How your body adapts to its environment, and why it can result in annoying symptoms.

I originally wrote this caption-turned-blog in response to this post on Instagram, if you want that context.

I’m sure you can relate to at least one of these sentences:

• “I have acne because of my PCOS” or “my cycles are long because of my PCOS”

• “I have painful periods because of my endometriosis”

• “I gain weight around my belly easily because of my metabolic syndrome”

• “I can’t sleep because of my anxiety disorder”

• “I only pass a bowel movement a couple times a week because of my IBS”

But have you ever wondered what starts the domino-effect of your body experiencing symptoms? (which can then lead to these diagnoses?)

Are they really just from a specific ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’ that you may or may not be diagnosed with, thereby making them a hurdle to be suppressed?

Or could symptoms be an intelligent language of your body, the result of your body ADAPTING to environmental challenges, that are pointing to a much larger issue than the symptom(s) itself?BUT - there’s a problem.

What sort of symptoms are we talking about?

Let’s first define ‘symptom’

The official definition of the word ‘symptom’?

‘a physical or mental feature which is regarded as indicating a condition of disease, particularly such a feature that is apparent to the patient.’

In my opinion, a symptom is any experience, physical or mental, external or internal, that is outside of optimal functioning. The other point here is that symptoms can be felt by the person, as opposed to signs, which are strictly objective, physical & measurable.

I want to point out here, though, that a disease doesn’t just pop out of nowhere, causing symptoms. I believe disease develops over time, after multiple attempts by your body to adapt to the challenge. 

What are some examples of symptoms?

I’ll keep these relevant to my line of work in hormone imbalance & female health, and what I often hear from my clients.

• Painful periods

• Irregular cycles (seemingly unpredictable or frequently ‘late’ periods)

• Acne, breakouts

• Heavy periods

• Intense or sudden weight fluctuations

• Feeling stressed

• Feeling anxious or depressed

• Insomnia

• Bloating

• Pelvic pain

• Rashes

• Brain fog, poor concentration

This is not an exhaustive list!

Now, does having any of these symptoms mean your body is doing something wrong? I think the absolute opposite. I truly believe your body is NEVER doing anything wrong (despite how we’re often taught to shame our bodies for what they do, and that modern medicine aims to ‘correct’ our bodies for experiencing symptoms). I believe your body is doing the best it can, and exactly what it’s meant to do: respond to its environment.

Put another way, “adapting”.

Symptoms & Disease

Some diseases, disorders & syndromes that could be associated with any of the above symptoms include:

• Endometriosis

• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

• Pelvic Congestion Syndrome

• Uterine fibroids

• Ovarian cysts

• Metabolic Syndrome

• Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth

• Depression

• Generalised Anxiety Disorder

• ADHD

Now I’m certainly not debating whether these diagnoses are associated with any of the aforementioned symptoms -- of course they are!

But when I weave my naturopathic & functional medicine lens into this topic, I can’t help but feel that… you don’t only get symptoms because of a disease. And a disease doesn’t just appear from nothing within your body.

So, what causes symptoms?

I believe our bodies are excellent sensing & responding organisms, and very sensitive, adaptive ones at that. 

There’s a fine set of conditions that must be met for your body to maintain homeostasis - a state of balance and equilibrium - that allows for optimal functioning (and for you to actually feel good in your body).

These conditions mostly have to do with your body’s ENVIRONMENT, both internal and external.

Your body’s external environment is made up of:

• Where you live (the physical space, as well as the general terrain/area)

• Pollution

• Chemical exposures (e.g. toxins on skin, inhaled, or ingested)

• The people around you

• Light exposure (natural & otherwise)

• Exposure to pathogens (bacteria, fungi, viruses that can cause infections)

The internal environment of your body relates to:

• What you eat

• What you drink

• Anything you ingest or insert (orally, nasally, rectally, vaginally)

• Your fascia

• The quality of your organs, tissues & cells

When these conditions are not met, your body will initiate corrective, adaptive mechanisms to cope with the environmental challenge, in an attempt to achieve homeostasis once again.

Okay, I’m putting down lots of opinions and concepts for you, so let’s apply them to some IRL examples.

For example…

Frequently late periods and irregular cycles (over 35 days)

Late periods (also meaning delayed or irregular ovulation) are often associated with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). So on one hand, your body may not ovulate regularly because of the hormone imbalances associated with PCOS. Now, of course, there’s going to be something in your environment that’s causing your body to respond, thus creating the symptoms of hormone imbalance. If you see your GP with late periods as a main symptom, PCOS may be one of the first things they look to diagnose or rule out.

But is there another function at play here?

Ovulation allows conception to occur — i.e. how babies can be made! From a biological and evolutionary perspective, having a baby requires many resources and takes a huge toll on the body. It’s not something your body takes lightly.

The first step to ovulation lies in your nervous system: your pituitary gland, located in your brain, releases a hormone called LH, which triggers ovulation. Of course, as part of the nervous system, your brain is constantly receiving input about your environment.

To increase chances of survival, it’s best to bring a baby into a safe, well-resourced environment. No excess stress, no shortage of food or water, etc.

So, if your brain is detecting a lot of stress — either chronically, or in the phase leading up to ovulation — it’s very likely that the final “trigger” won’t be pulled to give the “go-ahead” to ovulation. In other words, ovulation gets suppressed due to stress, because your brain/nervous system is detecting that the current environment is unideal to bring a baby into.

Remember: your body doesn’t know/care about your INTENTION to conceive a baby. It is always operating on the software that pregnancy is the goal (because, evolution, carry on the human race, survival is the ultimate goal, etc etc).

With this in mind, is it most important that PCOS get diagnosed or ruled out, or that the nervous system and stress reduction techniques are prioritised to restore regular ovulation?

Another example: Acne

Do you get acne because you have a disease called “acne”? Or even if you’ve been diagnosed with PCOS, or a bacterial infection associated with acne?

Or does acne appear as a result of uncontrolled inflammation, high blood sugar, high insulin, excess testosterone or cortisol?

Take it a step further — you don’t have inflammation, high blood sugar/insulin, excess testosterone or cortisol for no reason… dig deeper, what’s causing that?

Chronic sleep deprivation (< 6 hours/night)? → your body increases cortisol output to stay awake during the day while running on low sleep. High cortisol overtime contributes to inflammation; sleep is needed for regulating inflammation & repairing damaged tissues/cells. That combo, can result in acne & breakouts.

Excess intake of processed or carbohydrate-concentrated foods? →  leads to higher blood sugar spikes, leading to higher insulin output from your pancreas. If this continues for long enough, your cells get resistant to insulin, so they can’t access the sugar in your blood to make energy. Blood sugar stays high, triggering excess cortisol output to sustain energy needs by breaking down muscle & glycogen from the liver, and that can trigger acne.

Lacking nutrients in your diet that are protective of skin health? → can lead to damage in your epithelial cells, the outer lining of your skin, and reduced activity of your immune system. Poor skin integrity and weakened immunity make it easier for bacteria or fungi to proliferate on the skin, triggering irritation and inflammation (again, inflammation is your body’s way of attempting to control the infection). That inflammation can increase cortisol output, potentially even testosterone production, which can cause sebaceous glands to produce more sebum (oils), clogging pores & compromising skin cells that are already struggling. Not having enough zinc, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin D, manganese, silica can mean that your body is unable to ‘cope’ with the environmental challenge.

Alrighty! Let’s take a breath

As I’m writing this, I can viscerally feel that I am in some slippery territory. This certainly isn’t the agreed-upon medical model of conventional healthcare and is often overlooked even in natural health spaces.

There are no hard and fast rules here, and if you’ve ever listened to my Nuanced Naturopaths Podcast, you’ll know that I rarely aim for black-and-white, clear-cut answers.

In this dense post, my aim is to shed light on an alternative perspective to look at and work with symptoms through.

I think we need to place more emphasis on how the body is trying to adapt to its environment, maladapting & creating disease, rather than getting the diagnosis right and then working on suppressing symptoms.

When we turn our focus to how our body responds to its environment, we can very clearly see how many areas of life we influence our health (as opposed to a diagnosis, which can sometimes make it feel like our health, and symptoms, are out of our control).

Focusing on what you CAN change will always show you where your innate power lies. Remember your power.

This blog was inspired by an Instagram post I created, which you can check out here.