Episode Overview

After breast cancer, it’s easy to believe the right supplement will be the missing piece to feeling better. But stress is often the hidden factor that drains your energy, depletes your nutrients, and keeps your body stuck in survival mode.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How chronic and even low-level stress depletes magnesium, vitamin C, zinc, and B vitamins

• Why supplements alone won’t work if your nervous system is overloaded

• How therapies like CBT and EMDR help retrain your stress response

• Why lab testing is critical before spending money on supplements

• The importance of bio-individuality and why what works for your friend may not work for you

If you’ve ever wondered why you still feel depleted even while taking supplements, this episode will give you clarity—and practical steps for moving forward.

References from this episode:

1. Juster R-P, McEwen BS, Lupien SJ. (2020). Allostatic load and allostatic overload: Clinical implications. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00046 

2. Singewald N, et al. (2004). Magnesium-deficient diet alters anxiety-related behavior in mice. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2004.10719406 

3. Harrison FE, May JM. (2009). Vitamin C function in the brain: New evidence links ascorbate to neurotransmitter function. Brain Research Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2009.05.018 

4. de Oliveira IJL, et al. (2015). Effects of oral vitamin C supplementation on anxiety in students. Nutrition Journal. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-14-36 

5. Stough C, et al. (2011). The effects of 90-day administration of a high-dose B-complex vitamin on work stress. Human Psychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1002/hup.1190 

6. Singh A, et al. (1991). Effect of acute stress on plasma zinc. Biological Trace Element Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02990385 

7. Hofmann SG, Asnaani A, Vonk IJJ, Sawyer AT, Fang A. (2018). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00117 

8. Shaw RJ, et al. (2019). Mindfulness-based stress reduction and CBT for HPA axis habituation. Psychoneuroendocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.104420 

9. Chen Y-R, Hung K-W, Tsai J-C, et al. (2014). Efficacy of EMDR for PTSD: A meta-analysis. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103676 

Explore more support:

• Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/lifecoaching 

• Creating a Life You Love in 168 Hours a Week: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/168-hours-sp 

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Read the full transcript:

 0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
Hello there, my friends. Welcome to Episode 425

0:37
of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura Lummer, and I am so happy that you're here with me today, because today we're going to talk about something that hopefully will take stress down a notch and take metabolic wellness up a notch. So something that I hear from people all the time, I get messages, I get emails, I get friends who ask me this questions, like, do you think this supplement will help with my energy? Should I try this thing someone recommended for my sleep? What brand of this supplement works better or works best for anxiety? And we're very geared towards this idea of something's missing in me. Let me replace it, and then I'll feel good and I get it, because that's just kind of the way we're conditioned in this society, right? Pills, pills feel that's a little bit of tongue twister. Pills feel tidy. Pills feel safe, effective and fast, right? Like, if I take this, how long will it take for this thing to work? So it feels like this is a sure thing, and meanwhile, naming the hard thing right, setting the boundary, telling the truth, getting the support for releasing old trauma that's hard. It feels messy, and it feels like it would take a long time. It feels scary, but I think even worse, we don't think that it's the thing. We don't understand how much stress and emotions can be the root of the problem, especially when it comes to things we think can be fixed with a supplement, right? But that's going to be the heart of today's episode. We must address how we relate to stress, how we relate to our emotions. Otherwise, supplements just become what do you wrap around? Electrical tape that shows you why I don't do any plumbing. Wrap electrical tape around a leaky pipe. Whatever it is that you're gonna wrap to stuff the leaky pipe, put a band aid on it, put some gum in it. The pipe is just gonna leak again, and it's not gonna hold forever because we haven't fixed the problem. And so something I really want you to think about, and let's really, let's, let's bring this in from our heart to our head here, as we go through this episode, that stress is not just in your head, that the very phrase, it's all in your head, is one of the biggest barriers. I personally, think that's my opinion to healing, because it feeds into this very outdated idea that the mind and the body are separate, that it's not separate. Our whole health care system reinforces this divide. So when you go to a doctor, for I don't know a rash on your skin, you go to a different doctor for depression or anxiety or ADHD, right? And we're looking at different professionals, if you're lucky, you find a therapist, right? Someone who you think is just treating the mind. But think about this, how often and antidepressants are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. How often has someone gone to get a drug for anxiety or depression or cancer, for that matter, and been told by the prescribing person? Oh, and by the way, here's how this medication might impact your gut microbiome. Here are some of the nutrients that medicine will block or prevent the absorption of, and if that happens, you might find yourself feeling depleted and foggy and fatigued unless you replenish those vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Right? We hear these side effects on drug commercials you know that go a litany of horrendous things that they're causing inside of our body or have the potential to cause. But why do they do that? Because there's something else they're blocking, preventing or depleting. Now, this isn't about drugs. This is not about drugs at all. I just want you to be thinking about this, right? This system that keeps our emotions in one box and our biology in another. When we are in reality, they're inseparable. Your thoughts and feelings directly affect your hormones, your digestion, your nutrient status, your immune function and your physical state loops right back into how you feel emotionally.

5:00
Yeah, and so hopefully that integration becomes more and more popular and addressed together in our medical system in the future, hopefully we see that evolution. But right now, most of us aren't getting the full picture of the care that we're receiving, which means we must become aware of it ourselves. So today I want to talk to you about the biology of stress, and especially the very day to day, low key stress that you brush off because you think it's just normal, and how it might literally be draining nutrients, changing hormones and taxing your biological, physical system, right? And I want to talk about the real medicine, nervous system regulation, boundaries and proven therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR. And I'm going to share with you some findings so that you can take this to your doctor, because I'm not a doctor, and I don't mean for any of this to replace any kind of medication. I want you to just think about the whole picture, right? This is all about education. This is not medical advice, but if you hear some information here, maybe it will help you shift your lifestyle, and maybe it will give you something to take to a doctor for a referral to a nutritionist or a dietitian or just get some more insight from your doctor, right? We always want to partner with our healthcare team. I'm never bashing it. I love my healthcare team. They're experts in things I am not an expert in. So please don't ever think this is bashing this is just opening the perspective to the whole picture of how we can support our body's ability to heal and feel well and energetic and all the things that we want. So first of all, let's talk about the fact that stress is absolutely not just in your head, but it is actually in your cells when stress is chronic, even low grade, right? I cannot tell you how many people say to me, yeah, I just really don't have any stress in my life. But then we start talking about their job, oh yeah, that's really stressful, right? Then we talk about how much they run around after their kids. And just because these are things that we have to do, you're not going to just like, stop helping your kids. You're not just going to stop going to work. But it's important to realize that, yeah, I mean, I have to do these things and oh yeah, they I do feel like they create stress. So how can I shift the way I think about them, and what are they potentially doing to my body that I could support with food or speak to someone about maybe a necessary supplement to help me with that while I'm balancing and changing the way that I manage my perception of the activities that must be done in my life, all right, in stress physiology, that cumulative cost of this, you know, constant stress of Your body being really intensively energetic. In this intense energy survival at all times and intense may be something different to everybody right. Intense may be dealing with making decisions about a cancer diagnosis. Intense maybe how you going to get everybody's soccer practice and lunches packed right. Intensity is different. But in stress, in stress physiology, that cumulative cost, that build up of all of this is called your allostatic load, and that's basically the wear and tear that happens on your body from staying in go mode, from being on all the time, right? There was a 2020, review in the frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, and it describes the energy trade off. This is a quote energy trade offs that happen when allostasis becomes allostatic load and Allostatic overload. And what that means in everyday language is that stress uses up so much of your body's energy that there's less left over for important things like repair, hormone balance, digestion, or even supporting immunity and fighting off illness. So if you find, if you feel like you're doing all the right things, I hear this more than any other thing. I'm doing all the right things, and I'm not seeing the stress. I'm not seeing the result I want to get right then stress is something you must look at. I hear this in in almost every call, my gosh, and I have to say to my people, guess what

9:32
you are doing, all the right things. So let's check off those boxes. You are in ketosis. You are eating clean, you are eating organic. You are exercising, you are going outside. Okay, we can check those boxes. Let's try to figure them out. Let's just accept that you've done them now, let's look at the other ones. How happy are you at work? How are your relationships? What's going on with your time management? How is your sleep looking? How's your child?

10:00
Hood trauma. Have you released these emotions that you're pushing in, like the unseen things?

10:07
That's when I see the tears come up. That's when we recognize what stress really means. And that's why I call it hidden energy thief, because I don't know that it's hiding, but oftentimes we're we don't want to see it. We'll kind of put blinders onto it, and we don't want to don't want to recognize it, and we're not aware of it, to the extent that we need to be aware so that we can support our physical body, right? So let's talk a little bit about how stress can deplete nutrients. So let me tell you about a few well studied nutrient drains that are going to be simple, and you'll recognize these ones. So let's begin with magnesium. Magnesium is the first responder that gets spent. Magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions, including, very importantly, calming the nervous system. When you're under stress, your body can lose magnesium. And in fact, there was a study published in 2004

11:06
in the Journal of American College of Nutrition, and they found that during exam stress, students showed increased urinary excretion of magnesium. So in simple terms, what that means is, when you're stressed, your body is literally dumping magnesium out in your urine, and that's why stress can leave you with tense muscles, poor sleep and anxiety spirals, because magnesium is one of the minerals that calms your system down and affects these different aspects of your wellness, vitamin C. Who, who isn't aware of vitamin C, your stress response? CO factor, right? The thing you need when you want to respond to stress, one of them is vitamin C. So catecholamines, which are things like dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, these are your get up and go stress chemicals. And making those requires vitamin C. So in 2009 there was a review in brain research bulletin, and it explained that catecholamine synthesis, the making of catecholamines, is an ascorbate dependent function, which is a fancy way of saying that your body can't make stress hormones without vitamin C. It is literally the spark plug that keeps that engine running, and because stress burns through vitamin C quickly, low levels can leave you feeling drained, moody and even more stressed. So think about it. When you say to yourself, I feel so stressed. What is the sensation? What does it mean when you say, I feel stressed? Become more aware of that. Is it tightness? Is it fatigue? Is it just the feeling of failure to thrive like what is it feeling like in your body, and know that nutrients impact those physical sensations. So there's also data linking vitamin C to mood. There was a clinical study published in Nutrition journal in 2015

13:15
and it showed that high dose vitamin C reduce anxiety in high school students during stressful periods. So in plain language, giving the body more vitamin C helped these teens to feel calmer during exams. B vitamins, this is a big 1b. Vitamins, especially b9 and B 12 and b6 but again, b6 is not something we're going to supplement with with something we're gonna get through food, but these B vitamins support neuro transmitter synthesis in your hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access, right? So this whole system inside our body that is this stress response, or the way that we react to things and how it impacts us. And in a randomized trial published in human psychopharmacology in 2011

14:06
they found that B complex significantly improved stress and mental health ratings in young adults.

14:13
So people who took a full B complex for three months felt less stressed and had better moods than those who didn't. B vitamins actually fuel brain chemistry and energy and stress. Can use them up quickly, and B vitamins are significantly important for methylation, that physiological process in which our body detoxifies and repairs DNA and helps to manage inflammation. Another big mover is zinc. There was a paper in 1991 in biological trace element research that found plasma zinc concentrations have been shown to decline with acute stress. And for those of you out there getting Botox or anything else to keep your wrinkles smooth, uh.

15:00
Good friend of mine, who is an MP who owns a med spa, tells me that all of those, I can't remember what they call them right now, there's a certain toxin, something they call them when they're injecting them to remove wrinkles that it doesn't last as long if people are depleted in zinc. So you we can see the different nutrients, different minerals, can affect lots of different functions in the body. And I'm not encouraging people to go out and get Botox and get Botox. I'm just saying that these different minerals can have impact on lots of things. So zinc gets pulled out of circulation when you're stressed, and that means that less is available for what's an important part of where zinc works, your immune system and repair work. So over time, that can leave you feeling more vulnerable to illness and fatigue. So I want, I want to give the big picture here, because repeated stress doesn't just raise cortisol, right? It's not just like, Oh, I'm stressed. I have so much cortisol, it drains nutrients. It can drain magnesium, vitamin C, B, vitamin zinc, and it can divert energy away from restoration and healing. Now, can supplements help? Well, supplements can help if you need them, but if you don't lower the stress load, then you're pouring all of the money it takes to buy all those supplements into a bucket with a hole in it, right? So sometimes, yes, supplements can work with the rest of the plan. Supplements can absolutely I take a lot of supplements, but they are very well thought out, and I administer them in a way that I can check to make sure, is this having some kind of an impact? Because if not, I'm not going to spend $8,550

16:41
a month on this thing, right? So if you're still flooring that gas pedal with constant stress, the tank will keep emptying, and supplements work best when they're paired with lifestyle and emotional work that actually lowers your stress demand. So you don't even know if you need a supplement. Let's be very clear on this until you've looked at your lab work. There is no reason for you to throw money into the wind. Don't go out and go, Oh, wait, what supplements did you talk about on the podcast? Let me check them off, right? No. There's no reason for you to be throwing money out in the wind, filling up your cabinet with bottles that you don't even know you need. Stress depletes, lots of different nutrients. But what are you going to do? Are you just going to take all of the things just in case, or would you rather know what is actually right for you? That's where your labs matter. You've got to see your blood work, and you've got to work with a professional who understands your blood work from a metabolic perspective, not a diagnostic perspective, right? Not a pharmaceutical perspective, a metabolic perspective, and that way, you're not just guessing, you're testing, assessing, and you're addressing like your unique bio individual, amazingly, miraculous system needs. And so let me ask you this question to just kind of drive home this point. Have you ever had a friend and I know you have, or heard dr oz or somebody else rave about this supplement and say, oh my god, it literally changed my life. So you get super excited, and you go out and you drop 150 bucks on that supplement, and you take it faithfully, and it doesn't do anything, and a month later they say, oh, we gotta take for like, two or three months. So you you spend another 150 for the next month and the next month, and you feel nothing. That is not because your friend was wrong. It's because their body was depleted in that nutrient, and yours was not. That's bio individuality. That is what works wonders for one person. Might not do anything for another, because we're all different, and even though you may think you have the same symptom, right, I feel fatigue and a lack of energy too. It may not be coming from the same thing that your friend's fatigue is coming from that's very important to understand, and until you understand your body's needs, supplements are just a very expensive experiment. This podcast is not about taking supplements. It's about understanding what your allostatic load, your stress load, does to your body, how it might deplete your body. And I want to reinforce the idea that food first, then we look at the diet and say, what's going on in the diet, right? Let's talk about what actually lowers this allostatic load.

19:38
One do the emotional work. Emotional work is healthcare. Supplements feel easier than conversations and emotional work, but emotional work is metabolic work, when you set a boundary, when you tell the truth, right? You get something off your chest, when you ask for help, when you pause.

20:00
The constant threat watch and you speak your needs and step into the change you want to create. Your digestion, improves your sleep, deepens your inflammation, calms when you are constantly putting out fires and trying to keep the peace for everybody, which is absolutely impossible, you're draining yourself. So we tell ourselves it's easier that way. It's not easier. It's so much harder on you. This is why, in my four pillars of breast cancer, recovery, release, renew, regroup, revive, mindset and nervous system support is woven in through everything that I do as a coach, evidence based therapies can help you. And let me talk about a couple evidence based therapies that can actually help rewire your stress circuitry. This is so powerful, so there's cognitive behavioral therapy. It's referred to as CBT. CBT is designed to help you notice question and reframe unhelpful thoughts that keep your stress cycle alive. This is a lot of these practices are woven I'm not a CBT practitioner, and I'm not making that claim, so find one that is licensed and can help you. But a lot of the practices and that theory around how this works is woven into coaching and motivational interviewing and these practices that are incorporated in what I do with people. So there was a 2018 review in the frontiers in psychology that explained it this way, CBT modifies dysfunctional thinking and behavior patterns, therefore alleviating stress and enhancing coping strategies. So CBT actually trains our brain to stop chasing the same stressful thought loops. How many times have we talked about this on the podcast? Right? You create an imaginary thought loop, and you keep putting energy into it. In CBT, you begin to practice new ways of thinking and responding, which changes your biology, lowers your stress hormones, and creates more calm, powerful stuff, realizing that you have power over what thoughts to choose, not always what thoughts will come up, right? Because I don't know. I don't know why random thoughts come up, the ones I call Lindsay Lohan thoughts like, why am I thinking about Lindsay Lohan here while I'm making dinner? Why am I suddenly singing the Toys R Us song? I don't know why certain thoughts come up, but I know you could choose how much energy you put into continuing to think about the thoughts that come up. Okay, there's a big difference, and there's a lot of power there. So let's talk a little bit about another mindfulness based study that can help with lowering stress levels. There was a 2019 study in psychoneuro endocrinology that found that mindfulness based stress reduction, MBSR and CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy interventions promote greater again, the HPA, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access, habituation relative to no training. And what this means is that your stress system literally learns how to settle down faster after a challenge. It's like strength training for your resilience. And this is something that I work with my clients all the time. They'll learn and start to understand the way they think about a certain circumstance in their life. They'll realize that as long as I choose to think this way, and I put energy into thinking this way, here's all the emotion it's going to bring up, here's the way it's going to cause my body to feel right, tight or stressed or itchy, or whatever it's going to be. And then they'll say, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna choose something else that's also true. I'm gonna think about this circumstance in a different way that is also true but feels better to me. And they'll start to practice that, and something will happen. Let's say the trigger happens. They go back to the old thought, and it takes them, like, two days of processing this before they can really grab onto the new thought and change the way they feel. Well, the more they practice that, the shorter that gap becomes, then it becomes, oh, my god, I'm so proud of myself. I caught myself. I caught myself. I was almost going to go back to that old pattern, but I was aware. I caught it. I redirected in the moment, right? So the practice is like that, strengthening training for resilience. You get stronger and stronger and stronger at choosing to think in a different way, powerful stuff. Let's talk a little bit about EMDR. So this is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. This is what EMDR stands for. So there's a third, 2013

24:42
meta analysis that was published in plus one, and they found that EMDR therapy significantly reduced the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety and subjective distress. What an interesting statement subjective distress.

25:00
What does that mean? Perceived distress, not objective distress, not like this is a horrible thing. Subjective distress, what we thought that was causing us distress? Okay? EMDR, doesn't just help with trauma. It actually helps your nervous system stop carrying that trauma load, so you can feel more grounded and less anxious. How cool is that this is an amazing therapy that I know several people who have done this and had spectacular results with it? Okay? So I'll put some references to all the studies that I refer to in the show notes, which you can find at the breast cancer recovery coach.com, forward, slash, 425, or you can just scroll down wherever you're watching this podcast or listening to it and look at the actual references and look into it for yourself and see if maybe this resonates with you, if these practices can help you get To the root cause of the sensation you're experiencing in your body that we call stress or depression or whatever else we call it, what's the root and can we help ourselves feel a little better? Right? A couple of things that I'll offer you, some daily regulation practices that can also help, and we can do this in in small amounts, right? Consistency is more important, so short, but consistent so that you don't feel overwhelmed. One is just taking two to 10 minutes to focus on breath. I know it seems simple, all of this stuff seems simple, but simple doesn't mean it isn't powerful. So intentionally, exhale, focus breathing, which means you exhale longer than you inhale, and it feels really good, too. You know, when we work on these breath practices here,

26:56
and you do that a couple times, you're like, wow, I do feel like I let something go. I feel relieved. It's helpful, right? Gentle movement after meals, leaving just a few minutes. Just walk outside, get some sun on your face, or, you know, if the weather is allowing, just walk for five or 10 minutes. It doesn't have to be an hour long walk, gentle, slow, consistent, morning sunlight, evening, winding down rituals, intention. You see the thread of intention. Get up in the morning and say, I'm going to walk outside and feel the sound of my face, right? It's the evening, and you're

27:32
like, sit here watch TV, and so I'm so exhausted I fall asleep, versus I'm going to have a ritual for myself. Rituals are powerful. Materials are showing I'm worth this time and this effort. And so my ritual might be, you know what? I'm not going to turn on the TV. Maybe I am going to just sit outside of my backyard for a few moments in the evening and, once again, take in the energy of nature. But then I'm going to have a ritual where I wash my face, put on moisturizer, rub some lavender oil on the bottoms of my feet, read a good regular book before I go to bed, do two to 10 minutes of breath. Work right. Inhale some beautiful essential oils, whatever feels good to you. So it's nice to have those bookends, morning sunlight, evening, wind down, very intentional approach and close to your day. Think about it. Most things that you go to that are important to you, right? They have an opening and a closing. Why not? In your day, you might find that this is very helpful in addressing that nervous system and creating more calmness. All right,

28:40
I think if you could take one thing away from today, I want you to understand this emotional work is metabolic work, when you regulate your nervous system, when you set compassionate boundaries and you heal the patterns that are underneath the chronic stress, you lower your allostatic load, and that frees nutrients, it creates energy, and it helps so that hormones can work to do the healing and build the energy that helps your body thrive, right? Remember, there is no real line between mind and body. What is the brain? It is an organ. It is a part of the body. Right? Your mind is your body. Your body is your mind, and the more we honor that integration, through food, through therapy, through breath, through boundaries, the more complete and sustainable, your healing becomes, right? So if this episode landed for you, share with someone else you maybe you see might feel like they're drowning someone else who maybe is just reaching out for lots of supplements but failing to really address the under.

30:00
Lying cause of much what might be creating the need for that supplement, what might be creating the feeling of heaviness or fatigue? It's all one big whole approach to wellness and metabolic health, right? If you want more support with this, you can come to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com where you will find my better than before breast cancer, metabolic health and mindset membership. You'll find all these different standalone programs, the feel good reset, 90 days of wellness. And you'll find my metabolic health coaching, where we dig into labs, nutrition, genomics, gut health tests, all these things where we're really looking at what is the language of your body, what is your body trying to tell you it needs? And then how do we work on getting your mindset into such a way and into such a place where you're capable of doing that for yourself? Powerful stuff, all right, friends, so let's all take a breath,

31:03
exhale longer than you inhale, and just give yourself some space to think about what you might need. All right, and I'll talk to you again next week. Take care.

31:16
You've put your courage to the test, laid all your doubts to rest.

31:24
Your mind is clearer than before. Your heart is full and wanting more. Your Future's at the door. Give it all you got