Hormone Harmony: Imprints Within part 1.

Why hormones are so much more than the reproductive system, pms and menopause, and how to work with your hormones no matter where you are at in your life.

In today’s blog i would like to share with you an intricate orchestra within the body, our hormones! And before i share how i work with hormones, i would like for you to get into my head a little bit and see how i visualize hormones. Our hormones are like a symphony it requires a conductor, tuning, and multiple players that work together in sync. Hormones are controlled be our nervous system and then released into the blood to reach the endocrine glands of the body. It’s interesting that we ignore the hormones when thinking about overall health, when hormones runs through the entire body. What’s important to understand here is our hormones desire to be in harmony with each other, meaning balanced yet regulated.

That can be a tricky task for the endocrine system considering there is so much incoming and out going from the body on a daily based, as I’ve spoken about in other blog posts.

The journey to hormone-driven wellness begins with understanding the dance our hormones play and what you can do today to make a habit of being in-tune with your hormone health.

When your glands especially your HPA Axis has harmony, your body’s nervous system functions optimally, think stress resilience, digestion, mood, sleep, and relationships with others. Mind, body, soul, right. But we known that the endocrine can get disrupted, by beauty products, cleaning products, the demands and habits of modern life, and other factors can disrupt this delicate balance.

In my most recent ebook, 5 Ways to be in Harmony with Your Hormone-Driven Wellness, I touched upon the foundational concepts of hormone harmony, giving your doses of hormonal support.

  • Adrenal health and why it matters
  • Antioxidants and how they help
  • Hydrate
  • Blood-Sugar Hacks
  • Detoxification and why it matters

Now when i say hormone health you’re likely thinking about pms, menses thoughts sorts of things.

No. For me and my personal journey with hormone health it was about struggling with insomnia, unregulated nervous system, and my circadian clock completely out of whack. My Hormones were ran by my adrenals, the little caps that sit atop of my kidney’s – these little glands also took over my thyroid. Notice how they were not in harmony but desired to work together in an imbalance. Everything was wonky for me, especially after 3 kids all 2 years apart. For a handful of years i chalked it up to just being a mom, a busy mom with littles. But no, i knew something wasn’t in harmony. Especially after my third was starting to sleep through the night, i was not. My internal rhythm not in rhythm.

Stay tuned for part two of this series where we touch up the delicate interplay of the pineal gland and pituitary gland. That all important HPA Axis, they are the starting poring of your journey towards hormone harmony. Then journey through dance of glands that contribute to your vitality. From the thyroid’s graceful rhythm to the adrenal’s tempo, each gland holds a unique note in the symphony that is your well-being.

As we embrace this journey towards hormone-driven wellness, remember that each insight gained, each concept understood, is a note that contributes to the symphony of your hormone-driven wellness. If you’re eager to explore further and unveil the entire symphony, I invite you to discover the wisdom within my ebook – a comprehensive guide to nurturing hormonal balance and well-being.

Subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to know when the next chapter is released!

Kassandra Rietema

Health [re]imagined

Environmental Impact: Unlocking the imprints

Welcome back to the blog!! Have you ever wished, if only you could go back in time to figure out why or what created that inflammation, the pain, the discomfort; would you? Sit back and lean in because this is the Functional Model and Frequency Therapy combined! The good news? You still have the opportunity to recreate and reimagine!

Functional Nutrition is more than what you eat, more than your supplements and your lifestyle rituals. Id like to take you through some of my story and how I combine the functions of the body and the frequencies of the body together to support my clients individual needs.

When a client comes to see me there is always a pain point, for me it all started back in 2013, i had a sensitive to gluten, my bowels were irritable, i was irritable. I was struggling with depression and anxiety, chronic fatigue and insomnia. I was weak and stress and just wanted to sleep.

When a client comes to my i want to know more about them and their history, not only their health history but their relationships with them self and the world around them.

In 2013 i had a number of things happening within my life, i had previously left an abusive relationship, i had a family member in and out of jail and struggling with addiction and another family member who one day snapped into a mental state that i took very personally and i aloud it to affect me, to come into my “backyard”. A term i had learnt years later when seeing a counsellor who had painted a visual for me about what i was allowing in my environment and that I required boundaries around for my own healing to occur.

It was a few years later when i connected the dots with my health issues and the environment, but I didn’t know, yet, what to do about it. I was sitting in a lecture studying The theory of Ecological Human Development, where the theorists Urie Bronfrenbrenner took the systems of ”environments” and nestled them together to co-exist with each other. 

We are like nesting dolls we have all of these environments, the experiences we have, the food we eat, the people we are in community with, the culture we live in put “imprints” on out body.

I had shared with you the abusive relationship, typing this, my cells still have a resonance frequency to that data and while im already being quite honest, whats key to share is my body starts experiencing those same symptoms i used to feel back then, my stomach twisting and turning, and my throat became hyper active, pulsing and tightening (how hyperthyroidism was expressing inside me)

Your body holds frequencies that can be low frequencies like anger, fear, and loneliness. Yet, your body can also hold high frequency of love, joy, happiness and so on. Our environment has a way of manipulating the level of frequency we are in. For example when i was still living with mental health issues, i was still in a low frequency. Yet when i did something that motivated it raised my frequency. The body, when it experiences trauma, or in my case life event after life event, my body was in resonance with a low frequency it didn’t know how to stay in harmony, or balance. My body knew what low felt like, and it was comfortable there. It was familiar with high frequencies and was desperate to feel those frequencies, but it didn’t know how to find it on its own.

This is why in some culture, to help support a persons healing they have song and dance, to have sound therapy and movement therapy. I’ve seen some psychologists do sensory therapy. These tools are used to actually move that trauma or illness out of the body. Thema Bryant in her TedTalk on Decolonize Psychology goes into detail about how she believes Mental Health Care professionals need to move away from the Counselling and into the Healing process. When we start to bring everything together rather an in isolation, that’s when healing begins.

The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.

-Thomas Edison

Sound therapy is nutrition for the body, frequency therapy is nutrition for the body — It was in 2019 when I experienced Frequency Therapy, i was looking for a way to support my body, I had been able to support my digestion to some degree but I had learned that what my muscles were responding to parasites. You can learn more about Leonard Carter and his work with muscle testing and frequency therapy. His experiments are a big component to why I now mix frequency therapy into my functional nutrition. It just took me sometime to connect the dots! How me to explain.

Around the same time as the frequency therapy i had also started some EMDR working for my past traumas. So at the same time i was working on my body, i was also working on my emotions. Because i was the person healing I didn’t really have a perception of how i was doing all the work simultaneously, i was seeing certain supports for single reasons but not in harmony. It was in a Sound Bath i was studying the systems of the body, and using a biofeedback scanner for my family to emit frequency therapies that i finally seen how i could reimagine the body.

When i had the Birds Eye view that everything needs to be treated together. Mind – Body and Soul and not just whats present, but what was, and keeps showing up. Your ecosystem expands far, yet it is so microscope within your cells.

“the realization that nothing in biology acts alone or is in isolation. Everything Functions in partnership, sometimes synergistically, sometimes in opposition, yet always in alliance.” – Andrea Nakayama 

In conclusion you can consider the lifestyle impacts. because everything you’re experiencing health wise (mentally and physically) has a thread, often multiple. Our thoughts become thing, and we can change a thought in an instant, because that taught is an energy circuit firing within you that holds data and emotion. And the data and emotion have impact.

Each person, each situation, is tied to a story, and yet the daily habits, and lifestyle and environmental can potentially “pull the trigger’. So tell your story, it matters, move your body to a state of harmony and balance, because your body knows high and it knows low. Tune into the symptoms of your body.

This is not medical advice, please consult your physician for any health related concerns.

Relax and Renew: The Art of Rest and Digest

“No matter how good the diet is, if we are not absorbing the diet is pointless”

Ooouf I almost fell off my chair the first time I heard this!! What does it even mean? Would you agree, the right foods are like “medicine” for our body and we want to be able to absorb it nutrients, the vitamins and minerals, right? Functional Nutrition is about seeing how the systems of the body communicate together, we have the immune system of the gut and the gut’s mucosa for assimilation and absorption which shouldn’t be ignored in improving absorption, but we can also think about digestion and the Nervous system!

Maybe you’ve heard about the nerve that corresponds with our gut, brain, hormones and immune system! The Vagus Nerve aka The Gut-Brain Axis, a bidirectional nerve that wanders from the brain stem down into the digestive system and wanders back up to the brain! Bidirectional means this nerve is not a one way ticket, nerve impulses are sent from both organs. There’s more, the impulses have purposes to release a key components, one called Hydrochloric Acid (HCL) because our stomach is meant to have a PH balance that is nice and acidic, one reason is to help fight off invaders that we’ve been exposed that passed our first barrier systems, such as bad bacteria!

Mental Health and the guts microbiome have been a hot topic on social media! The Viral Happy Juice, for example consists of ingredients to help restore the guts integrity but also soothe and calm down the GI with things like Ginger and Artichoke leaf.

It makes sense then that if we notice the gut being soothed we would also see the nervous system firing off more calmly! For example in an article it was found that Gut dysbiosis and its relation to neurotransmitter disruptions seen in clinical depression, connects gut microbiota with mood. Moreover, it goes on to speak about gut integrity + inflammation = stress

Or we can look at this backwards: stress = inflammation + weak gut integrity.

Remember is bidirectional!

The Gut-Brain Axis: Influence of Microbiota on Mood and Mental Health. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2018 Aug;17(4):28-32. PMID: 31043907; PMCID: PMC6469458.

6 ways we strengthen the vagus nerve

  • humming or gargling for 2 minutes throughout the day
  • Tapping techniques – the meridians are the representation of the nervous system, there’s two places you can start:
    • the collar bone where the small intestine meridian runs (the vagus nerve)
    • the nap of the neck (just along the hair line) and gently knocking up to the crown of the head to the forehead (third eye)
  • Rubbing your belly in a question mark direction
  • Chiropractor adjustments
  • Yoga twist and incorporating squats
  • Also consider looking at an emotion wheel or getting an Inner-Voice Scan done to pin point common emotions for example practicing compassion and forgiveness
    • my favourite essential oil for this is called “Forgiveness” by DoTerra

Other things to consider!

Grab my gut restoration guide here and my anti-inflammatory ebook here

  • DON’T OVEREAT
    • It requires the body to expend a lot of energy and forces the body to try to use too many nutrients at once.
  • TAKE TIME FOR GRATITUDE
    • When you take a few moments before you eat to pause and reflect, either with blessings
      or gratitude, you are activating brain signals to release saliva, a key to proper digestion.
  • BOOST STOMACH ACID
    • Many people have low stomach acid. Heart- burn, belching or gas, fatigue, headaches and much more can all be a result of low stomach acid.g
      • freshly-squeezed lemon juice to your water
      • drinking one tablespoon of raw fermented apple cider vinegar in water each morning.
      • Water for digestion, especially for the health of the mucosal lining, which supports the small intestine bacteria for proper digestion and absorption of nutrients.
        • Lack of water in the digestive system can result in ulcers, indigestion, heart- burn, fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, and constipation.
  • PROBIOTICS
    • We need good bacteria to strengthen the immune system, reduce chronic inflamma- tion, help remedy leaky gut and more.
      • You can introduce probiotics with supplements
      • with raw fermented foods like sauerkraut or coconut kefir.

The Inevitable Toxins, Understanding body burdens and what’s in our control

We all have toxin in us and no doubt the world has more toxins than there needs to be. Some of this we can do little about. I get it, that awareness to how much is really unnecessary can be frustrating, but there are some effective things we can do that are within our immediate control.

Be mindful, the words toxins and detox are marketing buzz words there’s all these fancy things on the market, instead there’s a handful of easy, low-cost or free thing you can do on your own right away.

Toxin literally interfere with our bodies hormones, they are endocrine disrupting, and affecting our organs and tissue. Phthalates for example are a chemical often in Fragrances (perfumes, scents), that can be disruptive to the delicate hormonal system and have many impacts like infertility, breast cancer, heart disease, insulin resistance. Fragrances can also trigger headaches, asthma, allergies and more!

When I was prepping my first child’s newborn nursery, i was looking into laundry detergent + skin care because it was suggested that baby might need something more “gentle”! That seriously sparked a handful of curious questions:

  • If it’s not safe for my babies skin, is this really safe for my skin?
  • What is it about these ingredients that make it not safe?
  • What else, other than the skin, is it irritating?

Here’s the dirty little secret, I mentioned earlier that the world is far more toxic than it needs to be, the Centre for Disease Control found that 98% of the population had these chemicals within their body. So this is where it started to sink in for me — the body is actually storing those chemicals and the chemical can mimic or disrupt the endocrine system, consider what this means for overall health.

The immune system and our skin, at any and every age is a barrier for our body.

  • The skin, our largest organ has many points of exposure the outer layer of our body, the respiratory tract, the digestive tract and the reproductive system
  • This organ, the skin is a barrier, its what protects us!
    • A cut, for example, the immune system responds with things like swelling, redness, pain
  • Like the cut, the immune system is responding to the exposure of toxins that have made contact to the nose, eyes, skin, mouth, and so on – we see or feel this, as pain, heat, redness + swelling.

The immune system is liken to an airport it doesn’t just operate in the skin, it’s responsible for far more and it has a job to do – defend + protect – that sounds exhausting for the body in terms of all these toxic exposures, doesn’t it? Grab my Immune Busters Ebook here. When we use food as medicine we can help reduce oxidative stress, support energy production and the bodies natural detoxification process.

When I was consulting for a Norwegian Cleaning company, customers would ask me, does it really matter what i clean with? Is it really affecting my body — this is such a loaded question no pun intended!

What in the world can we do about it immediately without getting overwhelmed?

  • Avoid those perfumes + fragrances
  • Clean up personal care products
    • Our skin is our largest organ, many chemicals used in our personal care products do get absorbed through out the skin and make their way into the bloodstream
    • Chemicals in personal care products are linked to hormonal changes
  • Avoid plastic containers
    • Many types of plastic containers leach endocrine disrupting chemicals – store leftovers in class containers vs plastic
  • Consider the consumption of organic, pasture raised, and primarily wild-caught seafood
    • Persistent organic pollutants found in animal foods are much harder for the body to detoxify. Also considering that, conventional raised meats and farm raised seafoods often contain pesticide and antibiotic residue

What’s next: up-level your immune system

What can we do beyond avoidance and swapping out products? What does my body need to eliminate the burdens AND strength the cells, while up-levelling the immune system. Grab it here – my E-book Immune and Inflammation Busters and start strengthening your lifestyle!

  • grab foods high in zinc
    • Meat, shellfish, nut + seeds, lentils
  • Fermented foods (probiotics)
    • kimchi, kefir, yogurt, kombucha
  • Healing Spices
  • Vit C-Rich foods
  • Fluids

One step at a time: a piece of my story

I’m the kind of person that embraces opportunities, a yes person but – a while ago I was experiencing my own mental health turning point – it was a long time in the making TBH. I went back to work after becoming a mother for the first time. I was newly pregnant, with my now daughter, and my hormones were EVERYWHERE…

I had attempted staying at home with my son but I always felt I needed to be contributing to more (my go-go personality) i was volunteering and even had a side hustle in Safer Beauty, ditching the no-no’s

and then … I hired a health coach and left my job. YUPPPPP things unfolded quickly. But my Health Coach had my back she introduced me to essential oils to ground me, to support my mental health, and how to bring in consciousnesses into my day as a new mom. It all sparked a fire, especially the plant medicine

What was happening is I was being completely dismantled, as a new mom, stripped of my ego to care for myself, my growing baby and son.

About a year later, still dabbling into mindset, and wellness except this from an environmental perspective, I started sharing eco friendly cleaning products and it took me on this adventure of “ok I got this”. I grew a networking community to share and educate sustainable living…

Two years in, I had rehired my health coach to mentor me, I had already dabbled into conferences and trainings, by this time I was saying yes as a student! I knew that I wanted to explore health from the inside out and the outside in, I knew that everything was connected i just didn’t know HOW to explain it all! The Essential Oils, the Safer Beauty, my past with IBS and celiac, my mental health, my nutrition and the side bar of my oldest sons health!

The picture I’m painting for you is this, everything was happening in steps. I was moving closer to where i am today. Was it frustrating at times, heck yes! — I was learning about the health and wellness industry as a new mom and not only making my house a safe haven but I was learning how to network, build community and create a business routine.

Hi, I am Kassandra! A Certified Functional Nutrition Counsellor, what does that even mean???

When I work with clients we in a sense paint a full picture of your health. We look at the full body from a functioning standpoint – what is the body doing AND how does it respond if we do XYZ. During simultaneously we crafting a program together with tools, resources and knowledge to best support your health journey. I assess you, recommend and track, our bodies can be mysterious!

I’m so excited your here + make sure you subscribe to my blog and email list for future updates & projects 🫶

Follow me on INSTAGRAM @kassandra.rietema

The Integrity of our Digestion

Can digestion really affect our immune system?

To explore this question further lets look functionally, and what we can do about it. What does it mean to have good gut integrity? Whats the immune systems role? The immune system is like a football game, there are defence and offence but they interact together to make a play. The immune system is 70% of the players on the football field. When we zoom in microscopically to that field, and direct our view into our digestive system we find a barrier systems for our body. The barriers we want for a good performance, to have integrity are:

  • the acidity in our stomach
  • Good Bacteria these are our knights
  • Tight gap junctions along our stomach wall

These three components are a small make up of how our digestive system is working for our body, to protect and to equip with vitamins and minerals to feed the immune system energy. I like to use a unique test kit to give insight into what this looks like over a period of 15 days, you can grab that here and to save on your kit use promotion code | KASSANDRA10 at checkout — in addition there is an app that comes with the kit that suggests for you a healthy lifestyle practices, tracking and empowering you to make healthy choices.

I mentioned early that 70% of our immune system is in our gut, so it makes sense that when we eat something that our barrier system cannot “tolerate” the immune system will respond on attack. Our skin shows the immune system at work through the expression of eczema, hives, rashes or acne. These are the less hidden symptoms. In my gut restoration program we go through a series of symptoms to look for, I encourage you to

be a detective

of your symptoms!

You can grab my guide to gut restoration to empower you be that detective and understand what your bioindividual self requires to live in harmony.

Functional Healing – Kassandra Rietema CFNC

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