Many people start T3 medication hoping for more energy and mental clarity—only to end up feeling wired, anxious, or unable to sleep.

In this episode of Thyroid Shorts, Dr. Eric Balcavage explains why too much or too little T3 can both amplify anxiety and insomnia, and how to restore calm by shifting from defense mode to recovery mode.

You'll learn how the brain's fear center (the amygdala) interprets stress, how local T3 activity inside the brain differs from global thyroid output, and why "state before hormone" is the key to lasting recovery.

Featuring insights from two pivotal papers:

• Psychoneuroendocrinology (2024): Evidence for thyroid hormone regulation of amygdala-dependent fear relevant memory and plasticity

• PLoS ONE (2011): Adult-Onset Hypothyroidism Enhances Fear Memory and Up-regulates Mineralocorticoid and Glucocorticoid Receptors in the Amygdala

Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro – Is T3 causing your anxiety and insomnia? 02:00 – Input → Interpretation → Response: how the brain reads threat 05:00 – The amygdala as the body's alarm system 08:00 – The Threat Perception Loop and defense physiology 11:00 – Local vs global thyroid adaptation: T3 in the amygdala 13:00 – The T3 Paradox: too little vs too much T3 17:00 – Shifting from defense to recovery mode 19:00 – Key takeaways & how to calm the system before adjusting hormone

Key Takeaway: Your thyroid follows your brain's perception of safety. Calming the nervous system restores efficient T3 conversion—without overstimulation.

Rewiring the Brain for Thyroid Recovery with Dr. Patrick Porter

What if you could train your brain to help your thyroid recover?

In this episode, Dr. Eric Balcavage sits down with Dr. Patrick Porter, creator of BrainTap®, to explore how brainwave training, stress regulation, and nervous-system balance can unlock your body's natural healing potential.

In this conversation:

• How chronic stress keeps the brain stuck in "danger mode" and blocks thyroid recovery

• Why the amygdala, HPA axis, and thyroid are part of one continuous feedback loop

• The role of neuroplasticity and brainwave entrainment in calming the body's stress response

• Practical tools to shift from survival to safety mode—naturally

• How BrainTap supports sleep, energy, focus, and overall metabolic balance

🎧 Listen now to understand how "rewiring the brain" can help your thyroid finally respond the way it should.

👉 Learn more or schedule a Discovery Call with Dr. Balcavage at www.drericbalcavage.com 🎥 Watch more episodes on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@askdreric

Dr. Patrick K. Porter is a pioneer in brainwave entrainment and the creator of BrainTap®, a technology used by over 120,000 people and 3,000+ clinics worldwide to restore balance and optimize brain performance.

For more than three decades, he's explored how visualization, neuroplasticity, and sound/light stimulation can help people rewire their brains for better sleep, focus, and healing—without pills or guesswork.

Featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The Joe Rogan Experience, Dr. Porter continues to lead a global movement to help people unlock their brain's innate ability to heal, perform, and thrive.

Dr Porter's contact info:

https://www.youtube.com/@drpatrickporter

https://braintap.com/

https://instagram.com/braintaptech

Every winter, TSH rises—but that doesn't mean thyroid failure. Dr Eric Balcavage explains how photoperiod, melatonin, and circannual rhythms alter TRH → TSH → T3 and why seasonal adaptation is often misdiagnosed as hypothyroidism.

✅ How shorter days and colder temperatures reset the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid axis ✅ Why macro-TSH raises lab TSH without true hypothyroidism ✅ How both conventional and functional models misread winter physiology ✅ Five ways to align with your seasonal thyroid rhythm (light, rest, minerals, movement, patience)

Stress and Holiday Hypothyroidism | How Stress Lowers T3 and Raises rT3 | Dr. Eric Balcavage – Thyroid Shorts Ep. 19

The holidays are supposed to be joyful — but for many with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's, they trigger fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and anxiety.

In this episode, Dr. Eric Balcavage, creator of the Adaptive Thyroid Model™, explains how stress physiology, poor sleep, and inflammation can turn down your thyroid hormone activity — even when your blood tests look "normal."

Learn why holiday stress, late nights, sugar spikes, alcohol, and over-training push your body into a reverse T3 (rT3) dominant state — what Dr. Balcavage calls Holiday Hypothyroidism — and how to fix it naturally.

✅ What reverse T3 is — and how it shuts down active T3 inside your cells ✅ How cortisol, IL-6, and TNF-α change deiodinase enzyme activity (DIO1/2 ↓, DIO3 ↑) ✅ Why your thyroid "slows down" under stress — it's protection, not failure ✅ The 5-Day rT3 Reset — a practical plan for restoring thyroid balance ✅ How to lower inflammation, improve sleep, and support bile flow during the holidays

Most people are told: "If you have thyroid antibodies, you have Hashimoto's. If you don't, you don't." In this episode, Dr. Eric Balcavage, creator of the Adaptive Thyroid Model™, revisits that idea and shows why antibodies are only one piece of a much bigger picture.

Discover how: ✅ Th1 and Th17 T-cells, CD8 T-cells, and low T-regs drive thyroid inflammation and tissue damage ✅ PAMPs (pathogen signals) and DAMPs (cell-danger signals) can bind to pattern-recognition receptors [PRRs] on thyroid cells, triggering cytokines and interferon activity ✅ Antibodies may confirm Hashimoto's, but their absence doesn't rule it out (seronegative Hashimoto's is real) ✅ Addressing the drivers of immune imbalance — gut permeability, sleep debt, oxidative stress, nutrient deficiencies — can help restore tolerance and thyroid function

Dr. Balcavage breaks down the latest research on how inflammation starts inside the thyroid, why the body isn't "attacking" itself, and what a true recovery plan looks like.

🎯 Key Takeaway: Antibodies show the aftermath — not the origin — of thyroid autoimmunity. To heal, identify and remove the stressors that keep the immune system in defense mode.

www.drericbalcavage.com

In this episode of Thyroid Answers, Dr. Eric Balcavage sits down with pharmacist and bestselling author Dr. Izabella Wentz to revisit one of the most misunderstood conditions in modern medicine — Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

They explore how new research and clinical experience are reshaping what we know about autoimmune thyroid disease, why so many women still struggle with fatigue, weight gain, and brain fog despite "normal" thyroid labs, and what it really takes to recover thyroid function from the inside out.

Dr. Wentz and Dr. Balcavage break down the differences between managing Hashimoto's with medication and restoring thyroid health through the Adaptive Thyroid Model™, focusing on root causes suc as gut health, inflammation, hormone balance, and stress physiology.

Key Topics:

• What most doctors miss about Hashimoto's and autoimmune thyroiditis

• The connection between stress, sleep, gut health, and thyroid autoimmunity

• Why "normal labs" can hide ongoing thyroid dysfunction

• How estrogen, cortisol, and inflammation alter thyroid hormone conversion

• The role of diet, supplements, and lifestyle in reversing Hashimoto's patterns

• How to know if your low T3 is adaptive — not failure

• And more ...

Dr. Izabella Wentz is a compassionate, innovative, solution-focused integrative pharmacist dedicated to finding the root causes of chronic health conditions. Her passion stems from her own diagnosis with Hashimoto's thyroiditis in 2009, following a decade of debilitating symptoms.

As an accomplished author, Dr. Wentz has written several best-selling books, including the New York Times best seller Hashimoto's Thyroiditis: Lifestyle Interventions for Finding and Treating the Root Cause, the protocol-based #1 New York Times best seller Hashimoto's Protocol: A 90-Day Plan for Reversing Thyroid Symptoms and Getting Your Life Back, and the Wall Street Journal best seller Hashimoto's Food Pharmacology: Nutrition Protocols and Healing Recipes to Take Charge of Your Thyroid Health.

Her latest book, Adrenal Transformation Protocol, was released on April 18th, 2023. The book focuses on resetting the body's stress response through targeted safety signals and features a 4-week program that has already helped over 3,500 individuals. The program has an impressive success rate, with over 80% of participants improving their brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues, and libido.

http://thyroidpharmacist.com/

https://www.instagram.com/izabellawentzpharmd/

https://www.facebook.com/ThyroidLifestyle/

Are you struggling with hypothyroid symptoms like fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, or brain fog? Have you been told the reason is that you have "low T3"? Many patients are told the solution is simple: add T3 thyroid hormone replacement. But is that the truth? Is that the correct strategy?

In this Thyroid Answers Shorts episode, Dr. Eric Balcavage, functional medicine thyroid expert and host of the Thyroid Answers Podcast, explains: ✅ Why low T3 doesn't always mean you need medication ✅ How stress, inflammation, and the Cell Danger Response affect T4-to-T3 conversion ✅ Why simply adding T3 or desiccated thyroid may not fix your symptoms ✅ A new way to understand your thyroid labs through the Adaptive Thyroid Model™

📌 If you've ever been frustrated by normal labs but ongoing symptoms, this episode will give you the clarity you need.

👉 Subscribe for more insights on thyroid health, Hashimoto's disease, and functional medicine approaches that go beyond just managing lab numbers.

Are you ready to challenge the myths of aging and discover how to stay strong, vital, and resilient for decades to come? In this episode of the Thyroid Answers Podcast, Dr. Eric Balcavage sits down with Dr. Mani Kukreja to explore the cutting-edge science of healthy aging.

We dive into:

• Why aging is not just about years—but about cellular health and resilience
• The hidden role of thyroid physiology in longevity and vitality
• Nutrition, movement, and lifestyle strategies that slow the aging clock
• The difference between simply "managing" disease and truly recovering health
• Practical steps you can take now to age stronger and live longer
• And more ...

This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone seeking to protect their thyroid, boost energy, and thrive throughout midlife and beyond.

Dr. Mani Kukreja is a medically trained wellness advocate and the founder of LivAgeWell, a comprehensive wellness platform dedicated to optimizing health and preventing disease. With a background in medicine and a Master of Public Health in Clinical Research from Tulane University, Dr. Kukreja combines her extensive medical training with cutting-edge wellness strategies. Her career spans leadership roles at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Cardiovascular Surgical Research Program and the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Research Program, where she directed clinical research operations.

She is a sought-after keynote speaker and educator, recognized for her expertise in health optimization, biohacking, and disease prevention. Her holistic approach integrates evidence-based medicine with nutritional science and lifestyle modifications.

Featured in Authority Magazine, The Daily Star, Grit Daily, and other leading publications, Dr. Kukreja is an entrepreneur, author, and thought leader who is transforming lives by making personalized wellness accessible to all. She empowers women to take control of their health through science-backed lifestyle changes.

Dr Mani's contact information:

https://manikukreja.com/

https://www.instagram.com/dr.mani.kukreja/

Your thyroid doesn't work in isolation. It relies on your liver, your bile, and even your gut bacteria to keep hormone conversion running smoothly. In this episode of Thyroid Shorts, Dr. Eric Balcavage explains how thyroid hormone T3 regulates bile acid production, shapes your microbiome, and keeps your gut lining strong in a state of homeostasis.

But what happens when stress, inflammation, or the Cell Danger Response lower circulating T3? The liver shifts bile chemistry, gut bugs change, and your barrier can loosen. This isn't necessarily dysfunction — it's your body's intelligent defense mode. Short-term, it helps fight microbes and fuel the immune system. Long-term, it can leave you stuck with fatigue, bloating, constipation, brain fog, and "normal" labs that don't match how you feel.

You'll also learn why giving T3 medication in this state can be both helpful and harmful — and why timing, context, and removing the underlying threats matter more than simply "optimizing" your labs.

Key topics:

• How T3 regulates bile acid balance, gut microbes, and barrier function.

• Why low T3 shifts bile acids toward defense mode (↑CA, ↓CDCA).

• The adaptive purpose of sluggish bile and reduced conversion.

• The pros and cons of T3 replacement during inflammation.

• Clinical guardrails for restoring thyroid health without chasing numbers.

www.drericbalcavage.com

Episode 208: Nitric Oxide - The Missing Link in Thyroid & Chronic Disease with Dr. Nathan Bryan

In this episode, Dr. Eric Balcavage is joined by nitric oxide researcher and author Dr. Nathan Bryan, whose new book The Secret of Nitric Oxide explores why this tiny signaling molecule may be the key to preventing and reversing chronic illness.

Together, they dive deep into:

• What nitric oxide is and why it's foundational for human health.

• How nitric oxide is made in the body—through both enzymatic and dietary pathways.

• The connection between nitric oxide, inflammation, oxidative stress, and the Cell Danger Response (CDR).

• How nitric oxide influences thyroid hormone production, conversion (T4 → T3), and the rise of reverse T3.

• Why loss of nitric oxide is one of the earliest triggers in chronic disease, including Hashimoto's, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, and more.

• Common disruptors of nitric oxide production—nutrient deficiencies, environmental toxins, poor lifestyle habits, and even fluoride exposure.

• Practical steps to restore nitric oxide production naturally for better thyroid, metabolic, and overall health.

This is a powerful conversation that reframes nitric oxide not as just a cardiovascular molecule, but as a master regulator of cellular health, energy production, and thyroid physiology.

👉 If you've struggled with thyroid issues, chronic fatigue, or unexplained symptoms, this episode will help you see why restoring nitric oxide may be a critical missing piece in your recovery journey.

Dr. Bryan earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport where he was the recipient of the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research. He pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine in the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. After a two-year post-doctoral fellowship, in 2006 Dr. Bryan was recruited to join faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., 1998 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology.

Dr. Bryan has been involved in nitric oxide research for the past 25 years and has made many seminal discoveries in the field. Dr. Bryan is a successful entrepreneur and Founder, Chairman and CEO of Bryan Therapeutics, Inc., a privately-held, clinical-stage biotechnology company that is actively engaged in the discovery and development of nitric oxide-based therapies. BTI has active drug development programs in heart disease, Alzheimers' Disease and topical drugs for diabetic ulcer and non-healing wounds. Dr. Bryan's consumer line of products are some of the most successful nitric oxide products on the market. Dr. Bryan is an international leader in molecular medicine and nitric oxide biochemistry.

Dr. Bryan's website: www.n1o1.com