The Emotional and Physical Toll of Perfectionism on Your Health with Dr. Tricia Pingel
The Emotional and Physical Toll of Perfectionism on Your Health with Dr. Tricia Pingle
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Dr. Taz: [00:00:00] What are the five most common things you see in women when they're going into adrenal fatigue? From a symptom standpoint?
Tricia Pingel: I'm just gonna say perimenopause right there. I'm gonna throw that out there. Okay. Because that's what women are coming to me. Oh, my hormones are outta whack. My hormones are outta whack.
What can I do? Oh, it's just hormones. I'm sure it's my hormones. Well, it is your hormones. It's your stress hormones. So now
Dr. Taz: all the symptoms associated with that, all the symptoms
Tricia Pingel: are the same. The symptoms of low thyroid are the same as perimenopause, are the same as adrenal fatigue are the same as insulin issues, right?
Adrenal fatigue. I think most of us live in adrenal fatigue all the time. I mean, when I look at how much we pile on, just as women alone, how many different hats we wear, we take care of our parents, we take care of our kids, we take care of our business. We take care of our neighbors. We feel like we have to show up for everyone all the time and look like we have it together.
And during that process, we neglect who we are. That is not selfish to think of yourself first, because you cannot help others or serve others or be anything for others if you are not well,
Dr. Taz: if you have ever used the word stress. Or you have felt stressed. I really want [00:01:00] you to listen to this next episode of the podcast, and if you're in a family unit and somebody in the family is stressed, you may want them to listen to it too.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Tricia Pingle, who tackles the topics of stress and burnout and is better known as the Adrenal Whisperer. She has a uniquely powerful perspective to wellness as a naturopathic physician who actually started her career on the fashion runways. Her journey from a successful model to a trusted health authority gives her rare insight into the destructive power of perfectionism and the healing potential of self-acceptance.
Through her bestselling book, total Health Turnaround and Her Supplement Line, total Health Apothecary, Dr. Pingle guides overwhelmed professionals to transform stress into strength and burnout into balance. Please welcome Dr. Pingle, Dr. Pingle. So excited to have you on the show. You have done so much work over the years.
You [00:02:00] have such a story. We were just sitting here chatting and your story is fascinating to me, but you really talk a lot and spend a lot of time talking about perfectionism, and you've had personal experience with that. Give us a little perspective what's going on here with perfectionism. How did you even get drawn into noticing that with your patients and your community, and maybe a little bit of your background as well.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. You know, I don't wanna speak only to women because obviously it impacts so many people, right? But being a woman who wears 800 hats and does 400 different things, I could relate to all of these women that were coming in and saying, well, I'll start that after Christmas, or when things get better, or, I can't commit to this 100%, so I'm not going to do it.
And I saw so many people getting sick and their health declining and their joy declining because they weren't taking any action. And I started to say, gosh. Are we just all living by what everyone else is expecting us to do? What happens if we [00:03:00] just say no?
both: Hmm.
Tricia Pingel: What if we start doing what we wanna do following our path?
Will I see improvements in health? And I started to notice that the women I was talking to that said, you know what? I'm going to go back to dance class, or I'm going to, you know, take a vacation. I'm gonna say no to this commitment. I'm not gonna go to the PTA meeting every single week. Those types of things.
They started to then take care of their health. They started to get happier and more joyful. So this really related with me. We were talking ahead of time about how I grew up in the modeling industry. Yes.
Dr. Taz: And so fascinated by this. It's, it's by the way guys, she's like six something and I'm five something.
So we've got a massive height differential between the two of us. So no pictures. You're not gonna see any pictures whatsoever. I would say
Tricia Pingel: we need a picture. That's a good idea. Exactly what you, but no, I
Dr. Taz: mean as soon as I saw you, I've gotta be a hundred percent honest. I'm like, she must have been a model because you definitely have the physique, but that's how you entered sort of this concept of perfectionism and mm-hmm.
Trying to be perfect and look perfect. Tell us a little bit about that.
Tricia Pingel: Well, [00:04:00] I, I mean, I was working and making money when I was a child, you know, and, you know, filing taxes at 12, you know, no pressure. And getting myself to jobs and you're expected, you know, to show up, to be on time, to be prepared to wear what they want, to fit in, the clothes, to be whatever they're telling you to be.
And there's a part of that on the creative side that's really cool. 'cause you can step into. A kind of a persona like acting right, Uhhuh. But then when you're young and you're in that industry and you're being judged constantly, and this was during the eighties and nineties where you didn't even sign a modeling contract unless you were over five 10.
You were a certain weight. I remember. Um, yeah. And, um, being expected to be an adult as a child, I honestly just stopped using my voice. I stopped being Tricia and I started just being whatever they wanted me to be that day. And I think that relates to so many people. Now, when I talk to women [00:05:00] that say, mm-hmm I don't know who I am.
I have lost who I am. Maybe I'm in perimenopause. Maybe it's the hormones, maybe it's this or that. And when I start to talk to them, there was a moment where they started to rely on everyone else to tell them who they were.
both: Mm.
Tricia Pingel: And they lost that connection with their soul. And so fast forward many years.
I lost my dad to a stroke when he was young. He was 59 years old. I was in my early twenties.
both: Wow.
Tricia Pingel: Um, I started to see a lot of holes in the medical system at that time with care and prevention. I lost my mom, uh, later to cancer who was also a model and was very much involved in my life. And at that point I was like, oh my gosh, I'm 40 and I have no idea who I am.
Who am I? Am I a mom? Am I a model? Am I a doctor? So,
Dr. Taz: it's so interesting 'cause like you were, what, how old when you entered modeling, you told me you were like nine months old. I was nine months old. Nine months old. Bought Marsha
Tricia Pingel: commercial. I crawled across the screen in baby clothes. Oh wow. And apparently those [00:06:00] smiled.
We need to go find those. I can't find them anywhere. Oh, you're kidding. Anywhere. Uh, I would, in the 1980s, we didn't have social media to document. Right, right.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. So you're nine months old. You're entering modeling, you're sort of, I don't wanna say brainwashed, but you're sort of programmed at least right to hundred percent.
Please others, honestly. Mm-hmm. Or to please the camera at least. Mm-hmm. Right. Were you still going to school?
Tricia Pingel: Oh yeah. Okay. So you still in school? I went to school. Um, I didn't feel, uh, normal I guess growing up. Yeah. I felt odd. I felt like no one could quite understand. And I mean, granted, I towered over everyone.
Right. Mean even as a kid. I can't imagine. Yeah. I was, I mean, I was six feet tall by the time I was 12. Wow. So everyone else was like four foot five. Right. You know? And even in high school, I'd come in all made up 'cause I would, I would go to school and then I would go straight, shoot and then come back.
And so I felt very out. I didn't have a lot of friends. I was very quiet as a kid and very much an observer, I think, because I was [00:07:00] afraid what people would think if I actually talked or I actually showed my personality, what would people say? And I always had stomach aches.
Dr. Taz: Really?
Tricia Pingel: I didn't sleep well. I was always a little anxious about things.
I didn't always know how to handle situations. But then again, I wasn't taught how to handle situations. I was just expected.
Dr. Taz: So you're moving through your twenties, your thirties, but you're saying it takes getting to 40. Oh, it took me to get into, oh yeah. To really question and dive into did something happen Right around 40.
Tricia Pingel: My mom died of cancer.
Dr. Taz: Okay.
Tricia Pingel: And she, she was a little bit of history. She was a Janssen smile girl in the sixties. Mm-hmm. Which was a big deal. Right. A really big deal.
both: Right.
Tricia Pingel: And she was gorgeous and she was a wonderful model and she spent her entire life in that world. Mm-hmm. Um, and she was diagnosed with cancer 13 years earlier, which was the beautiful thing is naturopathic medicine kept her, well really for 13 years.
Amazing. She was given five years, but when she [00:08:00] started to decline and she was wasted away, she was in her bed. She couldn't go to the bathroom by herself. Right. I was laying with her about a month before she died, and I said, mom, do you have any regrets in your life? And she said, I have one. And I wish I wouldn't have spent so much time and energy worrying about losing that 10 pounds because I would give anything to have 10 pounds right now.
Dr. Taz: Oh my gosh. This every woman's story, it's always like, if I could just get these last few pounds, these last 10 pounds off, yeah. I'll be happy. Yeah. Which takes us back to this perfectionist mentality. Mm-hmm. You know? Where do you think that's coming from?
Tricia Pingel: I think we all want others to like us. I think a every child wants to be liked and we get rewarded for a lot of things that are external.
In my world, I was rewarded for being thin. Mm. I was rewarded for being on time. I was rewarded for being prepared. I was rewarded for being happy and not letting anything bother me. Right, right.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. [00:09:00]
Tricia Pingel: But when you're young like that, I think you learn these patterns and you think, okay, well if I'm not that way, I'm weak.
You know? So when I reflect back and I go, why did I become a doctor? Like, what was, what did I think? Which was my question, I
Dr. Taz: was like, okay, so you're modeling from the time you're like nine months old, you know, you're obviously in the industry, you're obviously doing well in the industry. Like where do you, where does medicine fit into this?
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. I was actually always really interested in human behavior. From the time I was little. I would watch people and be like, why did that person do that, but not that, right?
both: Mm-hmm.
Tricia Pingel: And so when I went to college, I thought, you know what? I'll just try psychology. I'll put it on, why not? And I. I didn't love the psychology track, but when I was always been into animals and such, and I could start to do behavior watching in animals.
So I went into veterinary medicine. Long story short, became a vet tech, started to learn medicine. Mm-hmm. And how to diagnose and how to read body cues. Right. And body language, because [00:10:00] the animals can't tell you what's wrong. Right. And applied to be in vet school. And right around that time my dad had a stroke.
He woke up, no idea this was gonna happen. He had been cleared. The cardiologist was like, you're good. Yeah. Your cholesterol's great. Your blood pressure's great. Medicated. Right. Okay. Didn't talk to him about diet, didn't talk to him about stress. Walks downstairs, opens the fridge to get his breakfast.
Falls to the floor. That's it. He's in a coma. I was 24. 23, 24. And flew up north to say goodbye to him. Mm. And was sitting there and I kept asking, gosh, what's wrong with him? Like, is he going to recover? And they're like, well, his thalamus has been had, we don't know. And I would chase doctors down, couldn't find them.
The nurses were lovely. Mm-hmm. But swamped, overworked, you know, nobody could answer anything. They still are, still are. I mean, God bless them.
Dr. Taz: Maybe worse even.
Tricia Pingel: Um, and I just started to see this hole in medicine where there was, there wasn't a bedside manner, there wasn't a communication. There was no, Hey, [00:11:00] I understand a little bit about the brain.
Can you tell me what's happening? Like, is there a chance of recovery? Are there things outside of the box that can be done? Because at that age, I had to make a decision. Am I gonna pull the plug or not? Mm. Oh my, how do you make a decision to let your dad go and you don't understand what's happening? You old.
Yeah. And we did have to let him go. Yeah. And I went back home and I was like, you know what? There's a place for me here. There's a place for me in medicine, so I'm gonna switch. Wow. And I'm gonna go into humans now. Part of me looking back, maybe it was like I didn't wanna be that dumb model. Mm. I think my entire life it was thought, well, if you model, you have no brain.
Right. You're not a business person. Be pretty and
Dr. Taz: smart. Both.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. You can't possibly be pretty and smart. There's no way, you know, you can't possibly be a business woman or understand. You just show up, put the clothes on and everyone tells you you're great and you are great and you know, lucky you.
Mm-hmm. And I think there was a part of me that was like, I'm gonna show them like, I am smart. Good for you. I do have things to say. [00:12:00] Yeah. And then another part of me that was the, my empathetic part of me that was like, we gotta do something. Like this can't be the way the medicine goes. First of all, nobody ever talked to him about diet.
Nobody ever talked to him about exercise. My dad was lovely. He was a musician on the side. He would play music at night in the bars, and then he was in advertising and radio and everyone loved him. Mm-hmm. Right. And he was in sales. But I know that they never talked to him about what that meant outside of statins and
Dr. Taz: the usual, you know?
Yeah.
Tricia Pingel: So I ended up going into medicine and I, I don't, why? I don't know. 'cause I'm crazy. I don't know. I, I just thought, I just thought, you know, I'm, I'm gonna make a difference in the world, however that may be. And I kept saying to myself, you know, if I can combine these two worlds, if I can combine the speaking and the camera and the love that I have for this stage with helping people actually get well, like, what a beautiful thing.
And that's what I've devoted
Dr. Taz: my life to Doing. Your to, how has that evolved for [00:13:00] you? Give us a glimpse of how, because medical school's not a joke. Oh God. And residency's not a joke. And sometimes the, it's like the military is often, especially in our time, it's like the military mm-hmm. Where you're, you're broken down and the things you love to do, you no longer have time to do.
Mm-hmm. And if we're gonna have a conversation around perfectionism Yep. You know, trying to be perfect on a board exam or in a clinical rotation is a complete drain of your energy. Yeah. And there's sometimes not room for anything else, for the other, other aspects of your soul or your life. So. You know, coming in as a creative or as somebody, you know, who's in the modeling world and did all these other things, like what did medicine do to you before you were able to kind of own it and, and make it your own?
Tricia Pingel: Yeah, I mean, I powered through, man. I was a stage one adrenal fatigue. Do it all. I modeled through medical school.
Dr. Taz: You did? I did. Oh wow.
Tricia Pingel: I didn't travel. I would leave, I was shooting for Dillard's [00:14:00] a lot for the local newspaper, and that was about five, 10 miles from the medical school. So I would go shoot and then come back.
Come back. Um, I decided to have a baby, you know, in the middle of, in medical school. Oh yeah. Why not? Let's, I, heck, why not? Let's just keep
Dr. Taz: batting things on because we can mean, 'cause we
Tricia Pingel: can. Um, why not? And and I didn't go to medical school right out of college either. I did work in corporate world, so I was a little bit older.
So, you know, I was hitting about 32 and I was like, gosh, I wanna have a baby. Yeah. You know? Um, it. At the time, I remember being tired. I don't, it's kind of like childbirth. I don't really remember at this point. I think I was powering through in such a cortisol flight. Mm. Waking up in the morning. I mean, towards the end, taking care of my baby, going to school for eight hours, doing shifts, you know, for another four to six coming home, studying, staying up till 2:00 AM not sleeping, and I was eating.
Right. And we should talk about nutrition as well, right? When it comes to what we learned about nutrition in the modeling world, because my body was very [00:15:00] depleted at that time. I'm sure. So even though I was avoiding dairy at that time, and I was avoiding gluten and I was eating plants and such, I wasn't getting enough protein.
I wasn't getting enough food. I wasn't getting enough water. I wasn't sleeping enough. And I just kept going. I mean, we do that, right? We
Dr. Taz: do. But there's usually a fallout at some point.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. I didn't have that fallout until around 40. You're
Dr. Taz: lucky
Tricia Pingel: when my mom died. Well, I, I wanna say, was my hair falling out?
Yes. Did I have some acne? Yes. Did I have stomach aches? Yes. Was I constipated? Yes. Um, did I feel like crap most of the time? Yeah. But I just figured, well, it's just stress.
Dr. Taz: So what happens to you at 40? What, what is the light bulb? My, that's when my mom bulb mom died of cancer. Your mom. Now, that was a light bulb
Tricia Pingel: when she finally said, look, I've spent my entire life worrying about this 10 pounds, and I thought back in my life, how many things, how many choices have I made in my life based on what other people wanted out of me?
You need to be 10 [00:16:00] pounds lighter. You need to fit in that outfit. No, you need to stand over there. Not over there. Oh, girls smart. You know, pretty girls don't go to medical school. Right. You know? Um, I started to think back how much people pleasing have I done in my life and what has it cost me? At that point, I was, you know, I'm six feet tall.
I was maybe 110 pounds. Oh my gosh. Right. So I was a good, not healthy 20, healthy pounds lighter than I am now, 25 pounds lighter than I am now. And I'm still a tiny person. Yeah. Um, and I wasn't sleeping well. I was depressed. I didn't love my life. Mm-hmm. I would wake up and feel like I was going through the motions every single day that my kids didn't really know who I was.
I didn't feel that I was a good mom because I was so distracted. Mm-hmm. I mean, on this point, at that point, I was taking care of my mom too. Right. And watching her decline. And I had grandparents that passed in the meantime that I cared for. I mean, there's so many things I was doing. There's, I mean, when I look at how much we pile on, just as women alone, [00:17:00] how many different hats we wear, we take care of our parents, we take care of our kids, we take care of our business, we take care of our neighbors.
Yeah. We, we feel like. We have to show up for everyone all the time and look like we have it together. And during that process, we neglect who we are. And I started to look at my life and I was like, who am I? Who is Tricia? And it got so low, if I'm honest, to a point where I thought, do I wanna go on like my adrenal fatigue at that point was, I wasn't bottomed out.
I was in a stage two, I had cortisol, but it was going up and down so much. My hormones were a mess. I looked a mess despite being the weight that everyone wanted me to be, to still model. Right? I looked awful. I looked back at pictures and I'm like, oh my God, why didn't people tell me I was dying? Yeah.
Because I was. And I think at that point, that's when I made a mindset shift and I said, okay, no more. And the one thing I asked myself, and this is a tip [00:18:00] that I would give to people, one thing I asked myself at that point is I said, what did I do when I was a kid that brought me joy? What makes me smile.
And I thought of my dad playing guitar in the kitchen and I thought of him playing Billy Joel. And we used to sing Billy Joel altogether. So I started playing Billy Joel all the time and I started kind of singing along and I started dancing. And then I started to remember, oh my gosh, I was a dancer.
Like I love to dance more than anything, particularly hip hop. So I'm 40 years old.
both: Mm-hmm.
Tricia Pingel: I look like crap. I feel like crap. I have no muscle mass, I have no stamina. I hadn't been working out. And I was like, I'm gonna go to a dance class. And I walk into a dance class, 14 and 15 years, years old, and they're all at a point where kind of like the age that I never really got to experience because I was working already.
They're awkward. They don't know who they are yet, they're very self-conscious of who they are. So it was actually a really great environment for me to walk in on because I had no idea what I was doing. We all fit in, we're all the same right now. We're all the same here. And I started to realize, [00:19:00] wow, you know.
As adults, even we feel like 14 year olds. Sometimes we just, we aren't certain. And I started dancing every week and I could not remember the choreography. My brain did not connect to my body.
both: Mm.
Tricia Pingel: I, my head would say, arm go here. My arm would not go there. Wow. And I could have given up and I didn't.
Dr. Taz: What made you keep going?
Tricia Pingel: I knew that if I didn't start doing something that brought me joy, that I would not be here.
Dr. Taz: So this is, you're speaking to me very directly because there are many activities, you know, I've also led a pretty busy, overly full happy life, but very full. And there are so many times, I'm gonna be blatantly honest, that I have signed up.
For a dance class, a hip hop class. Mm-hmm. I have gone in to learn improv or I have started something like guitar lessons again. Mm-hmm. Which I used to do in my younger years and I'm not consistent 'cause I let everything else get in the way. [00:20:00] Mm-hmm. And I think as much as I also tell my patients mm-hmm.
And who I meet that we need to prioritize this, I'm, I'm kind of guilty guys to be honest. Like I am not good about staying consistent with the things that personally bring me joy. How are you able to do that? And I know so many women and even men to a certain extent, you know, are, are listening and they're like, well, that's a great idea, but I just can't do it.
My life's too busy. I have this deadline, I have that my children are sick, you know, something's going on at work. You know, all these people depend on me. I'm, I'm really empathetic to that side of the argument too. Mm-hmm. So how do you, how do you do that?
Tricia Pingel: I've, uh, witnessed a lot of loss in my life and it was, you know, my dad going downstairs, opening the fridge and that was it.
He didn't know. That was his last day. My mom lived a very vibrant life and kept saying, when I'm done with this, I'm gonna travel the world. She died of cancer before she did it. Hmm. My [00:21:00] grandparents, who were very, very close to me, um, worked. Their entire life. They made a fantastic living. They had all the money that they wanted to do what they wanted to do, but they didn't.
They were gonna do it when they retired and then they got sick. I look at just in the entertainment industry, people that give into the pressure that have everything in the world, right? They have the money, they have the house, they have the family, and they commit suicide. I had two family members commit suicide.
I look at that and I go, the only thing that's guaranteed in my life right now is right now. That's the only thing. So start now. And so I was like, when I go, what do I want people to say about me? What's my legacy? What am I working for? Like, why am I getting up every day and burning myself out? What am I doing it for?
And when I started to think of it, one, I want my kids to say, wow, I'm really gonna miss my mom. She was a lot of fun. And I would love to say [00:22:00] that everyone that I came into contact with says, oh man. I'm gonna miss Tricia. She really made me smile. She brought me a lot of joy.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. And I, we've only met for, you know, this is the first time I've met you, and I think you bring that energy with you.
Yeah. It's just like, all of a sudden it's like, you know, the room lights up mm-hmm. And you do exude and speak joy. Mm-hmm. I think you are a testament to exactly the journey that you're on. Yeah. Now you, and so you
Tricia Pingel: have to, you have to, to answer your question though, I know you have to, you have to think about that because, because we do so much for other people all day long.
But for what, what are we trying to accomplish? And that's where that perfectionism comes in, right? Yes. To that. It's like, we set this goal, we're gonna be the perfect mom. We're gonna be the perfect business owner, we're gonna be the perfect doctor. We're gonna help everybody. Right? We're going to have a beautiful house, and our neighbors are gonna love us and everyone's gonna know who we are and whatever.
Whatever our things are. Yeah. This is all unattainable because you actually already have it. It's already been attained. It's just you're thinking about how it could be better all the time. Right. [00:23:00] Which is, which is a great trait. Right, because we always wanna improve and we always wanna grow. But if I were to write a book and I were to write a book about everything being perfect all the time, nobody would buy it because it would suck.
Because everyone would be like, I don't wanna read this story. Right, right. I wanna hear about when she fell down and got back up. I wanna hear about when she wanted to take her own life and she decided to go to dance class and change her life and empower other women to do the same. Right? So what's that pivotal moment for you?
What's that moment that makes you go, wait a minute, I don't have to. I'm enough. I'm enough. That's it. Right now, I have done everything I need to do, and I will tell you if today ends up being the last day, I'm enough. I have made my mark on the world in spreading joy. My kids think I'm fun. I made you happy, made you smile, you did make me happy, and there's nothing more I can do.
So I might as well use my moment to do what I truly love to do. And what's cool when you make that shift? [00:24:00] And I started dancing again. Yeah. All of a sudden, yeah. My joy came out and then I started talking to more people and I started thinking, oh, I can really make a difference with this. I can change people's health with this.
And then I realized all the things I've done going to medical school, being a model, being a mom, pushing myself, putting myself into a hole. Now, when I started finding my joy, I was like, I can use all that to help other people. I can prevent other people from doing that. Maybe down the catch them
Dr. Taz: the road.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. Maybe I could catch them just a few years earlier than I caught myself.
Dr. Taz: It's so fascinating, the show. I named it Whole Plus on Purpose because it was very much about how our physicality, our physical bodies are so connected to our emotional bodies, our communities, our spirituality, and all these other things.
And I think you going back to Dan's class. And unleashing something within you then in turn changes everything else around you. Even things probably like your adrenal fatigue. Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] Would be my guess. Mm-hmm. And that is the message that we really want to kind of hone in for all of us. And we're all on a journey.
Me too. And it's always, you know, about trying to bring all those different elements together, but you mentioned a few times because I'm thinking about the person listening to us or watching us and trying to figure out where they are in this journey and still putting up those roadblocks. Like I, I have, I, I, I know I agree, but like there's all this stuff, you know, how can they maybe tactically identify that they're on the wrong road or they're on a road that's just maybe got too many cars on it and they maybe need to do something differently.
You mentioned stage one adrenal fatigue. Mm-hmm. You mentioned stage two adrenal fatigue. You know, is that a good way to be thinking about. Perfectionism. Do we need to start sort of putting perfectionism in this umbrella of adrenal fatigue and helping people tie the two together so that they know when it's too much and when they know, okay, they have some bandwidth and some room to run a little bit and add more things to [00:26:00] the plate.
Tricia Pingel: Okay, well, let's talk adrenal fatigue. Let's do, lets tell a story. Let's do it. Let's do, let's do it. Let's do it. So here's how I like to look at adrenal fatigue. If you're in the woods and you're taking a hike and you're enjoying yourself, and around the corner comes a bear,
both: mm-hmm.
Tricia Pingel: What happens, right? Your heart rate goes up, you start to panic and you run.
Right. You don't remember what you ran by. You don't know where you're running. You just run our bodies. Were built to do that, right? Our physiology changes when we see a bear. Ideally, we get away from the bear, right? We recover in our lives. We don't, right? We see a bear. We turn the corner. There's another one, there's another one, there's another one.
And I should point out that our bodies don't know the difference between a real bear or a perceived bear. Mm-hmm. So that cell phone in your pocket that buzzes when your boss needs you, is the same reaction as perhaps an actual threat. Right? Like so you get in car accident. Oh, I
Dr. Taz: witnessed that yesterday.
I was talking to a, a sweet patient. Her boss is calling her during the appointment. Mm-hmm. And it's going off and going off and going off. And she's like, I've gotta take this. And she takes it and into [00:27:00] tears as soon as she puts it down. 'cause it's just like she was trying to process what I was saying.
Mm-hmm. But then she was also feeling stressed out by her phone going off every two seconds. Not to interrupt you, but keep going. But this is a real life thing. That's a great example that's happening over and over again. A hundred
Tricia Pingel: percent. And so we start to have these bear after bear after bear. So what starts to happen?
Well then our brain says, well, the last time I took a hike, I saw a bear. So it starts to create a memory and you start to anticipate a bear. So now anytime you go for a hike, the first thing you're thinking is, where's the bear? Where's the bear? Where's the bear? So the brain starts to change its chemistry.
To keep you in a fight or flight more often. So we have two different nervous systems that control this. We have the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic is that fight or flight. There's a bear I'm gonna run. The parasympathetic is I'm gonna take a nap under the tree and repair my cells and chill out.
They start to cause a problem because as we're running from a bear and we're anticipating a bear, we spend more and more time in that fight or flight. Mm-hmm. Our bodies can't repair in that state. [00:28:00] It's always prepping for the next problem. This is where anxiety starts to creep in. This is where you say, okay, I'm gonna take a nap.
I'm tired, I'm exhausted. I've been running all day. I'm gonna take a nap. I'm gonna sit down by the tree. You start to fall asleep and you're like, wait, was that a bear? What was that? Wrestle in the bushes. Oh, should I? So now your sleep is being interrupted, right? You're spending your sleep in a fight or flight, even though you're knocked out, you're still not asleep, you're not repairing.
Mm-hmm. And we start to see health problems. So how this ties into that perfectionism and what people are feeling is the cortisol starts to go up and down at different times. It's no longer highest in the morning and lowest at night with a gradual decline. We're now being spiked, awake, and dropped asleep.
Right? Right. Why are you tired? Wired and tired, and we're supposed to be calm and connected. Mm-hmm. Right? So we start to miss details. Now we start to worry, why am I missing details? Do I have dementia? This brain fog, what's going on? Yeah. I can't think of anything anymore. And then we start to worry about that.
So now we're creating another memory on, oh my gosh, am I going downhill? Our thyroid starts to become imbalanced. We're [00:29:00] converting less. T three into T four, we start to have perimenopausal symptoms. We start to notice a change in libido. Our hair starts to fall out. We start to get more wrinkles. We start to notice a little tummy developing right around our abdomen, and we start to think uhoh.
What's happening, and then we start to worry about that. So we created another bear, right? So we're on bears. Yeah. So every time we release that cortisol, it requires a bunch of nutrients from our body. It requires our B vitamins. It requires our magnesium, selenium, zinc, vitamin C. So what's happening is these external stressors are now causing internal stressors in the body.
Now we're becoming nutrient deficient. Yep. Now we can't make serotonin effectively. Now our moods started to be impacted. Our microbiomes being impacted. Right. So it goes on and on and on. So a lot of people say, well, once I get over the stressful time, it'll,
both: it'll be okay.
Tricia Pingel: Everything will be fine. Then I can take that vacation, or then I can start my diet.
Or then I can do this that, well, every time we're dealing with those bears [00:30:00] or. Honestly, the perceived bears, the anticipated bears were continuing to cause more internal stress in hormone dysregulation, nutritional deficiency, microbiome changes. And so the adrenal fatigue gets worsened and worsened. And I find that the women and men that come to me, especially the women, yeah, the perfectionist.
I'm doing everything. Dr. PI am eating right. I'm exercising every day. Why is nothing changing? Why is nothing changing? Classic? Well, 'cause you have to look at this from such a higher level. I find you have to look at the nutrition. Yes. You have to look at movement and movement that accesses parasympathetic activity.
Right? Any
Dr. Taz: movement.
Tricia Pingel: Any movement. Walking is a fantastic thing. Going outside in nature without earbuds in ladies
Dr. Taz: and men where we're
Tricia Pingel: listening to doing business meetings. And my kids, oh my gosh, those air pods driving nuts. Um, but. You know, doing, trying to multitask, right? We're not [00:31:00] paying attention to nature.
There's something very valuable about hearing the birds, right? Listening to the wind, go through the trees, walking right, and getting movement while also being calm. That's one of the beautiful things about dance is you don't have time to worry. You can't.
Dr. Taz: You have to coordinate.
Tricia Pingel: You have to pay attention.
Yeah. In fact, there was some studies, there was a huge study on dance about how it's the best activity to prevent dementia because it's using so many different aspects of your brain. You have to hear the music, you have to feel the music, you have to remember the choreography. You have to get your body to that point in the choreography, I don't have time to worrying about what if someone's texting me.
Right? Like, I don't, I don't have time to worry about if my kids can find their shoes, right? Or if they're gonna remember to eat dinner on time. Like I don't, or what's gonna happen tomorrow? Am I prepared for the next podcast? Like I can't,
Dr. Taz: yeah.
Tricia Pingel: I don't have time. I have to be present in that moment. And when I leave, all those worries are gone.
Right. So adrenal fatigue. I think [00:32:00] most of us live in adrenal fatigue all the time, and when we talk about it clinically, most people are talking about stage three, which is where you've burned out. You make no cortisol. I was at a point where I was depressed. I could barely get outta bed. I looked like crap, and I wasn't even in stage three yet.
I was in stage two mm. Because I had those moments of anxiety. I would get up and power through. Right? I think so many of us live in stage two adrenal fatigue, and we have naturally adapted, accepted
Dr. Taz: as normal. We have accepted it. I ask
Tricia Pingel: women all the time, I mean, you can share your experience on this. I ask 'em, how stressed are you?
Oh, I'm, I'm fine. Yeah. Like I have a great life. I have a beautiful life. I'm so blessed. I have so many things that are going on. Okay, but how is that impacting your health? Well, I don't feel good, but I just, you know, everything looks fine. Everything's fine. At what point are we really going to be honest with ourselves about how much we can truly handle?
I love women empowerment. I love that we're strong. I love that we can do a thousand things, but at what cost? [00:33:00]
Dr. Taz: I talked about this a lot in my 2017 book, superwoman Rx. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I actually called it Superwoman Syndrome because it's the same, it's the same idea. Like we are, we're so gifted that we can do so much now, right?
Mm-hmm. Like you look a generation or two back and women couldn't. Mm-hmm. And if you go even further back, I think this is so interesting. The goal in medicine in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds was to prevent women from becoming hysterical. And it was literally, that's where, you know, ectomy historic comes from.
It's like, how do we prevent women from having the hysterics? Because it was thought like, let's keep them calm and that's all they could handle. So we've come a really long way from that. But the problem is there are too many options and there are too many choices and. I feel like women set themselves up against each other that like, well, why can't I do all that when she's doing all that and why can't I look that way?
Run a business that way. You know, have a bank account that looks like that have kids that are perfect when she's [00:34:00] doing all that right? Mm-hmm. So there's this internal pressure that women put on each other, and I feel like with social media now and. It's like a 24 7. You can, you can feel really bad and like you've not done enough.
Just pick up your phone and scroll. You know, if you wanna feel bad about yourself, go to your, go to your Instagram feed. You'll start to feel really bad about yourself super fast, you know? So we're in a culture of just always being told we're not enough. So it's very hard to unwind that. And I agree with you.
Disease happens at stage three, stage four, adrenal fatigue. Can you talk a little bit just about the differences between each stage, like stage one, what do you see? What do you see in stage two? How do you know you're headed to stage three and stage four guys, you're crashed out that at that point. Yeah, you know, you hopefully have a team that's helping you and you're on a healing journey of some kind.
But I think this conversation is about. You know, preventing you from getting mm-hmm. To stage three and stage four.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah. [00:35:00] And I just keep it in three stages. 'cause Yeah. I mean, by the time you hit the third stage, like you gotta take action, but,
both: right.
Tricia Pingel: Um, I, same thing I call stage one super superhero stage.
It's where you feel great and everyone's like, wow man, she's amazing. Right. Look at everything she's doing. Right. She's crazy. I wish I was like her. She's got everything going on. And I remember being in that stage, I mean, med school, I was doing it all. Yep. And I lost a lot of friendships in med school because I didn't make time for it.
Me too. Yeah. And, and, and you end up feeling so alone, which doesn't help when you get out and you're like, okay, I'm by myself. I dunno anyone. And you know, you just power through. You just do it all. And you feel good right now, a lot of the times that's where you're not sleeping as much, but you still feel okay.
Right. You may take a power nap in the afternoon, but you're okay. Right. You know, it's like something happens, but you're like, ah, it's fine. It's just, you know, it'll be fine. Or, um, I do find people in the stage, there are signs that they're moving into two vanity markers that they're moving into two. Like some hair loss Yes.
Wrinkles. And so they're like, oh, I'll just do Botox, or [00:36:00] I'll just, you know, put some lashes on, or I'll just do whatever. And they're not really understanding that that's a sign. That's the body communicating with them. I,
Dr. Taz: well wait. One thing, and I'm sure you've heard this too, when that vanity stuff starts to happen, you know, for me it happened in my twenties, so I couldn't use this line, but when it happens in your forties or fifties, both men and women are like, I'm just getting old.
It's just, yeah. It's just a sign of aging. Yep. You know? What would you say to that
Tricia Pingel: baloney?
Dr. Taz: Yeah,
Tricia Pingel: I'm gonna be 50 next year. Um, and I'm psyched. Yeah. Like, I'm ready. Like bring it on. My fifties are going to be amazing. My best decade, I can tell you that already. And I think it's because I finally decided, okay, I'm gonna live for me.
both: And
Tricia Pingel: that's not a selfish thing to do. By the way, ladies, I'm gonna say that again. That is not selfish to think of yourself first because you cannot help others or serve others or be anything for others. If you are not well, you, you can't, it is not selfish. Right. I agree. Um, yeah. [00:37:00] So they do, they dismiss it as being, oh, I'm just getting old.
Well, we're told that, I mean, like I was saying, when I was in the modeling industry, I was, I mean, I was 14 and it was like, oh, well you're, you know, you need to get on the treadmill. You're getting a little, ah, you know, and, but I look at now what our kids, what our 14 year olds are going through with social media, what we are going through and we look at, well, you're not supposed to have wrinkles, so you need to do this, that, and this.
Well, don't get old. Like, make sure you don't get old. So make sure you take you, you know, inject yourself and do all these things. And I look at the cultures, I look at the blue zones, I look at the communities where age is of value, right? And not a hindrance, right? And I look at what they practice and they practice community, and they practice self-care.
And they practice, you know, they sit down and they have meals together. They share wisdom, they learn from each other, they talk, they communicate. We've lost that in our country. We communicate by scrolling and quickly reading a five minute blurb. Oh gosh, then you're gonna get me [00:38:00] started on like medical, medical click bait.
Like, you know, oh yeah. Oh my gosh, right? Yeah. One line too much. And that's the be all, end all. And it's like, wait a minute.
Dr. Taz: Well, what do we do about all this? Okay, so stage one, you say no. You say no, but it's so easy to get sucked in and especially, I mean, if we start talking about kids now, like the eating disorders, the anxiety, the depression, the mental health component that's going on with them, same thing.
They're not perfect, right? They're not getting invited to every party. They don't look a certain way. You know, all of this other stuff. You know, it's hard to com It's hard to nail a teenager down and help them with the self-care plan. Mm-hmm When it's so hard for us as moms not to be there ourselves, you know?
Mm-hmm. How, you know, how do we navigate this? You know? So adrenal fatigue I think is rampant. I think it's an epidemic, you know, especially in our country. It's actually global too. 'cause I feel like everyone's kind of following along with what the United States is doing in terms of living their lives.
We're [00:39:00] seeing extended family units go down. You know, my heritage is from India and you know, I'm not deeply embedded in the culture 'cause we don't go back very frequently. But from what I hear from relatives and stuff like that, their divorce rate is high. People are living on their own, you know, their elders are also starting to get a little bit isolated.
So we're seeing this fragmentation across the globe in terms of community and culture and family. And we're seeing a big push towards, again, you know, your history like perfectionism. Mm-hmm. Plastic surgery, trying to look perfect, but inside everybody is really, really struggling hurting. So what is, what is the roadmap to, to changing that, to undoing that, you know, how can we become more self-aware?
How do we have that aha moment before we get a diagnosis, before we lose a family member? Like, what, what can we all do? And I'm kind of asking for myself too, to be a hundred percent honest. Like, you know, what can we do to, to have some of those [00:40:00] checks and balances in place mm-hmm. And to understand when we are moving a little bit closer to stage three adrenal fatigue, where the body's gonna start yelling at us.
Mm-hmm. If we don't change or if we don't do something
Tricia Pingel: and it does yell in two as well, right? It's just one goes to two, which is up and down like a rollercoaster. Three is where it, you're just not producing as much. And then you know when you're beyond, just to answer that previous question, but one thing that.
I said in the beginning, you know, one of the things I was most fascinated with was human behavior. Yeah. Right. And so let's talk about human behavior and let's talk about control a little bit.
Dr. Taz: Okay?
Tricia Pingel: Because to answer your question, as a parent, I'm a parent and I think all the time, how am I going to save my kids from this?
And our first instinct is to control it. How are we gonna teach them? How are we gonna tell them? How are we gonna create this life for them that's perfect. So that they understand this or that? And we think we have the solution within us. And we have to go back to human behavior. And [00:41:00] this is what I'm hoping the audience can hear from this as a parent, is we have to model behavior.
That is how children learn. That is it. I recently started a new YouTube channel calling, what am I, what am I modeling for this exact reason? Because I started to realize that here we are, we're in this. Era this, this world of I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this. I'm gonna control everybody else.
I'm gonna micromanage everyone else. I'm gonna make sure that everything goes according to plan, right? I'm gonna create my life, right? Instead of trusting, number one, that we do have to have faith and trust in our course, and that we are going to have pain, we are going to have heartache. We are gonna have to grow and learn.
And I think by modeling that we can go through that to our children, teaches them that they can go through it too. I think by us modeling that everything is great or that you can do whatever, everybody, everything will be great all the time. And then showing them that [00:42:00] we're scattered and them seeing that we're not finding joy, they learn that behavior.
Ooh, and I saw this when I started going. I felt very guilty when I went back to dance. I felt very guilty when I started my medical practice. I felt very guilty. I feel guilty all the time. All the time. And why? I don't know why. I know. Like what is guilt? Guilt is something I learned right From watching my mom feel guilty all the time from watching people in my life, you know, constantly second guess themselves, watched them struggle with their self work.
Like when I look back and I go, gosh, my mom was always looking in the mirror. She was always on a diet. She was always worried about where her next job was coming from. Understandably. Right? And I learned that I have to survive, I have to fight. I have to, I have to make my destiny. Right? Right. Like I better be in it.
Or you know, I won't make any money. I won't succeed. I won't be a good parent. And when I started to [00:43:00] realize, oh my gosh, I was modeling her, then I was like, what do I wanna model now? Right? Right. And so. When I went back to dance, I felt really guilty because it was at night. And that meant I had to leave the kids with the husband.
That's why I stopped. That's exactly, and I love, my husband is fully capable of taking care of the children. Okay. But, but I was like, well, but is my husband gonna feed them correctly? Exactly. Is he gonna get them to bed on time? Exactly. Is he gonna know that Cameron likes those certain pajamas at bedtime?
Like, is he really gonna get the night routine? Don't give him gluten.
Dr. Taz: Why'd you give him gluten? I'm gonna kill you. He said, anyhow.
Tricia Pingel: Well, exactly. And I started to think, oh my gosh, I can't leave because everything's gonna fall apart when I leave. Right. How many of you out there think the world is gonna fall apart if you're not there?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Tricia Pingel: We don't wanna be selfish and take care of ourselves, but we think that the world is gonna fall apart when we're not there. It,
Dr. Taz: it's a little narcissistic, isn't it? It's a little narcissistic.
Tricia Pingel: It's not gonna fall apart. And you know what? My kids will learn something [00:44:00] different from my husband than they learn from me.
And he has different skills than I do, and he has different attitude than I do. So. In a war, in the blue zones, there's community. You sit with grandma, you sit with grandpa, you know the neighbor. You have mom, you have dad, you have all these people in your community with different personalities, different thought patterns.
And the chi children are learning how to adapt in different situations. So by me controlling the situation, I'm not teaching them how to be adaptable. If I'm not teaching them how to be aol, I'm giving them adrenal fatigue. I'm like, here you go, pal. You know? And so I had to get over that and it was not easy, right?
But now I dance six classes a week, and my kids, if I don't go, my kids are like, mom, why aren't you gonna dance class?
both: Mm-hmm.
Tricia Pingel: And I'm like, I don't know. I, I'm kind of tired. Nope. You get in that car and go, because they, because you're probably so different when you get back. Back. When I get back, yeah. I am the coolest mom.
Yeah. Like I, I got my, you know, my Adidas shoes on. I got my baggy pants. Yeah. I've been dancing in hip hop. I've been hanging out with teenagers, right. And I come home and I'm relaxed and I tell jokes. [00:45:00] And I think I had to get over that. The world. Can survive without me concept. I had to get over that be.
And I had to also find my joy so that, what was I modeling for them? I'm modeling joy, I'm modeling that I'm doing something that I really wanna do. Right. So when your children are trying to figure out, I have a a child right now who's gonna be 17 and it's like, me too college time. Right? Me too. Oh my God, my heart's broken.
I know. But I was, I'm like, what are you gonna do? And he's like, I don't know. And I find myself saying, well why don't you do this, that, or this? It's not my choice of what he does. I had to let that go. I'm like, well, what do you like to do? What are you passionate about? I don't know. I'm kind of figuring it out.
And I'm like, okay buddy,
Dr. Taz: that's cool. We could go along with, that's cool. And I think like, that's cool. Our perfectionism. What I'm, you know what I'm noticing? And I think that women have always had a lot to handle and deal with. I just feel like it's gotten worse in our generation. Mm-hmm. And then definitely in the generation below us.
But what it's doing, I've noticed in the [00:46:00] exam room is that it's creating children that then have trouble with real life and real challenges because they, so many moms and dads have tried to make everything so perfect for them. So then they get out and, you know, I've had so many young 20 year olds like, like this adulting iss really hard.
Like, I, I can't do it. Like, and they're not kidding. Like they, it's hard are having trouble just with life because I think parents, and I'm probably right there with everybody else, have spent so much time trying to make everything perfect. You're gonna go to the perfect school, you're gonna have the perfect curriculum, you know your health is gonna be perfect too.
Mm-hmm. Because we're gonna check off all those boxes as well. But the struggle, the ability to fall and get back up to, to just. Chart your course to mess up, you know, to not be perfect. You know, that is something that our generation, this next generation of children and teenagers is really, really struggling with.
You know, it's resilience. I know. And they don't have it. You know, they don't have. And [00:47:00] so, you know, so that's something that I see as a direct fallout of perfectionism on them. You know? A hundred percent. And
Tricia Pingel: you were seeing more anxiety in children, and we're seeing more focus issues in children, and we're seeing more diabetes in children.
We're seeing more the phone, the scrolling, leaning to that for friendships, we're seeing less, less gathering. I'm seeing less community and the kids feel alone, and I don't blame them. Yeah. I feel alone half the time, you know? And I'm 48 years old, like, like I can't imagine how they're feeling. And so it was really taking a step back and just saying, okay, we are you and I.
We are the future. We are our children's future. We are telling them what to do right now. We are modeling what we want them to do. So just those small little changes. And I wanna be clear, this isn't a huge overhaul right away because the perfectionist out there are like, wait, I'll do this after Christmas.
It's [00:48:00] a project, you know, after summer, it's the end of the school year. Stop. It's every single day when you catch yourself trying to control something. A situation. Yeah. Stop and say there's, there's things I ask myself. Number one, do I have control over the outcome? I have no control over what my son is going to do with his life.
So trying to convince him to do anything otherwise would be silly. Right, right. Do I have control? Uh, I, when he started driving, I would start wearing, oh my gosh, why? If he runs into a tree, what if he goes, what if he, what if he goes down the street the wrong way? I have no control over that outcome other than to lock him in his room.
Right? Which is not an option. Realistic. So the second thing is, is it worth my energy? Is it worth my energy to worry about this? Is it worth my energy to interject my opinion? Is it, is it worth it? Is it worth my energy to try to change my husband because I'm annoyed that he's sitting on the couch, right?
No, probably not. But once you ask those two questions, then you ask yourself, am I gonna take this on? Am I [00:49:00] gonna delegate it or am I gonna let it go? And I found when I do this exercise, 80% of the things I worry about, 80% of the things that I thought I had to do on my checklist were let go. Wow. Because I didn't have to do them.
They weren't either, weren't, weren't worth the energy. It's a lot of noise. Right? I didn't, yeah. Or I didn't have control. And the thing is, is if you have control over the outcome and it's worth your energy, the solution is so easy. Like you could knock that out in a heartbeat. 'cause you totally have control.
So if you're also trying to find a solution and you can't find it. That means you don't have control over the outcome.
Dr. Taz: So it's just taking a second, right? Maybe stepping back. It's a moment before you like, you know, overburden yourself and taking a step. Give us that list again. I like that what you said.
And breathe. Well, I'm gonna say take three deep breaths. First, take
Tricia Pingel: three deep breaths. Because when you breathe, you access the parasympathetic nervous system. So you get yourself into a calm state. And I'm talking really breathe from the diaphragm. Pull on that vagus nerve. Get the body to calm down. And then ask yourself, do I have control over the outcome?
Yes or no? [00:50:00] Is this worth my energy? Yes or no? And then ask yourself, am I gonna take this on? Am I gonna delegate it or am I gonna let it go? And it becomes very simple because like why are we. Imagining bears and chasing bears that we will never catch.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. Well, adrenal fatigue is real and I think it impacts everyone.
Let's do a quick, rapid fire thing. This should be fun. Okay, cool. I want you to tell me in your experience, 'cause I know you work with so many people on this concept of adrenal fatigue and how it impacts their health and their lives. Right. It's all intertwined. Let's start with men. What does it look like in men?
Uh, anxiety.
Tricia Pingel: Anxiety, worry. And, uh, I see a lot of li libido changes,
Dr. Taz: anxiety, worrying, and,
Tricia Pingel: and with the libido changes, let's throw prostate in there because that almost comes with it.
Dr. Taz: Okay. So if you're a man listening, yep. Those are your warning signs. But
Tricia Pingel: they don't like to use the word anxiety. So let's just say with them busy mind.
There's a lot of thoughts going on. A lot of fires to put out. There's a lot of things to take care of right now. Yeah. That's, let's [00:51:00] say it that way. 'cause they don't resonate always with the word anxiety, with the word 'cause. That's a female
Dr. Taz: thing.
Tricia Pingel: Hysteric. That's a, it's hysteric. They're not hysterical.
They've got it all under control.
Dr. Taz: But you know what I have noticed, and I think someone may have told me this. Anxiety in men looks like anger.
Tricia Pingel: Yes. That's typically what it looks like. You know what emotion? That's a great point, right? Emotions in men and emotions in anyone. If you're noticing a lot of emotions and you're not sure how to handle them, you stuffing them down.
Dr. Taz: That's a sign of adrenal fatigue. That's a sign of adrenal fatigue. It's time, time to go through the list of do you delegate? Mm-hmm. Is it really worth your energy? Mm-hmm. Do you wanna take this on? See, I, I've got it. I got the list. I got the list. All right. Let's tackle women. What are the five most common things you see in women when they're going into adrenal fatigue From a symptom standpoint?
Tricia Pingel: Uh, I'm just gonna say perimenopause right there. I'm gonna throw that out there. Okay. Because that's what women are coming to me. Oh, my hormones are outta whack. My hormones are outta whack. What can I do? Oh, it's just hormones. I'm sure it's my hormones. Well, it is your hormones. It's your stress hormones, and your stress hormones are causing a problem.
Yeah, because hormones talk to each other. [00:52:00] We have, as you know, this is rapid fire, but why not? We have four areas of our endocrine system, right? We've got the sex hormones, we've got the adrenal hormones, we've got the thyroid hormones, and we have the blood sugar. They all play with each other, so when one goes up, the other has to move.
And then
Dr. Taz: all the symptoms associated with that. All the symptoms are
Tricia Pingel: the same. The symptoms of low thyroid are the same as perimenopause, are the same as adrenal fatigue are the same as insulin issues, right? So. Where's it coming from? Right. So if you're having hormonal symptoms, there you go.
Dr. Taz: That's your answer.
That's your
Tricia Pingel: answer.
Dr. Taz: Uh, what about, let's do teenagers. We were talking about them just a second ago. What does adrenal fatigue look like in a teenager?
Tricia Pingel: I see a lot of GI issues.
Dr. Taz: Really? Yeah. Interesting. A lot of bloating,
Tricia Pingel: a lot of constipation. Um, uh, and then skin. Like acne. Acne, acne. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because obviously the GI is playing into that poor liver detoxification type stuff.
So I would say acne, GI issues. And I do see a ton of anxiety in teens as well. A lot of worry.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Tricia Pingel: And I don't like teens worrying. Why are they worrying? I don't
Dr. Taz: know. [00:53:00] I think it's, again, the, they're worried because we're worrying. I was about to say that if you're coming from a perfectionist home, then they're worrying because they're not.
They're internally, it's just another social media feed for them. If your home is a perfectionist home, they're not living up to that ideal that you're setting. Or the same thing you were talking about about modeling behavior. Like they're modeling your behavior and there's an
Tricia Pingel: energy to that. There's an energy to perfectionism, right?
Totally. So they have, not to get too woowoo, but there's different frequencies, right? Fear. Oh, oh my gosh. You're speaking my language. So fear, so like fear, blame, anger. Totally. Those are down at like four hurts. Yep. Right? Mm-hmm. And love and gratitude are up at like 600. So if you're going through as a parent or as anyone in your life, in fear and blame, you're living at a low frequency.
You're attracting and putting out that signal. Everyone around you is gonna pick up that signal. Their bodies are gonna react to that. Their stress chemicals are gonna react to that, and they're going to then have fear and anxiety. [00:54:00] But when you're coming at them with love and gratitude. And acceptance.
Dr. Taz: You raise the vibration, you raise the
Tricia Pingel: vibration of the house. Yeah. And you see this all the time. You see this when parents are going through divorce, right? Yeah. And the kids have a fallout from it. And everyone says, well, it was the divorce. No, it wasn't. The divorce might have been a great thing for the parents, but the energy that came from that environment gave them an energy that impacted their internal environment that then gave them anxiety or gave them gut issues.
You
Dr. Taz: know, I want to, and I haven't had, haven't had time to do this yet, but I really want to, as a part of the whole plus mission, help families identify when they're, they are in adrenal fatigue as a family. Yeah. Not as an individual. And when they are in high cortisol homes, you know? Mm-hmm. And at risk homes.
Mm-hmm. Because I don't think people. Realize this, that when you're in a family unit, and we could expand it to community and we could expand it to a city or a country even, but when you're in an immediate family unit, you're feeding [00:55:00] off the energy of each other. Mm-hmm. So if one person in that unit is not healthy or is an adrenal fatigue, it indirectly impacts everybody else.
And this idea of frequency and you know. Homes that are at a low frequency. Mm-hmm. Homes that are at a higher frequency, I would say without judgment. The majority of homes today are at a lower frequency. Mm-hmm. People are running around like crazy people. Mm-hmm. Running to sports, running to activities, running here, running there, running to careers.
And the home itself is no longer healing, you know? Mm-hmm. And so a part of healing is to have a healthy home. Mm-hmm. And to have a home that helps to reset cortisol and helps to reset your nervous system. So I think that's something I would challenge all of us that are in family units or in a family structure.
Mm-hmm. To evaluate now when we're gonna expand it out to our city or our country. That's a whole different, let's do it though, scenario. Let's do it. Let's do it together. I'm not even sure where to tackle that one [00:56:00] in the climate, especially that we're in right now. Yeah. Like where everyone's nervous system is outta control if you just turn the TV on, but you know, but you can at least start.
With yourself. Mm-hmm. And then you can definitely start with your home.
Tricia Pingel: Well, and there's a disconnect that happens when you're in that low frequency between your mind and your heart. Yeah. And that's where our conscious mind starts. Like thinking through everything, right. And thinking it can fix everything and control everything.
When our subconscious mind has the fear in the back and you get disconnected, everything, all the chakras get disconnected. Right. And the most common thing that I find, especially, you know, we have, how much thyroid do we have right now? Yeah. Like 80% of women have Hashimoto's or something. Totally. Yep.
Where's the thyroid? It's between your heart and your head. Mm-hmm. Right? And we have these energies that we pass along. And the way to get yourself into that home, that high frequency home is to find your joy. It's to find your love and gratitude to looking at the things that annoying you and reframing it, saying, okay, I was late today.
Right. You know, like when something goes wrong in the morning, you can't find your shoe, I don't know. And your whole day just goes downhill from there and you're [00:57:00] late at the end of the day, you can like, oh, my day was horrible. I couldn't find my shoes, and I got here and my boss, this and that, blah, blah, blah.
I try to look at it and say, well, I couldn't find my shoe, but I was home for 10 minutes longer and I got to spend 10 minutes more with my kids. Mm. That was awesome. Like looking at the things that, of gratitude and coming at it from gratitude, you know? Or looking at someone who's really, obviously having a bad day and taking it out on you.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Tricia Pingel: And looking at them with compassion and saying, gosh, that must really be rough for them. Is there anything
Dr. Taz: we can do to reset it for them when they're coming in? Like we,
Tricia Pingel: yeah. We have to come in with that higher love and gratitude frequency. Nobody else is going to change your health except you.
Nobody. Now granted you come to us, right? You get the functional stuff done, you get the labs done, you get the internal stressors out. You know
Dr. Taz: the details. Know, but, but if
Tricia Pingel: you want to change your environment, you have to change the way that you see the world. Because here's the news flash. This is an important thing.
The stress is not going anywhere. The world is going to continue to [00:58:00] get more and more chaotic. There's gonna be more and things, things added. So you have a choice. You're either gonna give into it or you're going to change the way you look at the world. We have senses for a reason. We see, we taste, we hear input into the brain.
So we have to change the way that we see and feel the world. And the only way to do that is inside us. It's inside our hearts. It's us saying, I'm now gonna raise my own frequency. I'm not gonna get annoyed when someone has a different opinion than mine. I'm gonna have compassion that they probably come from a different place and therefore they probably have a different opinion than mine.
Yeah. And that's okay. They can have that opinion,
Dr. Taz: but what typically happens is when someone's coming into a home and they're wound up and they're reactive. Mm-hmm. You know, it takes a lot of self-awareness for the other person to be like, okay, this person's having a bad day. Yep. They're in a high cortisol state.
both: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taz: I need to come at 'em with a lot of love and empathy. What typically happens is that the reactivity of one triggers reactivity in the other, you know? And. You [00:59:00] know, how can we help families who are in this situation? Maybe you're a high adrenal fatigue family, or at risk. Mm-hmm. You know, how can we help them navigate that?
Is there some, take that breath. Take a deep breath, breathe. Breathe
Tricia Pingel: before you respond. Because the thing is, is the adrenals are taking over in that moment. And I think the first, with any condition, the first thing is recognizing what's happening. Yeah. Once you recognize it, you can do something about it.
You know? Why does hypnosis work so well? Once you draw that association, once you get into a parasympathetic state and you figure out where it's coming from, and you're like, oh, that's why I'm so angry. When somebody does that, then you can start paying attention. I had a rubber band on my wrist for a long time.
both: Yeah.
Tricia Pingel: And whenever I would react quickly, or I would say anything self-deprecating. Because that's how I was raised, right? Mm. I'm not good enough, right? So I would snap it and I would have to reframe it. And my kids had a blast with this because I'd be sitting at the dinner table and I'd say something that maybe was [01:00:00] self-deprecating and they'd be like, mom, snap it.
Oh my
Dr. Taz: gosh.
Tricia Pingel: And it didn't take very long. It took a week. I had it on my wrist for a week, and I changed my words. Words matter.
both: Mm.
Tricia Pingel: Um, you know, I get to versus I have to, right? Little. These are little tiny changes that you think in the big singing things. You're like, that's not gonna make a difference. Yeah.
But it does. I get to go to work today. My mom, you know, couldn't go to the bathroom by yourself. How many times do you go to the bathroom every day, right? And you're like, oh man, I gotta take a break and go to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom. You get to walk to the bathroom by yourself without assistance.
You get to make your own food. You get to buy your groceries, you get to go to work. You get to spend time with your kids. Right. You get to deal with the crazy person at the grocery store. That's weird. And you know, like you, you get to, these are gifts. These are all things you get to experience because you were fortunate enough to wake up today.
You didn't fall to the ground when you opened the fridge this morning for your [01:01:00] breakfast, you were here. Right? So it comes with a perspective shift, identifying it and then making a conscious choice. We are not, we, we do have control over what we do. We tend to wanna, oh, we're just getting old. Oh, it's just my body.
Oh, it's my disease, this and that. No, we have control. We think we have control over everything else. The one thing that we actually have control over that we can control for the rest of our lives you have full permission to control over is how you react to a situation. That is the only thing you have control over.
And when you start to change how you react, you start to change your body's physiology. When you change the physiology, you start to improve your health. You start to improve your joy, you start to improve the frequency. You start to improve your house. You start to improve your children, you start to improve your spouse.
Dr. Taz: You can heal, you heal, you can heal yourself. You heal. Right? You heal and your whole Right. Oh my gosh. I love it. Okay. I wanna ask one, you've already answered this. I wanna ask about one more group because I think [01:02:00] they're suffering just as much. Yeah. Our younger children.
Tricia Pingel: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: What does adrenal fatigue look like in the young children who can't communicate with us or, you know what
Tricia Pingel: I, I don't have any clinical backup to back this, but my instinct is it is the solidarity.
It's them holding themselves up in a room and making social connections with people that aren't physically here. Mm-hmm. I think adrenal fatigue is showing in them in loneliness and depression. Ugh. And it, it breaks my heart.
Dr. Taz: Ugh.
Tricia Pingel: It breaks my heart more than, more than anything. Just remembering what I felt like as a kid and feeling so alone, and then seeing how much it's impacted these kids right now.
Yeah. It just, we have to change that.
Dr. Taz: What is the one thing you would tell families to do if they're gonna change that? What should they do? If there's a mom or dad listening today and they're seeing [01:03:00] any of these signs in their children, in their teenagers, and I am also really worried about the kids too.
What, what would you tell them? Give them one thing that you have seen. Play out, spend time with them.
Tricia Pingel: Bottom line. It's as simple as that.
Dr. Taz: Have
Tricia Pingel: fun, model behavior. Show them the world. Yeah, whatever for whatever it is. Be open. You know, let them know it's, it is hard. There are times that are hard, but they have support.
You are gonna be there no matter what. Whether they do something right or wrong, you, you don't care. You love them more than anything in the world. I mean, what does every child want? They want love. What do you want? We wanna be loved. We wanna be told that we, they love us, who we are, that our quirks are fun.
We wanna feel good about ourselves. We wanna know that we are making a difference in the world, whatever that is. So do kids. I don't think they're any different than us. I think if anything, our maturity has gotten worse. They're growing up faster than they should, and we are going back into childlike states in scrolling all day long and paying attention to what everyone else thinks.
Why were the [01:04:00] parents.
Dr. Taz: Right, right. Such a good point. This has been such an important conversation. I think that there is a cortisol crisis. I think. We are all walking around in adrenal fatigue. Mm-hmm. In some stage or the other. I think the problem is that everybody thinks that conversation is separated out from medical health or physical health, and you're such a testament to, it's not like as you found your joy and reset yourself, it sounds like everything around you reset as well.
And I can learn from that. I'm sure everybody listening and watching can learn from that as well. So I wanna thank you for being here today, but before you leave me, I think you've answered this too, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Anyways. I'm gonna ask it anyways. What makes you whole?
Tricia Pingel: Gratitude, love and gratitude.
Love, gratitude and joy. That makes me whole. And I could sit here and say, you know, of course my kids do, and of course my family. But why is because there's so much love, gratitude, and joy surrounding my career, surrounding my extracurricular activities, surrounding my family, surrounding the people I meet, the interactions.
My [01:05:00] life is so much lighter. By just coming at the world from that different
Dr. Taz: perspective. It's just changing perspective it sounds like. Mm-hmm. It's just, it's changing perspective. We can all do that. That's not expensive, that's not high maintenance. That's free. It's free. We can all do that, but
Tricia Pingel: we have to be willing to do it.
Dr. Taz: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking some time out. If anybody wants to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Tricia Pingel: Dr pingle.com is a great start. And um, as far as social media goes, you know, as we've been saying, there's so much, so much negative about that. But here's the thing, you can choose who you follow.
So here's what I decided when I went into starting social media, right? I said, okay, if I'm gonna do this to grow my business, I'm gonna make it fun. That's it. I'm only gonna post fun things. Yeah. So it's a lot of dancing, it's a lot of comedy. Amazing. But it ties it into health. So if you do find me there, please say hello.
This is all about community. This is all about getting to know each other and finding like-minded people. So say hello, say where you saw me from. And introduce yourself. Let me know where you're from.
Dr. Taz: I love it. Well, [01:06:00] I'm gonna get on there too because I feel like I found a like-minded friend. We're gonna dance together.
There we go. Exactly. I'll have to meet you in Phoenix and we'll go for to a hip hop class together. Well, thank you again for being here, for everybody else watching and listening. Thank you so much. We will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Whole Plus, be sure to share this episode with your friends and family.
And if you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to this podcast on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. To engage with the community, follow at Live Whole Plus and check out our website whole plus.co. That's HOL ps.co. For more resources and information on holistic health, see you next time.
