Emotions & Immunity - How Feelings Shape your Immune System and Can Be an Immune Trigger for Good

Can emotions really influence your immune system? In this first episode of our Emotions & Healing series, Elizabeth Mae explores how stress, fear, anger, and even unprocessed grief can directly impact the body’s ability to heal.

You’ll learn how emotional states communicate with your immune system, a quick introduction to the Chinese medicine body clock and how emotions relate to specific organs, and insights from Inna Segal’s The Secret Language of Your Body on the emotional roots behind common symptoms.

This episode is a grounding, hopeful reminder that emotions aren’t just “in your head” - they’re messages your body is trying to express and they are connected to the health of your organ systems. When we learn to listen, the body finally feels safe enough to heal.

Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.

Welcome back to Hey, You're Gonna Be Okay. Today, we're gonna look at how emotions interact with the immune system. ⁓ We're gonna go through a quick intro into the Chinese body clock, talk about a little traditional Chinese medicine, ⁓ and how these ancient and modern wisdoms both show that emotions leave fingerprints on our health. Feelings, emotions, immune system, all connected. So your feelings can be an immune trigger for good ⁓ or for limiting your organ health.

Let's talk about it. This season we're kind of kicking off today ⁓ is going to be all about emotions and immunity. We're not just going to talk about feelings, but we're going to talk about feelings and emotions as biochemical signals that shape our immune system, especially, but our digestion, our organ systems pass that, okay? ⁓ Your immune system listens to your emotions constantly, right? Where do emotions come from? Our brain. Our brain is in charge of all of our other organ systems, right? So if you're anger, grief,

These can act as biochemical triggers signaling danger, shifting your immune response into a hyperactive or overactive even mode. And these chronic immune stressors can over activate inflammation, exhaust the body's repair systems, put you in a place where your body does not repair well, but the immune system may be overactive and start to create auto or self immune activity. There's a lot of nuance to this discussion, but I think it's so important because we here in America,

live in more of a Western medicine model where we view in our traditional hospital systems, ⁓ which are great and helpful for emergent situations. We view organ systems as separate, right? We go to the cardiologist for our heart. We go to the GI doctor for our gut. We go to the neurologist for nerve issues. We go to the pediatrician when it's a kid issue, which that's complicated because they're dealing with all kinds of systems. But the point is we see the body in our ⁓ system as separate ⁓ systems, but the brain is running all of them. The brain is

is directing all of them, right? They all work together. They all interact with one another and emotions can drive limit, over, excite, calm, the immune system. So let's talk about emotions and the immune system specifically. You all know there's my big four. We talk about mold and strep and Lyme and Epstein-Barr. Those are big infectious immune triggers. But when it comes to other immune triggers, things like pregnancy is a great immune trigger in some ways, right?

Elizabeth Mae (2:25.698)

When we become pregnant, the immune system shifts. You have those main sides of the immune. got TH1, the killer side, should kill pathogens when it comes in. ⁓ And then you have TH2, the inflammatory side, the antibody side that helps us to develop memory of pathogens, but also can get out of whack and can become too inflammatory. If you need a recap on this, go back to one of our early episodes. I think it's number three, where I talk about your balanced immune system and what it should be. We really get into the basics of functional immunology there, but

When it comes to the ⁓ emotions in the immune system ⁓ and pregnancy, I kind of want to draw, ⁓ I don't know, a ⁓ similarity here. When we're pregnant, TH1, the killer side shuts down. It should shut down. It should greatly limit. And TH2 takes on more of the immune policing responsibility. Why? ⁓ Because in your belly, you are growing a being that is not of yourself. There's Elizabeth, the immune system protects Elizabeth, and then there's the baby. That's actually non-self. That's not me. That's another being.

And so the immune system's TH1 side calms and quiets during pregnancy so that it does not ⁓ harm ⁓ or get rid of the baby in an attack kind of manner. It calms down. Then when we're done being pregnant, that TH1 attack side of the immune system goes back and comes online, goes back to policing and being a strong equal arm of the immune system. And that should be good balance that's achieved after baby is born. A lot of times women's bodies will struggle.

they won't go back into balance that TH1 killer side won't pick back up and TH2 then starts to try to compensate, deal with more and more. That's when you end up with a lot of inflammation, sometimes autoimmunity that comes up right after pregnancy. It's that immune system still being imbalanced. So there's like a natural place where the immune system reaches good imbalance and then should be coming back to an appropriate balance. But there are other situations that are triggering events. Think about vaccines. Vaccines are a good and helpful thing in some circumstances, right?

The whole function of vaccine is to trigger the immune system to produce immunity against something that it may or may not have seen before, okay? So, you you're gonna trigger the immune system to develop antibodies on that TH2 side, but sometimes when we have a vaccine, it'll create an immune trigger to where we get some imbalance. And there should be some imbalance there for a minute, right? That antibody side should start to develop antibodies in response to it, but sometimes we don't go back into balance, just like with the pregnancy. Antibiotics, especially IV antibiotics.

Elizabeth Mae (4:50.488)

they can really wipe out a lot of our good ⁓ bodily bacteria that is part of our immune system. And then after the antibiotic, maybe the immune system doesn't reach back balance very well. Acute infections, big traumas. You've been in a car accident, you've had a loss of a limb, you've had a major physical issue. Sometimes the immune system struggles to go back to balance there. It may become more inflammatory. Think about someone who's been in a car accident, how much inflammation is recruited appropriately by the body when that body is harmed in a

you know, physical harm of car accident. Think about a worst case scenario where someone's had impact to their head. They've had maybe major cuts, maybe major limb severing, things like that. Inflammation is a good and right process of our immune system to come in and help to patch up repair. I always like to teach about a cut. It's probably the simplest thing. We know we get a cut on our finger, what's gonna happen? There's a little bit of blood. ⁓ Pretty quickly the immune system comes, it gets a little puffy. ⁓ There's clotting that happens, it closes up. The body sends inflammatory.

mediators there to help to deal with inflaming so that we can clean out any bad guys, any bacteria that comes in, the immune system should eat those up, that killer side sends cells and then the area is kind of patched up, it's good to go, the inflammation leaves the site, things get back in balance, right? That's a great example of an immune system appropriately responding with both sides, TH1 killer, TH2 antibody. Another big immune triggering event.

outside of all these infections, vaccines, pregnancy, infections that are more acute or traumatic, ⁓ antibiotics or stressors. And that is huge. And that is really what this whole season is about. We're gonna walk through so many different people's stories who have dealt with stress as a trigger. We're gonna talk with so many practitioners, therapists who have really great tools to offer us when it comes to establishing boundaries ⁓ around the holidays, around relationships. We're gonna look at what do toxic relationships do. ⁓

with the immune system. But the big thing, you know, that I really want to drive home is stressors are all variety, right? Death, big stressor. We're going to talk with a death duel and talk about grief because its interaction with the immune system is profound. Divorce, job loss, moving, these are all big stressors. And I want you too, parents, to think about stressors as different for different ages. Your cat may die, your family cat. A child is going to see that as a big T trauma, if that's their buddy.

Elizabeth Mae (7:12.022)

and they have the processing abilities of a five-year-old because they're five, that may be the biggest, hugest thing in the world and it really rocks their world and can really bring about a lot of sadness and interact with their immune system. Whereas for you and I, we're adults, our cat dies, we're sad. Absolutely, I think I cried for three or four days after my dog died, ⁓ but I'm able to move past that and it doesn't stay as a continual limiting factor in my body. can process that emotion, move past it, ⁓ and we don't see things like that maybe as common of a stressor.

that triggers the immune system, but absolutely totally can still be okay. ⁓ But that's really kind of the ⁓ basis of this is that ⁓ emotions are immune events. The immune system isn't just defensive. We think about the immune system as being there to go and eat up viruses, bacteria when we're exposed to them. Absolutely. That's what TH1 does. That's the killer side working at its best, but ⁓ our immune system isn't just defensive, it's responsive. It reacts to perceived threat.

So whether I'm actually in a car accident or I'm thinking about having been in one, that can actually elicit an inflammatory ⁓ response in my body. So emotion is really the body's language of threat and safety. Think about when you're happy and joyful. Do you often access that state of happy and joy when you don't feel safe? No. Think about when you're stressed or afraid. Are we often stressed or afraid when there's a threat to our safety?

and simultaneously feeling really happy and ⁓ relieved and relaxed and at peace. No, these emotions certainly can come in and come out. But a lot of times when there's safety threat issues, we're feeling more negative, fearful emotions. And then when there's happy ⁓ safety going on, then we're experiencing more of those positive emotions. But I want you to go back to like, what does the immune system's job to do? Its job is to police and make sure that your body stays safe, that your body is not threatened.

whether that's by an impact, an inflammation to your body because you got a concussion in a football game, ⁓ or it is from being exposed to a virus that your kid brought home. The immune system's job is really to respond to stressors. So when it comes to emotions going through the body, when we experience chronic emotional stress, for example, fear, grief, anger, resentment, think about a grievous situation. It's not just when the person dies. A lot of times it's caregiving before then, it's learning about the illness.

Elizabeth Mae (9:32.718)

that the person's developed that will eventually take their life and then it's working through someone's death afterwards. A lot of times it's all the life responsibility things, right? If you're a primary caregiver, death is not just limited to that day, the hour, moment, a person that's important to you has passed. It goes so far beyond that. It goes into funeral arrangements, dealing with all the relational components of a death and a loss, working through someone's estate.

experiencing the will, like handling all the relationships and components ⁓ that are left in that person's, ⁓ after their death season. So an emotional stressor like grief ⁓ isn't just limited to just a small area in this example of death. Same thing with so many other emotions. We can be angry about something right now, but carry that anger with us. And when we're doing that, when we carry those emotions either circumstantially, like in a death, there's all the pieces to go with one.

moment of death or anger ⁓ or fear about something that's coming, ⁓ our body keeps getting the signal that we're in danger. We're in danger. We're in danger. I'm thinking about flying and I'm afraid of flying. think about it every day. I see my trip on the calendar. I think about it before then I start to pack. I start to prepare. I'm thinking about flying every single day. I'm not flying. I'm not on the vacation. I'm not going in the airplane, ⁓ but my thought process and my body continues to experience danger.

It's this ongoing danger signal from whichever emotion it originates that can dysregulate the immune system into imbalance. So TH1 and TH2, TH2 tends to get more ramped up and have more inflammatory response. And then we actually have this other player named TH17. So without going into long epidemiology chit chat, I like to talk about TH17 because it's really like the dumpster fire part of your immune system.

And that's me making short work of it, but really ⁓ TH17, it plays a huge role in autoimmune activity. It's really when the immune system has gone off its rails and we're really in a very inflammatory, continually, constantly ⁓ over-activated state where the immune system is really struggling to maintain any balance or even limiting itself. So this can be really helpful. ⁓ Say we get in a really bad car accident. Let's go back to that, okay?

Elizabeth Mae (11:54.208)

your immune system is going to inflame quite a lot, right? We're gonna have a lot of TH2 activation that's promoting that good and right ⁓ inflammatory response to help swell things up, get mediators in, to patch up the cuts, right? We go back to that simple cut on your finger analogy. ⁓ But TH1 actually can drive TH17 status and TH17 activity really drives that self-tissue destruction. So autoimmunity, now my immune system is not attacking pathogens.

It's not inflaming at a cut or a wound site. It's now attacking my own tissue. And as the immune system is ⁓ in these chronic inflammatory states for a really long time, TH2 then pushes ⁓ TH17 ⁓ into more and more inflammatory activity. And that's where we see autoimmunity really either being on fire, there's a lot of autoimmune activity going on where the immune system is attacking the self, my self tissue, right?

or autoimmunity really starts to be established at this point. So I think the important thing without going too nerdy with you is that I want you to know that your immune system is made to stay in balance. It's made to be a little busy on that TH1 side when my strep throat, four-year-old breeze in my face and strep comes into my body. TH1 should be like, oh, we need to send some cells to go eat up the strep that's coming in so it doesn't make a home in Elizabeth's body and make her sick with strep throat. And there are other times when TH2, I fall and hit my elbow,

I'm going to get some inflammation pain in that elbow for the day or maybe when I do too much exercise and I overextend my ACL and I get a little bit of inflammation there. TH2 comes in, repairs the tissue, inflames for a little bit and then we go back to really nice balance. But when I have ongoing chronic emotional stress, that pushes too much inflammation. TH2 becomes too dominant. TH1, the killer side can relax and say, we don't have enough energy to work. TH2 has taken all the energy. And then that pushes

⁓ TH17 because the body sees, ⁓ there's this ongoing danger signal. We really need to step up our efforts. We need to do more than just inflame. We need to go and try and really clean that out. And then that can start an autoimmune process or it can exacerbate an autoimmune process that's already at play. So you don't think about other players in this immune equation are your stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline. ⁓ Our bodies actually aren't made to have those steroid hormones pumping all the time. ⁓ Great analogy here is when you get sick,

Elizabeth Mae (14:20.046)

and they give you steroids, do they give them to you indefinitely? ⁓ No. They give them to for a period of time. Hey, go use this steroid for two or three weeks and then cut it off. It's gonna help support your body. I have lots of other thoughts about steroid use, so don't hear me saying steroids are my favorite. ⁓ But I want you to understand that your body creates steroid hormones. And cortisol is one of those. Cortisol comes out when we're stressed. Adrenaline, noradrenaline, those things. If we continue with...

production of those ongoing because we have stress response that needs to be continually activated, ⁓ our immune system actually gets suppressed. Parts of the immune system get suppressed and then parts of the immune system are inflamed and over-activated. So this is why emotional dysregulation can lead to this chronic inflammation state, or chronic autoimmune state even. ⁓ So in functional health, when we think about the function of the body, more of an integrated approach, not individual organ systems and specialists for this or that.

we think about the body and how all works together, we see emotional stress as a triggering event. Not only the cause, but the spark that tips the body into imbalance, immune imbalance that then allows these ongoing infections to take root or allows your body to really struggle with appropriate good immunity that should protect you from things you're exposed to. So I think about this when someone is sick over and over and over again, there's something going on there, right? There's some immune imbalance and that's the key.

when autoimmunity is not able to ⁓ really be curbed, we know there's an imbalance in the immune system and the immune system is the problem. It's what needs addressed. There can be all these contributing factors. ⁓ A huge one that we don't talk about enough in our society ⁓ is the emotional component. And I really think that we just don't know. And our traditional medical system kind of has us set up to think that, hey, emotions are separate.

You go to the therapist, you go to a psychotherapist, go to a psychologist for that because you're going to the cardiologist for your heart. You're going to the dermatologist for your skin. ⁓ All of these issues, systems are siloed in our medical system, but really they're all connected. So where does this connection idea come from? There are so many different systems of traditional medicine and in historical things that we can kind of look at and models and other Eastern medicine is great at this. We're going to look at today, the Chinese medicine body clock.

Elizabeth Mae (16:35.682)

So this is one of my favorite things and you all know at Hey Hey May, are all means necessary, all means useful, all means prudent. I'm not gonna ever say we're only using supplements, we're only using herbs, we're only gonna use homeopathy, we're not gonna involve therapy, we're not gonna use EMDR. You're absolutely gonna get a complete and total recommendation from your practitioner because the entire body is involved. And sometimes you need to go to an NET, neuroemotional technique.

therapy experience to release some of those emotions that are limiting your immune system. And so we're going to kind of explore that idea today. And as these weeks of episodes unfold, you're going to get so much exposure to so many people who work in this space. But I want to kind of set the tone ⁓ and just the general idea by looking at the Chinese medicine body clock. So in Chinese medicine, ⁓ each organ system carries both the physical and an emotional function. Okay. This was kind of like the original understanding of like psycho neuro immunology, which is a relatively new term.

But I think this is really a great example, Chinese medicine body clock. ⁓ And we can kind of cross it over into acupuncture, right? Think about the meridians. ⁓ All this stuff goes together, okay? I'm gonna give you a crash course in it, so it won't be a deep dive, but it'll at least get you ⁓ a working knowledge and something to kind of dig into and think about. But ⁓ this psychoneuroimmunology concept is a newer terminology, but it really goes back and connects to these more historical things. So quick teaching, I kind of want you to...

will pop up a nice little Chinese medicine body clock for you in the notes so you can look. You can also Google, you'll find one. They're generally basically all the same thing. And so it really, it speaks to this fact that ⁓ the body has different times of day when certain organ systems ⁓ are working to release, to clean, ⁓ to do its healing or processing time. So the biggest, most familiar one I feel like people ⁓ know about is the liver. So your liver is going to be working between one and three in the morning.

and it's gonna be processing, detoxifying. We already know that we detoxify primarily at night while we sleep. That's a rest and digest function ⁓ that happens when our parasympathetic, our calm side of the nervous system is active. ⁓ So, I kind of branch off from there and you look throughout the day and this body clock has different times when our body is going to ⁓ work on releasing, processing in those organs. So another great example, 1 to 3 p.m. small intestine. What does a small intestine do? Its job is to like sort,

Elizabeth Mae (19:2.816)

absorb food. ⁓ We may have some low energy during that time. That tends to be nap time for a lot of cultures. We've eaten lunch and now our intestines going to go absorb it. And in a lot of cultures, our largest meal was lunch. So small intestine time is in that area. And then later on, the next organ system that's moving is from three to five PM. We have the bladder. We're releasing liquid waste. This is a time where the body is able to have kind of energy restored from the food.

that food is moved through the intestines and out into the body to nourish it. ⁓ Another window would be lungs. I love this one because a lot of times we wake up sometimes ⁓ with whatever worry or grievance or struggle we have going on right now on our mind. Our lungs are processing between 3 and 5 a.m. That also kind of mimics habits, right? In a lot of cultures, people have a quiet time or they do meditation or they do breath work in the morning. That's really in alignment with that organ system, the deep sleep. ⁓

at that time of the morning. You're a lot of dreams, a lot of memory stuff going on from three to five. And our lungs are also detoxifying. They're a detox organ. Now we've got this body clock. So important to think about, you know, times that things are happening. My other fave ⁓ that we can all relate to is that 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. window of large intestine. What is your large intestine's job? Its whole job is to make poop basically, right? Like it's retaining and

keeping as much nutrients as possible absorbing that through the colon ⁓ and forming a stool. When we wake up, what do most people do? You have a great bowel movement in the morning. You're releasing the bowels. We're letting go of everything the body cleaned out overnight in the morning. We have a good poop and we move on into stomach time from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. So you can start to see how this medicine body clock helps us to understand when organ systems are most active. ⁓ Another connection ⁓ is the Chinese modest

⁓ Chinese medicine body clock also mimics ⁓ our natural world, okay? So there are different elements in Chinese medicine. There are five elements. You've got water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Each element is linked to the different organ system. So if you look at a body clock, you've got all the organs around there, the time that they're detoxifying and cleaning, and then those organs are grouped together into these five elements. And each element allows physical symptoms ⁓

Elizabeth Mae (21:26.210)

to kind of show us where maybe there's an elemental imbalance sometimes. So think about it this way. ⁓ In the morning from three, well in the afternoon, sorry, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. we've got bladder and kidney time. Well, we all know what bladder and kidney deals with. They deal with water, right? ⁓ So if I'm having an issue in a ⁓ kiddo who has recurrent UTS, I'm gonna think about what is the afternoon evening looking like for them? Are we hydrating enough during the day so that these organs are able to clear at this time? ⁓

And then I'm going to get into more organ roots too, which we'll talk, or emotional roots, I'm sorry, which we'll talk about here in a second. But another example would be great. Coughing can be indicative of a balance in the metal area of the body. So what's the metal area? That's the lung and large intestine. Sluggish digestion is more associated with earth. So let's kind of talk about this too in terms of like, let's pull back. Let's think about actually these kinds of cycles. So there's a generating cycle of nature and there's

and controlling or degenerating cycles. So let's talk about generating, building up. You can look at the body clock and see how these go around. So water nourishes wood, right? Water helps trees grow. When wood is taken down, it can be burned and fuels fire. So wood fuels fire. Wood organs would be liver, gall, butter, okay? Fire would be like your heart, small intestine, pericardium, those sort of things.

Fire then creates Earth. When we burn a fire, we then have ashes that enrich the soil. Anybody put charcoal in their garden at the end of the year? Me? Yeah. ⁓ Those enrich our soil. And then Earth produces metals. Think about metals as minerals. A lot of... ⁓ We can use these words basically interchangeably. Earth is going to produce metals. Minerals are forming in the Earth, right? And then what do metals do? They actually enrich our water. For thinking about metals as minerals, because a lot of minerals are metals. Interchangeable words.

they're going to enrich our water. Minerals dissolved in your water help you feel what? Great, honestly. So all of these things, there's this generating cycle where we're building up and it mimics nature. And then the organs correlate with what is liver gallbladder. So we can kind of work through these things and make connections a lot of times. The degenerating or controlling breakdown cycle is the elements working in reverse, right? Okay. Wood roots into earth.

Elizabeth Mae (23:43.779)

Well, when a tree has roots, does destroy the earth to some degree. There's a symbiotic relationship, but it's destroying that. Earth can damn water, right? If there's earth in the way of a creek, it will damn the water and the water can no longer go there. The water has to find another way. Water extinguishes fire. That's an easy win. Water puts out the fire. ⁓ Fire can melt metal, right? Think about ⁓ how do we even move metal? How do we change its shape? It has to have fire to do that. ⁓ And then metal can cut wood. Metal can be really, really hard.

when it's not on fire, it's not melted ⁓ and it can cut wood. And then we're back to wood roots earth. So there's these cycles ⁓ of natural elements that mimic and are connected to our physical elements. Okay. So let's branch over into the organs and the emotions portion because this ⁓ can be so eye-opening for so many people ⁓ because we can start to see how emotions are connected to particular organs. I love to start in the gallbladder liver. Okay. So this is going to be like your wood.

component and emotions there are to be resentment, anger, irrational, frustrated, aggressive, emotionally repressed, indecisive. A lot of times when people are working through something they're mad about or trying to like figure out the solution, when are you waking up? In the middle of the night worrying about your thing you're mad about. And that's the liver gallbladder time per the clock. A lot of times we're going to wake up from one to three a.m. and that's going to be

⁓ liver time, our gallbladder, we can wake up from 11 to like 1 and feel kind of nauseated and blah and just kind of like just annoyed, stubborn, ⁓ depressed, things like that. ⁓ And those can be connected to the gallbladder. So let's talk through some more emotions. ⁓ Lungs, lungs and grief. That's a huge one. We see it so often, right? A lot of people, older people, they lose a spouse, they lose a friend. What happens next? They catch a cold. Then they have a respiratory thing.

How many times have you gone to the funeral home and people are coughing and there's respiratory issues going on? Lungs and grief are so connected and whether that's like sadness and grief of loss or there's sadness and yearning and wanting or there's kind of like anguish and being ⁓ a bit indecisive and like kind of stressed over grief, ⁓ lungs have a connection there and our lungs can also be a part of letting go. ⁓ So in a season when there's divorce, that's still grief and letting go.

Elizabeth Mae (26:10.542)

A lot of times we'll see skin, breath, immune imbalance in that way. So a lot times we want to think about these things and it's really interesting to provide care for people over several months because lots of things happen to people they don't expect during care, but things happen to kids too, right? I'm trying to think of some client stories. Recently I had a little girl who's having diarrhea and having a sore throat and doesn't want to go to school and it's really...

upset about friends and just like does not want to go to school stubborn about it and really just kind of like depressed overall and more reserved not herself. ⁓ When we got to it there's a little infection going on. She wasn't detoxing well her body was trying to push out some stool in the form of diarrhea. She would get upset and then back to her ⁓ stubborn position but there was something that had like scared her made her mad at school.

And then there was a little illness that set in and then that kind of emotional triad crossed over with her body. And as we supported the liver and clearance ⁓ detoxification, because that's what our liver does, is it processes things. She moved right back into her little normal, joyful, happy self. But you can see how the emotions sort of came up at the same time. ⁓ I think the stomach's like such a good example of this ⁓ because our stomach is connected to like worry and overthinking. OK, how often is a kid like

You say, we're going to, you're going to get ready to go to school tomorrow. My belly hurts. Or you're to get ready to go do a chore. I don't feel good. I got to go to the bathroom. That's legitimate often because our stomachs explain are connected to worry, overthinking, disgust, um, stifled. I don't want to do this. Those sorts of things. Okay. So when we think about something worrying us, sometimes our belly can hurt, right?

What's going on? We were nervous. We were worried. Now my belly hurts? That just proves me right there. How our organ systems are connected to our feelings. Feelings can prompt them and when an organ system struggling, we can also have feelings that go along with that. Thyroid and adrenals are a huge one. Women leaving destructive marriages or abusive situations, men as well, the thyroid and adrenals often struggle. Why? The thyroid has a lot to do with your voice. Your thyroid's a little butterfly-shaped organ in your throat.

Elizabeth Mae (28:29.216)

metabolism type functions, so your heart rate, your body temperature, those sorts of things. ⁓ And when the thyroid is struggling, a lot of times there's an issue with voice. We're not able to speak up. We're not able to say, this is what I need, want, et cetera. This is who I am. Whatever it may be, we're not able to speak. ⁓ Adrenals, what do they do? Their little organ sits on top of our kidney. They are a stress organ. produce cortisol. They also produce DHEA, which can be building up. So they're either build up or break down.

When we're in stressful situations, those adrenals really struggle and we can see somebody deal with more of emotional symptoms of that where there's just like muddled thinking. really can't like choose one way or the other. Think about somebody who's trying to leave an abusive situation. There's that back and forth. I don't know what to do. I'm just stressed out. can't like I'm sad about this, but I also want to stay, but I'm hopeful about the future. There's this back and forth muddled thinking. Can't figure it out. Can't use my voice. That's thyroid adrenals. That's in that.

fire quadrant. I'm just really, really interesting how these organ systems have connected things. Think about your heart, okay? Blood circulation, high energy, the time for the heart is like 11 to 1. A lot of times we work out in the morning, we exercise, take a walk after lunch, we get circulation going, but when it comes to the heart responding emotionally, what do we have? Frightfully overjoyed? What does that mean? We can be really joyful.

We can also be afraid and the heart can respond. Joy and connection are also a big part of the heart being healthy and nourished, okay? So disconnection can lead to anxiety. It can lead to insomnia. We can even have circulation issues when we're disconnected from other people. ⁓ So a lot of times when we're working with a client and they have these organ system weaknesses, we do the work of digging in and seeing like, ⁓ are there issues? We had a woman one time, ⁓ she had a chronic.

Okay, we're gonna look for physical contributors. We're gonna look and see is there reflux, is there heartburn, is there mold in her environment, is there some sort of toxicity, has she had a past respiratory illness that was really difficult ⁓ on her respiratory system? No. Her husband had passed a couple months before and she was carrying this cough and it got worse and it got worse and she was just kind of like stuck with it. Well, lungs can have connection to grief. So, you know, you can kind of see how things

Elizabeth Mae (30:55.916)

Maybe the grief wasn't the cause, but it was exacerbating. It was a block for her to not get better. Think about too, how much your brain tells your body what to do, right? ⁓ Someone's a pain in your neck. ⁓ that person was a pain in my neck. How often do you end up with like a legitimate pain in your neck? That's a pain in my back. ⁓ Oftentimes we will say these things and our brain does inform our organs. ⁓ Somebody talks about having a stomach bug. We talk about, does it make your belly hurt? Yeah.

because your brain is connected to that organ system and there's a feelings connection going on there. So the things I want you to take away from the Chinese medicine body clock are each organ has its time, that it's healing. So if we're waking up at 3 a.m., maybe that's connected to our liver, detox, anger patterns, okay? And when our emotions are not processed, the organ that they live in and are connected to, that organ will start speaking for them, if you will. So if you're not processing your anger,

A of times I'm gonna see liver issues. I'm gonna see gallbladder. I don't feel very good. I feel groggy. I feel nauseated. I have gallbladder attacks. Is it always that? No, it's a lot of times everything knotted up together because your body is knotted up together. It's not this Western philosophy of like these siloed body systems. Everything's connected and your brain deals with your emotions. You're processing understanding of them, but also your physical organs. When somebody's ⁓

talking about a friend that they've lost. What happens? my heart is so happy for them. Why? Your heart is a joy connection, connection to other people organ. When you're disconnected from others, the heart can kind of feel that. So ⁓ another fun thing I kind of want to branch over and bring into this discussion, things for you to explore and think about ⁓ is Ines Sengholz work. She wrote The Secret Language of Your Body, several other books in this kind of same thinking. ⁓ But the

The purpose of it is that she offers practical insight into this emotion and symptom mapping in both ways. You can kind of look through her readings and see that there are different physical symptoms that carry emotional messages. ⁓ So like a few examples could be that throat condition where if we've got throat or thyroid issues, there's a holding back of truth, not speaking up, holding back of emotion even. How often do you swallow an emotion and then you kind of get this like clogged up in your throat feel, can't talk.

Elizabeth Mae (33:17.816)

That's where emotions in the body are connecting. Skin conditions, a lot of times are around boundaries. Your skin is literally the physical boundary between your body and the world. The skin will be the first thing to react oftentimes ⁓ if we're in environmental toxin situations, right? You have a little contact dermatitis. What is that? That's where your skin contacted something that was not healthy for it and the skin reacted. The skin is the boundary, it's trying to keep out of your body.

⁓ You put your hand on a big old patch of mold on a wall, you're gonna get a little rashing. That's your body protecting you from that, trying to move that out. ⁓ But I love, I just love her book and it's always a good place to think about and contemplate is there an emotional connection. So lungs, let me just read you a nice little example. Possible contributing factors, sad, yearning, weepy, anguish, tired, suppressed, difficulty expressing or standing up for yourself.

A propensity to put others needs and desires first and to overdo things until you run out of breath. Inability to say no. Sometimes lungs have a lot more to do with feeling smothered or overprotected. Difficulty being independent, confused or cloudy thinking. A constant need for encouragement and support. So sometimes these things, you know, can have really like illuminating connections where someone's struggling with this particular organ system. And then there's actually, you know, moving into like infections. ⁓

when we see somebody who's struggling ⁓ with, let's read one here. Blisters, pushing past your limits, not listening to or honoring your body. Too caught up in stresses and worries of the outside world. When I think of blisters, the first thing I think of is a cold sore. The second thing I think of is shingles blisters. When do both of those things come along? When we're stressed, when we're doing too much, when we're pushing too hard past our limits. ⁓ Our body struggles, the immune system loses strength.

to keep those infections, shingles comes from herpes varicella zoster, ⁓ cold sores comes from ⁓ herpes simplex one, the immune system killer side can't keep those infections in dormancy ⁓ and we've run ourselves ragged and now we've got a cold sore or we're having a shingles flare. So emotions ⁓ and our physical expressions, our immune response are totally connected. ⁓ It's not really metaphors really, you know, like, ⁓

Elizabeth Mae (35:37.134)

the emotions, I'm swallowing down my emotions like that got me choked up emotionally. Okay, well what's going on? Your throat's involved in that. It's not really a metaphor. It's just these are patterns that we see every day in practice and a lot of times you can kind of tease apart triggering events or we can tease apart limiting factors for a body from the emotional world. So, Eno's book's really great. I really, really love to, there's a lot of meditations for different body systems because remember your brain as much as it's triggered by your emotions,

your brain can also push forward body restoration, healthy systems, healthy processes. So one of the things that is part of our immune meditation that we have for clients is really talking about like my immune system is strong. It knows what is me and what is the world. My body and my mind make good choices. I draw good boundaries so that my immune system knows what is me and what is someone else's job. So it's really interesting we can flip these things.

and use these telltale signs to also restore. And we'll get into this too. We'll talk with a neuroemotional technique therapist who uses this practice to help the body let go of emotions that are blocking physical systems. So it all goes together. like one big knot. It's not these siloed systems. ⁓ And I think the big thing that I want you to take away today is one, your immune system is always listening to your emotional state, okay? So when it comes to sensing safety, your body's able to heal. We don't heal.

in a state where we're alarmed or unsafe. When the body senses danger, it defends. It defends with an overactive immune system. That can be great. When the body is in danger and someone around me is sick, my body's immune system should be a little more active, patrol a little bit more. That's what we want. But we want that danger season to have a quick end to it so that the body can then go back to a nice level patrolling and a nice sense of safety so it's always building and healing. ⁓ This week, I want you guys to notice

How does your body feel ⁓ when you're strong emotions? How does your body feel even watching someone else feel strong emotions? There's a lot of empathy in the equation and sometimes it's about ⁓ starting to notice when our kids get really upset, how does it make you feel? What emotions do you feel? Do you take some of that on? Does it prompt physical, does your belly start to hurt? Do you feel a little ⁓ imbalanced or fearful, whatever it may be. ⁓ And then ⁓ I want you listening, I want you observing, not to fix it, okay, we're just observing.

Elizabeth Mae (38:0.556)

We're listening to our body, ⁓ whether that's listening to my body and the feelings it feels for me, or listening and observing my body's response to someone else's emotional experience. I want you to start just seeing how does your body feel when it's experiencing strong emotions. And as we move on through the week, you're going to get to hear from lots of different practitioners and parents who've seen emotional healing change physical symptoms, who have wonderful tools for us to release emotions, ⁓ have wonderful tools to us to ⁓ build good boundaries.

to see in real life stories where emotions have prompted illness or healthy emotions have brought about healing from everything from infections to autoimmunity to anxiety, feelings, and our physical responses are really connected. And I'm so excited to share with you so many of the modalities and the wonderful practitioners that we get to refer clients to that we get to work with. ⁓ And I'm just really excited for you guys even to learn today that the Chinese medicine body clock exists.

that there are times during the day that your organ systems will clean house, ⁓ and that there are ways to optimize our systems through working with our brain. And it's not just all happenstance that you get sick. Our immune system's absolutely informed by our emotions, and we can carry that into this winter to have a more healthy, happy winter with our families. And I'm just really excited to share so much with you guys in the coming weeks. So come back, join us, ⁓ learn a lot about emotions and your immune connection.