Your thyroid may be the most important endocrine gland in your body.
It regulates the things that everyone cares about like weight, hair growth, mood, and even other hormones.
It also just so happens to be incredibly sensitive and easy to damage.
And millions of people are walking around damaging their thyroid every day without even realizing it.
But that’s not going to happen to you because today we’re talking about habits that damage your thyroid so you can avoid them.
Let’s jump in:
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#1. Not Sleeping Enough
What you need to understand is that SLEEP plays a very important role in regulating not only your thyroid but also OTHER hormones and, perhaps most importantly, inflammatory pathways.
And if you don’t get enough sleep, several things happen that are less than ideal:
The first is that you will see a drop in thyroid function.
We know that people sleeping fewer than 6 hours per night have lower than normal free T3 and free T4 levels (1).
This translates into a slower than normal metabolism which means you’re more likely to gain weight.
It doesn’t stop there either… you’ll also end up with higher levels of inflammation and changes to your stress hormones (2).
Both of these further reduce thyroid hormone levels leading to fatigue.
All of these negative effects occur at around 6 hours of sleep per night.
Practically speaking, that’s about 28.3% of Americans or 1 in 4 (3).
The solution is simple:
Sleep at least 7 hours each night but get as close to 8 as you possibly can.
Doing so means you’ll have better thyroid function, more energy, an easier time managing your weight, and more balanced hormones.
#2. Ignoring Nutrient Deficiencies
In a perfect world, you’d be getting all of the micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs from your diet.
But we don’t live in a perfect world and very few people eat the nutrient-dense foods, like liver and organ meats, required to hit these numbers.
What does this mean?
It means that many people are walking around with sub-optimal nutrient levels which can and do impact thyroid function.
When you couple dietary problems with factors like stress, which accelerate the elimination and usage of vitamins, it’s easy to see why many people should be taking a few extra supplements here and there.
Even doctors who are fairly anti-supplement still recognize the need for multivitamins.
The reality is that you can take a basic multivitamin that contains all of the major ingredients that your thyroid needs to function and call it a day.
Keeping your nutrient status optimized can go a long way to prevent thyroid problems from even popping up in the first place.
And many people report experiencing more energy and just feeling overall more like themself when taking a multivitamin.
Your thyroid requires many different nutrients to function at 100% but some are more improtant than others.
Here are the ones you want to pay the most attention to:
- Zinc – Zinc helps your body activate thyroid hormone. Zinc deficiency increases the older you get (4).
- Selenium – Selenium helps your body protect your own thyroid gland from inflammation and damage. Low selenium levels increase your risk of developing Hashimoto’s.
- Iodine – This is needed to create thyroid hormone. If you don’t have enough, you will experience problems. Many people aren’t getting enough iodine because it comes primarily from seafood.
- Magnesium – Magnesium helps your body use thyroid hormone and keeps stress hormones balanced. It also happens to become depleted in times of stress.
- Vitamin A – Vitamin A helps thyroid hormone work inside of your cells. According to research, up to 50% of Americans aren’t getting enough vitamin A from their diet.
- Vitamin D3 – Vitamin D protects your thyroid gland from cancer and it also helps prevent autoimmune disease. According to research, about 1 in 4 Americans don’t have enough vitamin D.
Sure, you can definitely spend the time to try and get all of these vitamins from your diet, but you can also just take a multi and call it a day.
I’ll let you decide which option is best for your situation, but no matter what you do, just don’t ignore them.
#3. Not Eating Enough Food
And I should also say that not eating enough carbohydrates can also cause problems for your thyroid.
But let’s talk about calories first:
We live in a time where obesity is truly an epidemic.
And everyone knows that in order to lose weight, you must cut calories, right?
I won’t deny that cutting calories is certainly part of the solution to weight loss, but there’s more to it than just that.
Because excessive calorie restriction has been shown to have a negative impact on your thyroid (5).
And this promotes a problem for patients who are trying to lose weight.
How do you expect to lose weight and keep it off if you are damaging the very hormone that is responsible for managing your metabolism?
You’re going to have a hard time because as you cut your calories, you will see a decline in how many calories you burn at rest.
Eventually, if you do it too long, you’ll run yourself into a situation where you’ll be eating 1,200 calories a day just to maintain your weight.
This is not sustainable long-term.
The solution?
Avoid excessive calorie restriction.
Your body and thyroid have a much better time adapting to 100 or 200 calories cut from your diet versus 500 or 1,000.
Sure, you will see faster weight loss with the more extreme cut, but it comes at a cost, and your results will be short lived.
This is a huge part of the reason that research shows 95% of people who try to lose weight end up failing or regaining all of their weight back.
If you extend out your time horizon, avoid excessive calorie restriction, and eat real whole foods, you can support your thyroid and lose weight in the process.
But if you are trying to rush to your target goal, you will be doing your body and thyroid no favors whatsoever.
By the way, just like calories, carbohydrates are also important for maintaining thyroid function.
This is why research shows that patients on very low carb diets see changes T3 if they stay on that diet for a long period of time.
You can usually get by with low carb diets for 3-6 months, but staying low carb for longer than that may increase your risk of problems.
#4. Not Eating Enough Protein
On the topic of food, I should probably also mention that protein happens to be a form of super fuel for your thyroid.
But probably not in the way you’re thinking.
Yes, eating protein happens to be important for helping your body create thyroid hromone by providing the amino acid tyrosine.
But the majority of the impact you’ll feel with more protein intake comes from muscle mass.
As a percentage of your total body weight, muscle mass accounts for about 30-40%.
And this muscle mass happens to be a huge site of thyroid hormone action.
Remember:
Thyroid hormone helps to activate the tissues that it comes into contact with.
So what do you think happens when thyroid hormone interacts with your mucles?
It promotes muscle growth and repair, it increases muscle metabolism, and it improves muscle tone (6).
This translates into a huge amount of calories burned at rest and it also provides you with a lot of subjective energy and momentum.
But this only occurs if you have a healthy amount of muscle mass for your age.
And this is where your protein intake comes into play.
It’s estimated that 1 in 3 Americans are not consuming enough protein which means their muscle mass may be suffering.
By extension, this means that they are not only losing out on a lot of free calories to burn, but also the stimulation of thyroid hormone that comes along with it.
It’s in this way that your muscle mass and thyroid function are intertwined.
And you can easily optimize both by simply eating enough protein.
There are lots of different formulas to get to your ideal protein intake but my personal recommendation is to aim for 100 grams per day.
You may want more if you are trying to actively build muscle, but this is plenty to simply support your thyroid.
#5. Eating Too Much Sugar & Processed Foods
If you want to destroy your thyroid in a hurry then eat a diet high in refined sugar and processed foods.
The reason?
Because they cause liver damage.
Your liver is the location in your body where the most powerful thyroid hormone is created known as T3
And if it’s impaired, for any reason, your body’s ability to create this hormone, will slow down.
When it comes to ensuring your liver is healthy, you need only look at your diet.
The most common causes of liver damage, known as fatty liver, stem from the consumption of excess sugar, alcohol, and ultra-processed foods.
If you eat a lot of these foods, your thyroid will be impaired. It’s that simple.
And this impairment can be quite significant because up to 60% of T3 conversion occurs here.
You can tell if your diet is hurting your liver and your thyroid by checking your liver enzymes.
If these enzymes are elevated, or if you’ve been diagnosed with fatty liver in the past, then there’s a good chance that it’s happening.
The good news? It’s really easy to fix.
You can reverse fatty liver in weeks to months with a few simple changes:
- Stop consuming refined sugars and processed foods.
- Make sure your diet consists of at least 90% real whole foods.
- Avoid alcohol 100%.
- Use intermittent or prolonged fasting 1 to 2 times per week.
- Use natural liver-supporting supplements like milk thistle.
#6. Ignoring Stress & Your Adrenals
If you’re a human being living in the modern world then you must pay attention to stress.
But instead of focusing solely on stress, what we really care about here is cortisol.
Cortisol is the primary stress hormone produced by your adrenal glands.
Here’s how it works:
When you get stressed your cortisol level spikes.
This spike in cortisol helps your body cope with the stress by impacting other organs in the body like your thyroid.
Constant spiking of your cortisol eventually leads to cortisol receptor resistance and changes in your serum cortisol level.
These changes then block communication from your brain to your thyroid gland, reduce T4 to T3 conversion, and increase reverse T3 levels leading to lower than normal thyroid function and all of the problems that come along with it.
The more stress you’re under, the bigger the impact.
But here’s the thing:
This is happening to your body whether you realize it or not because even everyday events trigger this response.
If you’re like most people then you probably just ignore the signs that your body is under stress and cover it up with quick fixes like sugar and caffeine.
But this only kicks the problem down the road.
You simply can’t afford to not manage your stress, it’s just not possible in the modern world.
Simple stress relieving techniques like exercise, square breathing, mindfulness, and meditation can go a long way to helping prevent this problem.
Wrapping it up
The bottom line?
If you want to live a long and healthy life free of weight gain, hair loss, and depression, then you want to make sure your thyroid is doing its job.
The best way to do that is by breaking the habits we just discussed.
By the way, if you think that these habits have impared your thyroid then you may want to consider taking some simple thyroid-boosting supplements.
You can find out which one works best in this article.
Scientific References
#1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910542/
#2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8813037/
#3. https://news.gallup.com/poll/642704/americans-sleeping-less-stressed.aspx
#4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493231/
#5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1249190/
#6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4037849/
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