S2 E8 Saara Haapanen

Alysia Thomas:  Welcome back to Autoimmune Adventures. We are so excited for today's conversation. Our guest is Saara Haapanen. She's an incredible coach who blends performance science, ADHD support, and movement into transformational work for women that are navigating both neurodivergence and chronic health conditions.  

So Saara brings humor and heart and strategy into everything that she does and we are so thrilled to have her with us. Thank you for joining us. Saara, do you want to just give us a little introduction and kind of tell us what it is that you do?

Saara Haapanen:  Well, first, thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. This is one of my favorite subjects to talk about, so if I get too chatty, just rein me in.

Alysia Thomas:  We love it.

Saara Haapanen:  Um, so I've been helping humans live happier, healthier lives my whole life. Um, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to study in school. So, kinesiology and health promotion is kind of where I started. And then I got into psychology and then sports and exercise psychology and then got a master's and PhD in that, and tried to at different parts of my life went away from health and fitness, but it always just brings me back. Um, now I realized one of those things is I'm only interested in what I'm interested in, and that's because of my ADHD brain.  

Saara Haapanen: So, health, fitness, and wellness, and helping coach people. So, I've been coaching for 26 years. I got my first I'm now 40. Um, I got my first coaching certificate at 14 and really just loving to help people where they're at and helping them move forward. So, um I really like to work with ADHDers who have chronic conditions, whether that's autoimmune disease, or um, the thing is in health is a lot of people don't take action until something goes wrong. So, I work with a lot of people that are usually recovering from something big. Whether it's okay, they got an autoimmune diagnosis, could be that. Yes. Uh, could be they had heart clots and now they had a surgery and they realize if they don't take care of their health now that they're not going to have a lot of time on this planet. Um maybe a parent just passed away from something that they realize is genetic. Um but it is kind of realistic and what I do that people usually wait till something goes wrong before they seek out help.  

So, I have a variety of humans that I work with, but I really tend to connect very well with ADHDers because that's my brain type. So, that just means that everything's a little more fun and entertaining and um yeah, educational, but entertaining. So, it's been working out so far.

Becky Miller:  That's great. It is a very unique niche. When, when Stacy told us that you were coming on, I was like, "Wow, that is..." But I think it's much needed because um, we've actually talked about before how even if you don't have officially diagnosed ADHD, there are some things with chronic illness and the brain fog and other things that actually have very similar effects almost. And I think it's a like I think it's great that you're putting these together. Um, and it sounds like I was going to ask you why it was so personally meaningful to you, but I think you did a pretty good explanation of it there. Unless there's something else you want to add to it.  

Saara Haapanen:  Um, yeah, sure. So, I look healthy and I've been studying health basically my whole life. And when I knew something was wrong with me when I got diagnosed with my autoimmune disease, it was - I also have Hashimoto's and I know two of you ladies have that as well. But I was drinking two cups of coffee a day. I mean, two pots, pots, huge pots, two huge pots of coffee. And I could not wake up and I had like every single symptom except for weight gain. And I didn't have the weight gain because of what I do for a living. Like I also do personal training and help people with nutrition. Like I knew all that, but like my hair was falling out, my joints were hurting, I had brain fog, like no libido, all the things that you have. Freezing all the time, like no energy, could not think straight. And my for me, my big thing, I love learning. And for ADHDers, it's sometimes challenging to take the learning into doing, that test transition.  

But once I got diagnosed and I asked my doctor, "What do I do?" And she said, "You take a pill for the rest of your life." And I was like, "I don't agree. Yes. Okay. Yeah. But like, What else?" And she's like, "No, that's all you can do." And for me, I was like, "No way, Jose. Like, I can learn and do and I keep people accountable and do hard things." So, I literally like ADHD hyper-focused into the research. When I was diagnosed, my tpo antibodies, so anything above seven is autoimmune. I had 1,256.

Becky Miller: Wow.

Saara Haapanen:  In a year, I learned everything I could. She tested my blood and it was 134. And she goes, "What did you do?" And I was like, "Oh, I created this program. There's these eight pillars you need to work on." Which is amazing because our six pillars overlap. I just have two more. But I was like, "This is great. They're following a great protocol." Um, and she goes, "No, no, no. But how did you actually like do that?" Because a lot of people know what we should be doing, and I call it shoulding all over ourselves, but we're not doing it.

Like YouTube exists. There is all the information you ever need for anything on YouTube and we know what we should be doing but we're not doing it. So what I do with people is like the mindset shift how you actually make behavior change. So, we all know like we should eat healthy, work out and whatever it is you just don't do it because first it's uncomfortable for your brain. Like we don't like change at all and if it's hard we're like no thanks because our brain wants to keep us safe and to keep us alive, not for success or not for doing hard things, or it's like there's not a plan that's individualized to you or like whatever we all have excuses for any anything any change like humans don't like change so I take the science of like psychology and how to do behavioral change and make it easy and also for me I'm like I don't want to be a hypocrite like to know what to do and not do it to me, especially when I lead humans to like change their lifestyles to be healthy. I was like, that would be very hypocritical.

So now my doctor was like, "You need to teach other people." And I was like, "Yeah, if they listen or if they're interested," but it usually is, it does take something that like a pain point for people to change usually, which it's just real life. There's there's like maybe 5% of people who just want to do better and will make change on their own. But most of the time it's usually something bad happens and s-h-i-t hits the fan and then they make a change or no they need to start making a change. So I will add that.

Stacy Griffin:  I would agree. I think there's a lot of that um, complacency and an unwillingness to commit to doing things that that exists. I was curious though. I noticed when I was looking at some of the stuff you do, you spend a lot of time working with high achieving women who are managing both ADHD and chronic conditions. What are some of the common threads that you see when it comes to burnout, energy, and self-worth? Because my husband has ADHD and a lot of people I love have ADHD and I'm a little bit on the spectrum as well. So I can understand that these things are very much a real problem. So how do you deal with that?

Saara Haapanen:  The biggest issue for high performers and for ADHDers is for them to chill out. And when our body is fighting against us, that requires a lot of resources. And when someone's first learning, like they don't realize what they're how they're eating is like harming their body or they don't they just are so used to like pushing pushing pushing. And for like a lot of my clients when we change their diet or we change their exercise routine and I changed my exercise routine in 2020 and I was terrified that my body composition would change and like I'm still pretty ripped. So I created all my workouts in a way that's not going to increase stress. So yes, movement is great. Like I'm a personal trainer. I love movement.  

Saara Haapanen:  I'm the creator of a program called Move at Work Challenge, which has been in school districts for almost 10 years. Like, I have people moving at work. I love movement, but it's the right kind of movement and the right kind of stress management. So, I think for a high performer and an ADHDer, whether they're hyperactive or females tend to be inattentive. I'm lucky I've combined so I have both. Um, so it's either like chaos in your brain or chaos in your body. It is so very challenging for humans who have my type of brain to like chill to be in the moment to relax to reduce your stress. So I would say that stress reduction and the way you think about it and the way you manage it and how you actually put that in practice would be the most challenging thing because for us to heal our body needs to be safe and in a spot where it's not inconsistent overdrive and whether that's like stress at work, stress at home, stress from too much exercise, stress from like just eating the wrong foods and having your body have to do extra work to attack itself like it's very challenging to communicate to a human that you're going to heal yourself by doing less.  

So I would say that would be the biggest challenge with high performers, ADHDers, people who are like go, go, go like we have no time. And then when burnout actually hits, I find that they're in burnout for a long period of time before they're going to admit it. But when it does really hit, like neurodivergent burnout combined with any autoimmune disease is like more than a crash. Like those people, they drop from like being barely functional, surviving to like not being able to get out of bed. And there's a spot where your body starts giving you symbols, symbols, symptoms. There we go. There's my word. And we just have been taught to ignore it and to push through and to go. But like if you don't listen to your body, it's going to start giving you more signals and more signals until you are forced to relax and chill out. So that would be the biggest challenge I would say.

Stacy Griffin: I can see why that would be an issue, because I've seen that in my own life and in many of my friends lives as well.  

 Becky Miller: Yeah.

Alysia Thomas: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I, I always think it's like the uh analogy of a check engine light, ignoring that check engine light, and our body's like, "Whoa, whoa, maybe you need to chill out and figure out what's going on." and we're like, "Nah, I'm going to keep driving." And then one day it breaks down and you're like, "What? This is not convenient for me to break down right now." And your body's like, "Don't care. You should have listened when I told you to slow down and you didn't, you know."

Saara Haapanen: 100%. Yes. That's perfect.

Alysia Thomas:  Um, I'm  curious about your pillars, your eight pillars, because we have our six, like you said, they kind of overlap our six principles. We call them our Big Six. And one of them, our first one, is cultivating a growth mindset. So, how do you define a growth mindset in your coaching um, arena and and what role does that play for somebody who's managing ADHD and and chronic illness?  

Saara Haapanen: For me, a growth mindset is the idea that you can consistently improve. You can consistently be a better human. you can consistently even if it's one tiny, my big concept I, I always say like 1% better, but if you take one tiny thing that you've... that's a little bit hard, like I don't want anyone to ever like - I'm obsessed with mountains I live in Denver Colorado so I use mountains in my branding a lot um I have a mountain mural on my wall but I also use it as a metaphor I'm like, "You can't jump to the top of a mountain, you have to like take every step." If you're super rich, maybe you can hire a hella ski company and then like once in a while you can jump to the mountain. But there are these tiny little steps and I use these corny sayings like, "if it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you."

But going back to brain science of like little tiny changes and what I help people with is like finding the the right the big domino that's going to knock things over. 

Saara Haapanen:  But litty little tiny changes can make a huge difference if it's the right domino you're knocking over. and to consistently push yourself with an opened mind that like you can learn and do hard things. Whether it's your body or you're learning like something new, doing a course or getting a certification or whatever it is. But like I also very much don't want to be the same person a year from now. And part of that might be my ADHD brain because I'm so forward thinking and thinking and thinking all the time. Like it's really challenging for me to be in this moment here. I have to train my body here, my mind to be here because I'm like, "Oh, all these things I could be doing like go, go, go, go." But a year from now, you won't recognize yourself if you have a growth mindset and you're doing little tiny changes.

Like you don't, it also doesn't have to feel so hard when you're in it, right? Because if okay for in, I do a lot of health and fitness and all that stuff, and it's like, if you tell yourself you can't have a cookie. First of all, all your brain hears is like cookie, cookie, cookie. It doesn't hear like, "don't have a cookie." And the more you give yourself these rules, the more it's like this internal fight and then you have to use your discipline muscle, which like sucks. It's easier to use discipline in the morning, in the morning, and then throughout the day your life you're just like making your life so miserable.

But if you go through it of like what if and I'm always when I start like a presentation or a webinar or master class I'm like be really open-minded. I might say some crazy stuff. You don't have to try any of it. You can try some of it. If you try like one thing I say you'll probably improve your life. But you have to be very open to that and trusting of the humans that are guiding you and they know what they're talking about. But I think for me it's like there's people in my family that are very happy with where they're at and that is very motivating for me because I don't ever want to be in a spot that I'm like, "Oh, if I'm exactly in the same spot next year that I'm going to be happy with that."  

Saara Haapanen:  But like I've my whole life has been like I started delivering newspapers at 10 because I wanted to be able to afford things that I wanted to be able to afford. I paid for my own diving and trampoline and then got a full scholarship and then found out 12 days before the Olympics I wasn't going. And I've had like 10 companies, and like I've coached people all over the world, and like I'm an internationally published researcher. Like I do a lot of stuff, but I'm growth-minded and I have to be uncomfortable, like every day a little bit uncomfortable, because if I were comfy who knows where I would, I might still be delivering newspapers in Canada like, I don't know, you know? So that's what that means to me.

Alysia Thomas:  I love that. And I love that you say I have to be a little uncomfortable and it's go, go, go because, and I love that you talked about mountains because, um, you might not know this but that is our theme as well is a mountain, mountains and we talk about living with chronic illness as a journey that we are on and we're hiking up a mountain and we didn't necessarily ask to hike up this mountain, but that is how we have to go. There's no other direction for us to go so we have to go. It's probably not going to be an easy hike, but we got to do it and we know we've got to do it. So, we can either do it and be miserable or we can do it and enjoy it as much as possible, and we can do it and and find the beauty in it.

Um, so I love that and I love how you took your diagnosis and you're like, "Yeah, no, I'm going to just do my own research and see what else there is to do," because you described literally exactly my same diagnosis experience and and exact the same words. "you're just going to take this pill for the rest of your life." And except she she went into detail, "your thyroid is just going to shrink and it's going to shrivel and it's going to waste away and it's going to be worthless, and you're going to have to increase your medicine." And I was like, "What? This is terrible." So I did the same thing.  

All of us do that. We are very big into researching and learning and being proactive. And that's why we are putting out our Big Six, because those are the things that we know through our years of experience have an effect, and they will have an effect a positive effect on everybody that does them. There's science behind all of them. And just because your doctor's not telling you these things doesn't mean that they aren't going to be hugely beneficial to your journey. So, I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Saara Haapanen: Yeah.

Becky Miller: Well, like you said, they are hard things, too. So, I appreciate that you also put that plug in, because um, you know, if you want change, sometimes you have to do hard things. Usually, you have to do hard things.

Alysia Thomas: Well, it's it's hard living with autoimmune disease. It's hard.

Becky Miller: Yeah.

Alysia Thomas:  It's hard trying to be healthy living with autoimmune disease. Pick your hard.

Saara Haapanen: Yeah.  

Alysia Thomas: You know, which hard are you going to choose? You're going to choose the hard that's going to help you get better, or you going to choose the hard that's going to keep you miserable?

Saara Haapanen: Yeah.

Becky Miller:  Exactly.

Saara Haapanen:  Yeah. And it sucks because everyone wants a magic pill, but it's

Alysia Thomas: There's nothing.

Saara Haapanen:  Like, okay, take the magic pill, but then do all the other work, too, because it's not just, there's no pill out there that doesn't have any side effects, you know? And like it's great to support with medical science the things that you can support, but there's also so many things that you can do and like our bodies are absolute phenomenal things that can heal that can like support you, but a lot of the times also I think education is huge, because like if you don't know that gluten molecularly is the same as the same like antibody that your thyroid is spitting out that's basically killing your thyroid. Like when I tell clients that and they're like, "Oh, no one ever said that's why I shouldn't eat gluten." I was like, "Every time you're eating gluten, you're killing your thyroid." They're like, "I shouldn't eat gluten." I was like, "Yeah, that's why you feel like poop and your joints are hurting and your brain isn't working and like you feel like you have the flu." I'm like, "You are literally poisoning yourself."

Alysia Thomas: Yeah. But there are lots of doctors that won't tell people that have thyroid issues to not eat gluten. I, I mean the, the doctor that gave me that diagnosis, and I waited for months to go see her. "Yeah, gluten has no effect." You just didn't tell her I had celiac disease. I didn't tell her I'd already been gluten-free for years. I was curious what she would say. And she was like, "No, you can't do anything with diet to, to nothing you can do with your diet is going to have an effect on this."

Saara Haapanen: Yeah, I hate that.  

Alysia Thomas: I'm sorry. What doctor tells you that?

Saara Haapanen: Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing is medical science is 20 years old by the time, like a new study comes out and it is in the educational system and the doctors learn and then they go to practice, especially a primary care physician usually knows a little about a lot of stuff and they're not like specialists, but me with an ADHD brain, or you like for that human what is going on with them is the most important thing.

Stacy Griffin: That's great.

Saara Haapanen: So then they research And the thing is a lot of doctors tend to have a lot of ego and they don't want you to be like a Google doctor. So then they don't necessarily, like, don't know, aren't willing to communicate that they don't know unless you have a really great doctor. Like my doctor is like, "Teach me what you learned." And I was like, "Here's all the things you need to do. " 

But a lot of the science that comes out, one big thing for me right now is like I work with a lot of women who are perimenopausal and menopausal and there was a bad study - and every human that I know who has a uterus or even doesn't have a uterus, who is female presenting who has taken hormone replacement therapy has felt amazingly better and it can clear up a lot of things uh brain fog, energy, libido, things like that. But there was a bad study that was now disvalidated that I think came out in the late 80s or 90s, and especially male practitioners, actually a lot of doctors will not prescribe HRT because they're like, "You're going to get breast cancer." And that's now been disproven. But yes, if you have breast cancer history, you need to be careful. But HRT does not cause breast cancer. And there was a bad study and then everyone believed that and they taught that and the whole medical system. Now all the doctors are like, "Don't do it."  

But there's one doctor who's like coming out with science and educating. And like that's why I recommend to everybody like be open-minded, growth-minded that even what you know now could change when you have more education and information. And you're allowed to change your mind. You do not have to - and I'm sure we all know people like this that are very stuck in their ways and it's so hard to change anyone's opinion. But if you're open-minded and just want to learn and do better, then you'll be a more successful, healthier, happier human. But a lot of doctors just don't know. So, they say what they've been taught.

Like, I trained some doctors and they have not been educated in nutrition. And I had one doctor who um she was eating less than 1500 calories. Like, that worked for her in her 20s and her 30s. And then she got in her 40s and 50s and she was gaining weight. And I was like, "You need to eat more." And she's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm terrified I'm not eating more." And I was like, "You need to be medically supervised if you're under 1500 calories."

Like, as a human being on this planet, you need more calories than that to be able to rest and digest and just like have your body do normal body things. And she was terrified. And we had her lifting weights and eating more. And she's lost 60 pounds in two years. And I have her eating more because she was starving herself. like her body wasn't even able to like digest because she was like, "It worked for me in [my] 20s." I was like, "You jump, you bounce back in your 20s. In your 50s life is different." And I was like, "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about." So it's, and she's like, "Why didn't they teach us about this in school?" Like I literally went through and I was like, "Here's how much calories your body is burning. And she was like, "They didn't teach us this." And I was like, "Yeah, because you're a medical doctor. You have to learn other things. But it's crazy annoying,"

Becky Miller:  Yeah, Agreed. Well, we've touched on you mentioned that ADHD and autoimmunity can kind of cause some internal chaos. Um, the brain fog, the energy crashes, emotional dysregulation. How do you help clients create clarity and consistency in the middle of all of that that storm of craziness?

Saara Haapanen: Mmm, depends on the individual, but I can say my PhD in one sentence is "Control the controllables." So you look at someone's lifestyle, you look at what their goals are. Everyone who usually works with me wants to get healthy. That's like the overarching goal but they have other goals whether it's like growing their business or managing their mindset. Uh, when a new client we just started working about creating a system that was going to organize her inbox. so she doesn't have so much stress. Um, I think one of the big things comes back to finding that big domino for a lot of people. Like I have 12 mountains that I use in my um in my program and they all start with the letter M because alliteration tickles my brain happy.  

Um, so what I usually do with a human is we do an assessment and I have them rate all the different things. And usually the fastest way to success in my experience is to take the top like two or three things that they're ranking the lowest, and give them skills and tools for that because then they're going to like jump, they'll take a little elevator for a part of the mountain. They still have to climb the mountain. It's still going to be hard. But if we can tackle the things they're ranking the lowest on first and give them skills and tools and techniques, and if they work with me as a coach, like they can text me and be like, "Uh oh, it's real life and this is happening." Like "I, I created a strategy, but it's not working." Like, "Help, there's cookies at work," you know? Um but for me, a big huge thing is like individualized profiling and what does that person really want and need? Often for ADHD chaos, it's like how can you be present?  

So, teaching them mindfulness, which is challenging. So, I like to bring body into it and I'm like, "Squeeze your hands. Tell your brain you're squeezing your hands." Like, when you have another thought, just be like, "I'm squeezing my hands." And count to five.

Saara Haapanen: Like, it could be as easy as that, but our brains are like, "Look, a squirrel. Oh, the thing's moving in the wind. Like, I can hear the electricity." You have to be like, "No, you're squeezing your hands." And it's like doing a bicep curl. Like, I can't lift one weight and be ripped. I have to do it hundreds and thousands of times until it becomes automated. And then our brain is happy and it doesn't have to feel so hard. But to make those automatic processes a little bit easier takes training.

Stacy Griffin: Um, kind of connected to that a little bit is as I was looking through a lot of your stuff, you mentioned what you call 1% shifts. And can you help our listeners reconnect? Um, well, that could help our listeners reconnect with their body without pushing too hard. So, when you say 1% shift, what are you what are you talking about?

Saara Haapanen:  Whatever the hard thing is. So that can be anything. Maybe it's, you know, moving your body more, or moving your body less, or switching to sweet potatoes. whatever it is. I like to break that down into 2 minutes or less because I often work with ADHDers. They get the information overload. They can see sometimes or not depending how their executive function is and their forward thinking and planning. like you can see step one, you kind of skip all the steps in between and then you're like you jump ahead and maybe you're like, "Okay that's when I don't have an autoimmune disease," or "I've lost 50 pounds," or whatever it is, but they kind of get lost in the steps in between or it becomes overwhelming and we tend to shut down. So, I always say write out as many steps as you can and how can you break each step up into smaller tasks and what is the first two-minute action?  

Like for a lot of people, for a lot of different things that we work on, it's like step one is like turning your computer on, opening your computer, finding the email from me, and then you can go to like step three. But sometimes just breaking it down so it's more manageable because our brain can do a little chunk at a time. And then once you do that little chunk, the next chunk is easier. But if you look at like, oh crap, like a year from now I want to be 50 pounds lighter and I have to change the way I'm eating and I have to change the way I'm moving and I have to take synthroid, or I have to do like no gluten and I can't have alcohol. Like that's way overwhelming. But like today, maybe you open your computer and listen to a lesson or write a grocery list or like just make it tiny, tiny, tiny so our brains don't resist so much because our brains don't like change.

Stacy Griffin: I would agree. I love that.

Alysia Thomas: I love that, too. It reminds me, Stacy, of the app that we love. We have an app called Fabulous that tells us to do that exact thing. like if something is, and I actually think that app was developed for folks with ADHD if I recall correctly, and they have several sister apps that that help, but one of the things they reiterate in my, in that app is if something feels too difficult or like it's too much do exactly what you just said just break it into smaller steps and do the first step and if that step feels too much, break that step into smaller steps, and do that much. Um, and it just gives you a little bit of momentum, and you realize you can do you can do something. Maybe you can't do all the things but you can do something. So I find it empowering for people like me anyway in the way my brain works.  

So but on our podcast we talk a lot about self- advocacy and how important it is to learn how to advocate for yourself when you are living with chronic illness. So, how how do you help your clients advocate for their needs, whether it's in a health care setting or relationships or at work?

Saara Haapanen:  Prioritizing self is something I teach all my humans when they work with me, but it is one of the most challenging things for a lot of women. A lot of people I work with are teachers or nurses or moms and they're really used to putting everyone else's needs before their own. And what happens is that takes away from you. So flipping that, I call it like flipping the pyramid and being able to prioritize yourself. Like all that goodness is going to trickle down not only to yourself and you'll start feeling better, but to your children, to your significant others, to your workmates. Like everybody wins when you prioritize yourself first. So the fir... one of the things when we start working together is like the mindset shift.  

And with that, we do a lot of like, self-identity work and working on our language and a just a really good tip that would be good for your listeners is like it feels a little impostor syndromey at the beginning, but we are kind of, and I hate the term "fake it till you make it," but we're tricking our brains so that it starts to become true. When you first start saying things that aren't true about yourself to your brain, you get a lot of resistance. But the more you say it, especially writing it down pen to paper, you get different neurological connections. If you can write it on a person, post-it note, if you can say it out loud, like all these things are going to reduce friction and then your brain is going to start looking for evidence. And then you're going to be working with your brain instead of against it. So, one of the identity statements I love for me people to write down is "I'm the kind of person who..." fill in the blank. Whether that's like, I don't know, getting up early. You're not a morning person, but you really want to be. You're going to start lying to yourself, lying to your brain, and saying, "I'm the kind of person who enjoys getting up early. I'm the kind of person who gets a lot of stuff done in the morning because I like getting up early."

And when you start saying it, even like just two or three times, you might feel it in your body. be like, uh, that doesn't feel right. But after three, four times, you're not going to have that same physiological response because your body's like your brain and your body start talking. They're like, "Oh, that's not so new." So, I think building up the confidence and the identity of or it could be a statement like, "I'm the kind of person who prioritizes my health, prioritizes myself first." Um once you kind of get that step over, then it's easier to advocate with for yourself when you're in a doctor's office or when you're um, like someone's arguing with you about, I don't know, your experiences.  

Saara Haapanen: One of the things I was taught in school um, when I was doing my master's degree is to use "I" messages. So regardless of who you're talking with, if you use "I" messages, so, "I feel..." blank, no one can argue with that. Like if you feel a certain way, you feel tired, you feel sick, you feel great, you feel uncertain, you feel confused. If you say "I feel" and the other person on the receiving end of that is going to use any language that's confrontational or arguing like that's not valid because you're entitled to feel the way that you feel.

And we kind of have to be careful with the language we use with, especially if we've been doing our own like Google research, and we're advocating for ourself with the doctor who thinks they know more than us. Like you know your body, and you know your brain more than any doctor ever could. Like, I whenever I have a new client in the gym, I was like as much as I know about everything like anatomy and physiology, I was like, if something does not feel right for you, like let me know.  

There are thousands of ways to move your body there are thousands of ways to do other things but I want you to like advocate and listen to yourself. So it's kind of like a skill too. You have to first train yourself to have that confidence and then the language that you use. It's really important.

Becky Miller:  Thanks. That's a great skill to build and a great way, like you said, even if it's just 1%. I know one time we were talking and we said, "Hey, even if it's just 0.11%, if you're having a really hard day, any any improvement is improvement." And that's great.

Saara Haapanen: Yeah.

Becky Miller:  Um, you're talking about how you work with identity. We noticed that you um, especially work with former athletes and achievers and relating to identity. How can somebody begin to rebuild their sense of self after a diagnosis or health setback when they maybe, especially if they've been in a a job or a profession, you know, like where where their their body was a key component to their success, I guess, and then it their body just physically can't do what it used to anymore. Like how do you help them rebuild that sense of self?

Saara Haapanen:  Ooo, that's challenging. Um, it depends. I mean, we do a whole, we did a whole course on...a lot of athletes feel like they lose themselves when they retire because you give your whole everything to one specific thing and then it gets taken away from you or your body decides it's no longer on board. It is a lot of not toxic positivity, but it's a lot of training of self identity, self talk, the language you're doing and keeping in mind that like, our brain is wired to look for negative things. Like back in the day we came out of our cave, we're like where's the danger? Is it raining? Is there a tiger chasing me? Where's the danger? We don't come out and say, "Oh, it's a beautiful day. Look at all the flowers." But you kind of, and it is very challenging if you're in a situation where your body is no longer on board to be like, "Oh, I feel great about this," you know, when it's not that situation. But there's a lot of science behind like your mindset can determine your health outcomes for people like after surgery, people who have lost limbs, people who are in wheelchairs, like people are debilitated in any way. Like the way that you think it's going to go, your brain will find evidence.

So it is kind of back to what I was talking about when you're using like "I" messages. It's going to feel like you're lying to yourself a lot. Like if you're like, "it's okay" or "it's gonna be okay" is better language to use. And I think to be honest with yourself of here's where I'm at now. I can do only what I can do. I can only control the controllables that I can control from here moving forward. And I know like for a lot of autoimmune or chronic things, like we look back and for me because I was a diver, I truly believe that one of the reasons my autoimmune issues is like I was soaking chlorine every day multiple times a day and then coaching in pools where I was huffing chlorine all the time and then finding out that like chlorine fluoride and bromine like kill your thyroid and I was like oh, and 17 of my teammates also have thyroid issues and three of them in thyroid cancer, and they're like, "Sarah, there's no science around this."  

I was like, "I would do the research, but who's going to pay for it?" And I have published research and it is boring and a lot of things I don't like to do, but I was like, realistically, who is going to pay for this research? And the thing is, when you're in the chlorine, you don't have the thyroid issues. You have the thyroid issues when you're in your 30s. And then it like shows up way later. And who's going to say it's just like if I had all the time in the world then maybe I'll do a study on like chlorine is bad for your thyroid but everyone there's not a lot of science out there because who's going to do that study, you know, like synthroid isn't going to fund that, or maybe I don't know we'll see you never know.

Becky Miller:  Probably not.

Saara Haapanen:  But, yeah, bring me back to the question. It was, I went down a rabbit hole and I forget.

Becky Miller:  Oh, sorry. It was How do you help them rebuild their sense of self?  

Saara Haapanen:  Oh, sense of, yes so it's training challenging, but I would say focus on the things that you can control. Educate yourself a lot about what's going on in your body. Um, and then you always want to look for that main domino because maybe, and for a lot of people, they probably don't want to hear this, but like diet and the food you eat is going to make the biggest effect. And for a lot of people, like food is comfort. a lot of ADHDers like we're seeking dopamine all the time and we want the crunchy processed food that's full of that. Chemists made to make the taste go away so your brain wants it more, like eat European food if you can, I mean usually diet like pick one hard thing don't try and do all the hard things at once. Like, what's the, if you can if you know what the domino is, start with a domino um, and then I think a lot of brain training as far as how you're speaking to yourself, meeting yourself where you are. Self identity like, it's a lot of work but doable and trainable.

Alysia Thomas: It is a lot of work.

Saara Haapanen:  Your brain is trainable. It's plastic.

Alysia Thomas:  Yes, it's trainable - growth mindset. It is a lot of work. I just, I mean I wasn't a former athlete. I wasn't a high achiever, but I was a damn good mom and I had a bunch of kids, you know, and I really grieved the person that I was being gone. So, I can't imagine trying to come back into yourself if that was your former life and identity. I was just, it took me years to come back to myself as as a mom and a person, and and get back to that. So, you are doing very, very valuable and important work, and I know it's a long process, but I'm so glad there are people like, like you out there helping, because I always told my husband when I was in the thick of it, and I was in trying to get diagnosis, and I was trying to find a treatment, and I was miserable, and I was tired and I, you know, I was trying so hard to fake it till you make it, because I have kids. I don't want to be that mom. And I remember just saying to him, if I could just have somebody get in my brain and help me change the way I think, I, I think it would all be easier for me. And didn't know how to do it. And that's what you're doing. So, I love that. I, I wish I'd met you 10 years ago.

Saara Haapanen:  Yeah. Well, and I would love to add of like with people with autoimmune disease or anything, regular humans too. This applies to all humans, especially women. Um, but 100% of you is going to look different every day. And you can only give 100%, and like some days 100% that day might be like 70% of a good day is 100%. You know what I mean? And it's like just being able to manage the energy that you have and know that it is like a mountain range. It goes up and down and there are going to be good days and there are going to be not so good days.  

Saara Haapanen:  And like for me, winter is hard. Like my body still doesn't regulate temperature. Uh my depression goes up. I have to pretend to be a happy person. Life is way easier for me in the summer. But like, I survive the winter. I thrive in the summer. But I know that. So I can like I do the hard things. I film like my programs and stuff in the summer and in the winter I just go day-to-day, and my clients keep me entertained and like that's great, but like in the winter I can do hard, I mean in the summer I can do hard things. So I think it's like meeting yourself where you are that day and allowing yourself the flexibility to be like on a good day you can do more. On a not so great day, it's phenomenal if you can have help or your significant other understands or your kids are, like, can help each other. You know, it's just every day is different and there's good days and bad days.  And it's there might be more bad days when you have an autoimmune disease, but it's not rainbows and butterflies every single day all day. Even if if you're like perfectly healthy, you know, we're still human.

Stacy Griffin: Finally, what we'd like to ask you is where can people learn more about your coaching, your programs, connect with you online so that our followers can learn more from you.  

Saara Haapanen: Uh, drsaara.com. So, s-a-a- r-a, and this is good for an ADHDer to say because I'm working on my website so that means it will be up by the time this goes live. So it's a little motivation for me too. Um and if you just look up I'm the only Dr. SO all over the internet. It's Sarah with two A's.

Becky Miller: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for joining us today. Your work is powerful. Your approach is compassionate. We are glad that our listeners got to hear from you, and we're glad we did. Um, listeners, if you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to subscribe on YouTube or at www.automadventures.com. Share our episodes with someone who needs them. And please check out Saara's links in our show notes and in our YouTube comments. Remember, you are worthy of joy and your disease does not define your life. You do.

How to contact Saara:

WEBSITE:

drsaara.com

https://performanceishaapanen.com/coachsaara

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