Does Hypothyroidism Cause Stress?

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Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormones. Low thyroid hormone production, or hypothyroidism, causes a range of symptoms, such as fatigue, constipation, dry skin and brittle nails, aches and pains, and feeling down. You might easily attribute hypothyroidism symptoms to other health problems. Moreover, hypothyroidism is especially common in women.

Stress

The adrenals are two walnut-shaped glands that sit atop the kidneys. They secrete hormones – such as cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine – that regulate the stress response. But these hormones play other crucial roles, many of which are directly related to thyroid health. In fact, as we’ll see in this article, proper thyroid function depends on healthy adrenal glands.

But other factors not commonly considered when people think of “stress” place just as much of a burden on the adrenal glands. These include blood sugar swings, gut dysfunction, food intolerances (especially gluten), chronic infections, environmental toxins, autoimmune problems and inflammation. All of these conditions sound the alarm bells and cause the adrenals to pump out more stress hormones. In this context, stress is broadly defined as anything that disturbs the body’s natural balance (homeostasis). Adrenal stress is probably the most common problem we encounter in functional medicine, because nearly everyone is dealing with at least one of the factors listed above. Symptoms of adrenal stress are diverse and nonspecific, because the adrenals affect every system in the body. But some of the more common symptoms are:

Fatigue
Headaches
Difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep and waking up
Mood swings
Sugar and caffeine cravings
Irritability or lightheadedness between meals
Eating to relieve fatigue
Dizziness when moving from sitting or lying to standing
Gastric ulcers

The relationship between hypothyroidism and stress

A delicate balance between stress hormones and cortisol must exist for proper thyroid function. If this delicate balance changes, your thyroid symptoms may increase. The most important interactions between stress and hypothyroidism include:

Cortisol, the main hormone produced in response to stress, can suppress pituitary function and keep the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) from being released, thereby inducing hypothyroidism.
Stress can affect memory and other cognitive functions, but people with hypothyroidism who are also under stress may experience more severe cognitive issues.
The impact of stress on the thyroid occurs by slowing your body’s metabolism. This is another way that stress and weight gain are linked. When thyroid function slows during stress, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) hormone levels fall.
The most significant indirect effect the adrenals have on thyroid function is via their influence on blood sugar. High or low cortisol – caused by any of the chronic stressors listed above – can cause hypoglycemica, hyperglycemia or both. And as we saw in a previous article, blood sugar imbalances cause hypothyroid symptoms in a variety of ways.
Stress may exacerbate an underlying thyroid condition. For example, say hypothyroidism runs in your family. Under stress, your body releases the hormone cortisol. Too much cortisol can interfere with thyroid hormone production: It can stimulate the thyroid to work harder to create sufficient amounts of thyroid hormone. Also, when stressed, you’re more vulnerable to autoimmune thyroid conditions (eg, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis). stress is one of the environmental factors for thyroid autoimmunity.