Hey, what’s up? It’s Dr. Jade Teta here.  

Today I want to do a deep dive on one particular hormone known both for its ability to save your life when it’s in balance… and to practically destroy your life when it’s not. 

See, this hormone doesn’t just impact your immune system. This “immunity killer” also: 

· Saps your motivation… 

· Disrupts your focus and productivity… 

· Cranks up cravings for sweets, alcohol, or other “feel good” (but not necessarily healthy) behaviors… 

· Breaks your good, new habits… and regresses you back into old, destructive habits and patterns. 

And unfortunately for most people living in modern society, this hormone is rarely in balance.  

The #1 immunity killing-hormone is cortisol — aka “the stress hormone.”  

First, I want to be clear: cortisol isn’t a demon. It has a powerful purpose in the body. When your brain senses danger, it combines cortisol with adrenaline to give you the speed and stamina to, say, escape the claws of a hungry lion.  

Saving your life is what we’d call acute stress. It’s on when you need it and off when you don’t.  

But if cortisol stays too high for too long, as is the case for many, many people today, there are some pretty serious consequences. 

That’s because excess cortisol irritates the hypothalamus — the hormone regulator in your brain and control center of the metabolism. 

Think of the hypothalamus like the radio tower of your brain. It sends and receives signals in the form of hormones. But if the hypothalamus is under stress, it gets so irritated that it can’t hear the signals … or send them out as clearly.  

This signaling “interference” disrupts the rest of your metabolism downstream… which interrupts the way your body processes energy… which then starves your immune system, so it can’t defend you. 

And I’m not just talking about emotional stress, like depression, anxiety or overwhelm. There are many types of hidden stress that you don’t feel.  

For example:  

· Overeating or under-eating (like when you diet) 

· Excess cold or excess heat 

· Illness 

· Too much exercise or too little exercise 

· Toxicity, from pollution or heavy metals 

· Emotional stress or overwhelm 

· Self-editing (regulating thoughts and behaviors, or running a constant mental to-do list) 

These are ALL stressors to the hypothalamus. They ALL throw the metabolism out of whack.  

I know, it seems like a lot… 

The good news is, there’s a LOT you can do to lower cortisol and turn down the volume on both emotional and hidden stress. Even better? De-stressing is both easy and enjoyable. I’ll go through my favorite stress-lowering strategies in the video lesson below: 

Remember, the most EFFECTIVE thing you can do to boost immunity is to strengthen your metabolism, because your metabolism POWERS your immune system.  

So — try out some of the tactics I described… chill out for a minute… and enjoy the stronger, healthier, more centered “you” that arrives.  

I hope you’re enjoying this free immune system crash course. Please feel free to leave us a comment or question below!