Magdalena Wszelaki, founder of Hormones Balance, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.
Is Coffee Your Hidden Anxiety Trigger and How to Substitute It with Delicious and Healing Drinks
- Caffeine, anxiety and panic attacks and our genetics
- How coffee impacts blood sugar and increases sugar cravings
- Coffee: the gut, adrenals, sex hormones and the thyroid
- Is decaf ok?
- How to use chicory, dandelion, carob and reishi as great alternatives
- Rooibos and tulsi/holy basil as anti-stress herbal teas
Here are some gems from our interview:
If you’re having type 2 adrenal fatigue so that means sometimes it’s s super high. Your adrenals are pumping out too much cortisol. Sometimes it’s too low, sometimes it’s just okay. You can get that done through testing – hormone testing, saliva testing with cortisol. The issue is that in times of low cortisol release you’re going to be pretty brain dead and this is when we want to bring the cortisol level up with coffee.
The problem is the adrenals are already exhausted and that’s the reason why they are firing off with the wrong timing. Sometimes it’s too high, sometimes it’s too low. Women who have this “I’m tired and wired” thing going on late at night where they’re just lying in bed exhausted, can’t fall asleep. That’s very often adrenal fatigue stage 2 with higher cortisol levels at night. And so this is where coffee just exhausts your adrenals even further. So you might get that instant release as in like you’re getting this clarity in your head. You’re getting that energy to get through the day. But in the long term coffee is really going to just exhaust the adrenals to the maximum.
Here are some of the studies on anxiety and coffee discussed in the interview:
Caffeine can cause anxiety and panic attacks. This study showed that people with panic disorder and social anxiety may be more sensitive to the anxiety-causing effects of caffeine.
In this paper, Caffeine abstention in the management of anxiety disorders, the participants had generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. They had been on medication and they’d been on therapy and they drank one-and-a-half to three-and-a-half cups of coffee a day. None of them had benefitted from either the therapy or the medication. When they stopped the coffee within a week the anxiety disappeared.
Here are additional studies we discussed:
- Coffee and gastrointestinal function: facts and fiction. A review.
- Caffeine as an intensifier of stress-induced hormonal and pathophysiologic changes in mice
- Maternal caffeine consumption during pregnancy and the risk of miscarriage: a prospective cohort study
- Caffeine and caffeinated beverage consumption and fecundability in a preconception cohort
- Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed.
Here is Magdalena’s recipe for ROASTED CHICORY ROOT LATTE
Time to prepare: 15 minutes; Time to steep: 10minutes; Serves: 1; Equipment: blender
Ingredients
1 tbsp roasted chicory root
2 cups water
1 tbsp ghee, coconut butter or butter (if tolerated)
1 pitted date
fresh nutmeg (nut or powder)
How to make:
- Bring water to a boil, add chicory root and steep for 10 minutes.
- Strain and transfer to a blender.
- Add the ghee (or any fat you decide to use) and the date. Blend for 1 minute at high speed.
- Top with freshly grated nutmeg and enjoy.
I shared my carob recipe: Carob Cinnamon Delight instead of coffee – a calming hot beverage and mentioned rooibos tea how it’s A Functional Food in the Management of Stress (an interview from a prior anxiety summit)
Here is Magdalena’s gift: Finding Hormonal Balance Through Food and Essential Oils
And here is Magdalena’s wonderful no-cost introductory Hormone Balancing Workshop/webinar (many of my clients have attended and love learning about eating for hormone balance from Magdalena)
If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com
Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.
You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.
Hi Trudy,
This is my first Summit and Loving the information you are bringing
to us. Thank you all!
Cannot download free gifts from Magdelena either
Jan
Sorry to hear – best to send an email to support@everywomanover29.com for tech type issues like this and we can help. Please let us know what error you get and if pc, mac or other device
I’m a big coffee drinker and funny enough I listened to this talk first, and I stayed. ha ha! Great information, thank you! I don’t notice negative effects from drinking coffee but I’m willing to give these alternatives a try. I do really love rooibos tea.
Tricia
Well done for staying! no virtual tomatoes!? You may be surprised as to how you feel when you do quit (have you quit before?)
you are saying use coconut milk in these recipes, but then have problems with chemicals in the cans. even the BPA free ones. so creating further probs (most of us havent time to make our own).
Pip
Thanks for raising the question/concern. Hearing about the BPA in cans of coconut is a new concern I very recently became aware of and need to look into it. You could use coconut oil or home made coconut milk (which is very easy to make)
I’ll ask Magdalena to come on and comment about this one too
most women will feel a difference in their breasts when drinking coffee ( at the time) there is a mild ache. Sounds wierd huh? But a lady in a cafe in Canada showed me in 1994, I have showed dozens of women, and ALL of them agreed once they had focussed on it. But its not necessarily detrimental, just an observation.
Another awesome interview. Thank you, Trudy and Magdalena.
I was never a coffee drinker until my hubby. I cannot drink regular coffee, only decaf and ONLY organic, swiss water press decaf processing.
In the past, I would sometimes drink a decaf from some of the top name coffee places in my area. Within 10 minutes or so after drinking the decaf, I would be jumping out of my skin, irritable, angry, foggy brained and more. When I visited a bulk coffee distribution store to pick up coffee for my husband, I mentioned all of the above in passing to the lady assisting me. She began telling me about all the toxins that are in regular non-organic coffee, especially in decaf. She strongly recommended certified organic coffee for both of us, AND, for my decaf, certified Swiss Water Process (or something like that).
I did try the organic Swiss Water Processed decaf and did not have any of the above problems. I have been drinking it for the past three years. However, as I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, I have been trying to come of the decaf and am having such great trouble. I can easily give up sugar, gluten, etc., but my decaf is the most difficult thing to give up. I absolutely love the flavor.
The substitutes you and Magdalena recommend are great. I’ve actually tried something very similar to Magdalena’s recipe. Honestly, and I know this is a terrible excuse, I didn’t want to keep taking the 15 to 20 minutes to prep it. With the decaf, I just place my grinds in our Mr. Coffee drip and it is ready in a couple of minutes.
I think, though, if I’m really honest with myself, it’s that I really don’t want to give up the taste of my decaf after giving up so much already. THAT’S KEY for me and something I have to work on. Unbelievable how emotion is what comes into play for me around this, but, also good to know so that I can address the “underlying” issues and make a choice.
Thanks for sharing and yes the emotional connection is a big one with many people!
Let us know how you do!
Wonderful interviews so far Trudy, thank you so much. Have loved all 5, such a wealth of excellent information. You are a very good interviewer and responder, making things clear and easy to absorb and understand, one of the best I’ve heard on any summit and I’ve listened to a lot! The pace is good too for us overwhelmed and anxious individuals!
I’ve pretty much given up coffee and have the occasional Bulletproof Swiss water process decaf which I understand is a non chemical process decaf with the benefits of non decaf (excluding caffeine) still in tact. The Bulletproof beans are also of a very low-toxin, high quality standard.
However, I have made my own latte recipe of alternatives (matcha green, chicory root, carob and turmeric vanilla) which is an extension of Magdalena’s. I love it and I’ll share it below – it’s delicious, creamy and full of flavour. I’m interested in making a dandelion and tulsi latte, wonderful idea, thanks Magdalena! I have them as teas alone with hot water but will try in my latte recipe! Does one just brew the tea first using a standard tea bag and then transfer the brewed tea to the blender or are there dandelion and tulsi powders that would go straight into the blender with the other ingredients as with the carob, chicory and matcha etc? I may even try making a rooibos latte! 😉
I didn’t quite catch the name of the app Magdalena mentioned for identifying and listing FODMAPS that one reacts to, would it be possible to share that here? I occasionally react to the chicory latte which would indicate a vulnerability to SIBO. Some other foods cause me SIBO symptoms so will be testing for that soon.
Also if I’m not mistaken carob and chicory are very high in oxalates so have to be cautious with those if oxalates are an issue!
‘Drew’s Lilyville Latte’ (Drew Todd – 2016):
Serves 1
Ingredients:
One of the following 4:
– 1 tbsp roasted chicory root
– 1 tbsp carob powder
– 1 tsp match green tea
– 2 tsp sonnentor vanilla turmeric powder
– 2 cups boiling water
– 1 tbsp butter
– 1 pitted date
– 1/4 tsp bulletproof vanillamax or vanilla extract or fresh nutmeg (nut or powder)
– 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
– 1/2 tsp xylitol or stevia
– 1/2 tsp maca powder
– 1 tbsp brain octane oil
– 2 tbsp Great Lakes collagen powder
– 1 tsp bulletproof cacao butter (optional)
Method:
1. Add all ingredients to blender and blend.
2. Gently stir in collagen powder after high speed blend – it is delicate!
3. Sprinkle with nutmeg and enjoy.
Super Drew! so glad you’re enjoying it and thanks for the recipe!
It’s the Monash University FODMAPS app http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/iphone-app.html
Excellent, thanks Trudy, I’ll research this app! 🙂
Thanks, I didn’t catch that University name either.
Thanks for the reciepe Drew. I’ll have to tweak it since oxalates are a big problem for me, so thanks for that tip. I didn’t know that oxalate issue’s were a symptom of SIBO. I wondered if maybe I didn’t have a SIBO issue so now I’ll have to get tested. Any tips on a good lab for testing SIBO?
Susan
No probs Susan. Trudy, is the Great Plains OAT the only way to test if one has oxalate issues or is there a simple test one can do?
Drew
Removing foods that are high oxalate first and then a few weeks later removing medium oxalate foods and seeing how you do. It’s recommended to go slow to prevent dumping of oxalates. Foods are here http://www.lowoxalate.info
Susan
Here is the SIBO questionnaire I use https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/sibo-small-intestinal-bacterial-overgrowth-questionnaire/ Dr Siebecker lists testing on her site. We also had a great interview last season https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/anxiety-summit-intestinal-bacterial-overgrowth-anxiety/
Thanks so much for the info Trudy. Oh my gosh, now I know why my feet are hurting sooooo bad. I have just recently found out that nuts and seeds are high in oxalates. I was doing Magdalena’s seed rotation for Hormones Balance program. I had been avoiding nuts and seeds for years because I broke out so bad from them. I recently started back on them to do the rotation but wasn’t having skin troubles from them this time but the pain on the bottoms of my feet is getting progressively worse. My chiropractor thought it was my arches. I know it’s the oxalates now. I also have leaky gut, which also explains why (after reading the article) I’m not healing from that after the years of trying to get better – oxalates. I’m one of those who can only eat a handful of foods. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t eat celery. Now I know, it’s high in oxalates.
Thanks for the link to the chart. I just read down the list saying to myself “Bingo” everytime I saw a problem food and it had a H or VH (high or very high) next to it. That or it was a night shade – another issue.
I haven’t gotten to the other links yet but I’m sure I will learn lots from the forms on SIBO to go over. I appreciate your time and the summit. This was the first one from this summit I’ve seen. I mistakenly had it on my calender for next week and I’m not getting your daily emails so I’ve missed a few. I’ll have to email support. I’m trying to learn for my husbands horrible anxiety and I learned something for me. Thanks!!!
Susan
Those oxalates can be bad – glad you’ve made the connection! Please do email support and hope you find answers for your husband
hello
What is the name of the doctor that she mention in interview? Also what is the name of this chocolate like product?
Nina
The chocolate-like ingredient is carob – there is recipe on this blog. Dr Lam?
Could you send me the replay? I missed it as it kept cutting out. My computer, I think.
Thank you!!!!!
Glenda
Interviews are only up for 24 hours but you can vote for your favorite replays at the end of the summit (or get it as part of one of the purchase packages)
Thank you great interview !
If you have just 2 oz of organic coffee; does help the thyroid, practitioner told me.
Thanks for your feedback.
Romy
I would use something else for the thyroid and consider all the the negative aspects Magdalena covered 🙂