. I give it a highest recommendation!