The Center for Functional Health

07/28/2025

Hormonal imbalances don’t always show up as major health crises. Often, they're hiding in small, everyday struggles that are easy to overlook...until they aren't.

Here are a few signs your hormones may need more support:

😴 Trouble falling or staying asleep, even when you're tired
🌬️ Bloating or digestive issues that come and go
😟 Anxiety or irritability without a clear trigger
💢 PMS that’s more than just a bad mood...it disrupts your life
⚡ Fatigue that lingers, even with good food and decent sleep

These symptoms may seem unrelated, but they’re often your body’s way of signaling hormone stress or dysregulation. If these feel familiar, it might be time to look beyond surface fixes and explore what’s going on under the hood.

07/27/2025

From ‘you can detox with maple syrup and cayenne pepper’ or ‘eating ice cubes boosts your metabolism’...we’ve heard it all when it comes to health advice.

We’ve met so many patients confused by well-meaning but off-base health tips.

So let’s hear it and bust some myths..what’s the craziest one you’ve come across? Bonus points if it made you pause and say, ‘Wait… what?’ 😂

07/27/2025

Daily intense exercise might seem like the fast track to fitness, but without proper recovery, it can actually stall progress and dysregulate key systems.

Recovery is a critical part of the training cycle where the most important adaptations happen. They’re when your body does its deepest healing and recalibration. Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes when you take a day off:

🌀 Lymphatic Flow Increases: Gentle movement (like walking or stretching on rest days) enhances lymph circulation, helping your body clear out waste, reduce inflammation, and boost immune resilience.
🔧 Muscle Repair Happens Off the Mat: Your muscles don’t get stronger during a workout—they get stronger after, during rest. Recovery allows micro-tears in muscle fibers to repair, which builds strength, prevents injury, and supports long-term gains.
🧬 Hormones Rebalance: Overexercising raises cortisol, which can mess with thyroid, s*x hormones, and blood sugar. Rest days lower cortisol and give your body a chance to restore hormonal equilibrium, essential for metabolism, mood, and energy.

Rest days aren’t optional, they’re essential for metabolic health, musculoskeletal integrity, and long-term resilience.

07/22/2025

Blue light from screens delays melatonin production, the hormone that helps you fall asleep. Even a little exposure in the evening can disrupt your circadian rhythm, making it harder to get deep, restorative sleep. And without quality sleep? Your brain’s emotional regulation takes a hit. Research shows that sleep deprivation increases anxiety, irritability, and emotional reactivity.

Here’s what to do to get quality, restful sleep:

🕯️ Start dimming lights and powering down screens an hour before bed
📱 Use night mode or blue light filters if you need to be online
🌿 Try magnesium or herbal supports if your mind races at night
🛏️ Aim for 7–9 hours of consistent, restful sleep

Find more practical wellness tips in the latest blog!

https://thecenterforfunctionalhealth.com/blog/12-simple-wellness-hacks-to-keep-your-body-in-balance/

07/21/2025

We often think of gut issues as bloating, gas, or irregular bowel movements. But what if your gut imbalance is showing up somewhere completely different?

Your gut isn’t just for digestion. It’s a central hub for immunity, inflammation, and even mood regulation. When the microbiome is off, it can ripple through your entire body. Even without digestive complaints, gut imbalance can show up in surprising ways:

🔹 Fatigue – Poor nutrient absorption and chronic inflammation can drain your energy.
🔹 Brain Fog – Gut inflammation affects neurotransmitters and cognitive clarity.
🔹 Skin Issues – Acne, eczema, or rosacea can stem from internal imbalances.
🔹 Joint Pain – Food sensitivities and gut-driven inflammation often trigger stiffness.
🔹 Frequent Illness – 70% of your immune system lives in the gut—imbalances weaken your defenses.
🔹 Mood Swings or Anxiety – Gut-brain dysfunction alters your emotional resilience.
🔹 Food Sensitivities or Histamine Reactions – Dysbiosis can heighten reactivity.
🔹 Poor Sleep – Gut health impacts cortisol rhythms and melatonin production.

If you're dealing with symptoms that seem disconnected or hard to explain, it might be time to look in the most overlooked place of all: your gut.

07/21/2025

If your only health metric is the number on the scale...you’re missing the bigger picture. Changes show up in how you feel before they ever show up in your weight.
Instead of obsessing over the scale, start tracking the markers that really matter:

🔋 Energy levels - Are you waking up refreshed or hitting snooze three times?
💩 Digestion - Are you bloated after meals? Going daily? Feeling gassy or heavy?
😴 Sleep quality - Are you falling asleep easily and staying asleep through the night?
😌 Mood + mental clarity - Are you calm, focused, and emotionally steady—or riding a rollercoaster?

These signs tell you if your hormones, blood sugar, nervous system, and gut are actually balancing with the changes you're making. They reflect the function behind the symptoms, long before the scale changes.

07/20/2025

We all have that one thing - the ritual that makes us feel grounded, energized, and more like ourselves… but somehow always falls to the bottom of the list.

Maybe it’s your morning lemon water. Or your magnesium bath at night.
Maybe it’s journaling, meal prepping, or stepping outside before checking your phone.

Consistency doesn’t have to mean perfection. It means returning to what restores you, even after you fall out of rhythm.

Today, take one step back toward that ritual. Not because you should, but because your body remembers how good it feels when you do.

07/20/2025

Ever feel foggy, bloated, or headachy after drinking wine, eating garlic, or high-sulfur foods like eggs or cruciferous veggies? You might be low in molybdenum - a trace mineral that plays a quiet but crucial role in your body's detoxification pathways.

Molybdenum acts as a cofactor for key enzymes that break down sulfites, compounds naturally found in wine, dried fruit, and some preserved foods. If your body doesn’t clear sulfites well, you might experience symptoms like flushing, congestion, fatigue, or brain fog.

But that’s not all - it also helps support phase I liver detox, the initial step in converting toxins into a form your body can safely eliminate. And it’s essential in the sulfur metabolism cycle, helping the body properly process and recycle sulfur-containing amino acids.

Low molybdenum levels may contribute to food sensitivities to wine, garlic, or onions, poor tolerance to high-sulfur supplements like glutathione or NAC, headaches, histamine reactions, or brain fog after meals

If you’re reacting to healthy foods or detox supplements, molybdenum might be the missing link.

07/19/2025

It’s easy to overlook, but how you breathe at night can shape your long-term health more than you think. Here’s what happens when mouth breathing becomes your default:

🧬 Oxygen Efficiency Lowers: Mouth breathing bypasses the natural filtration and regulation system of the nose, leading to shallow chest breathing and less oxygen absorption per breath.
🧪 No Nitric Oxide Production: Nasal breathing stimulates nitric oxide a molecule that helps dilate blood vessels, improve circulation, and enhance immune defense. Mouth breathing? None.
🔥 Increased Systemic Inflammation: Chronic mouth breathing is linked to poor oral health, altered microbiome, disrupted sleep, and even higher levels of inflammation markers. It can be a stress signal to your body, keeping you in a sympathetic (fight-or-flight) state.

Signs you might be a mouth breather include waking with dry mouth, snoring or sleep apnea, and brain fog or fatigue.
To support mouth breathing, be sure to practice nasal breathing during the day, try gentle mouth taping at night (if safe and appropriate) and address root causes like allergies, nasal congestion, or jaw structure issues.

Your breath is more than just airflow - it’s biochemical communication - so make sure it’s sending the right message!

07/17/2025