Hashimotos and it’s connection to disconnect.
Hashimoto’s is referred to as an autoimmune disorder in which the body “attacks itself” through histamine response towards the thyroid, resulting in reduced thyroid function, fatigue, weight gain, and metabolic slowing. This clinically convenient explanation avoids a more meaningful question: why would the body intentionally lower thyroid activity? When examined through the lens of biology, environment, and seasonality, Hashimoto’s may represent not a failure of the body, but a protective response to chronic misalignment between modern lifestyles and biological design.
The thyroid gland functions as one of the body’s primary energy regulators. Through the production and conversion of thyroid hormones, it influences metabolic rate, cellular energy production, thermoregulation, and overall vitality. This system is deeply interconnected with sunlight exposure, nutrient availability, sleep cycles, and seasonal rhythms. When these foundational inputs are disrupted, the thyroid does not “malfunction” randomly; it adapts.
Modern culture demands sustained productivity, efficiency, and high output regardless of season, light availability, or environmental conditions. This expectation directly conflicts with the body’s evolutionary design. Forcing constant energy expenditure when the biological environment does not support it leads not to resilience, but to shutdown. When energy demands exceed energy availability, the body protects itself by slowing metabolism, often through reduced thyroid activity.
In winter, particularly at high latitudes such as Alaska, Norway, Northern Asia, ext, sunlight is scarce, circadian rhythms shift, and vitamin D synthesis declines dramatically. Vitamin D plays a critical role in energy metabolism, immune modulation, and thyroid hormone conversion. Reduced sunlight naturally lowers energy availability. Historically, this was not pathological. Human populations living in northern latitudes adapted by increasing rest, sleeping longer hours, and reducing metabolic demands during winter months. Ethnographic and historical evidence suggests that winter sleep durations of 12–14 hours were common, allowing the body to conserve energy and repair.
In contrast, modern life enforces uniform output year-round. Artificial lighting, rigid work schedules, and constant digital stimulation override natural cues for rest. Many individuals spend minimal time outdoors, exist under fluorescent lighting, and remain tethered to handheld 5 inch screens that further disrupt circadian signaling. Under these conditions, the thyroid is expected to maintain summer-level energy production in a winter environment. When it cannot, dysfunction emerges not because the thyroid is broken, but because it is responding appropriately to an unsustainable demand.
From this perspective, an underactive thyroid during winter may represent function, not dysfunction. The problem arises when this adaptive state becomes chronic due to prolonged environmental mismatch. Over time, continued pressure to “push through” fatigue can create a disconnect between the body’s energy creators and energy demands. This disconnect is frequently labeled autoimmune disease, but may be more accurately described as metabolic and environmental overload.
I speak loudly about this because I went through this twice with both my pregnancies. My first I was labeled hypothyroidism and medicated, my second in my postpartum it escalated from hypothyroidism to hashimotos, where medication doses increased every three months until it was so painful, my day to day was insufferable. When you do not listen to your body when it speaks to you, it will scream. Continuing ignorance to it’s requests, only makes it’s demands louder until it’s so loud you have no choice but to listen.
Healing Hashimoto’s, then, requires restoration rather than force. Rather than stimulating the body into higher output through pharmaceuticals or chronic stress, healing involves adding back the elements that support natural thyroid function: sunlight exposure, mineral sufficiency, movement, rest, and seasonal alignment. These inputs do not override biology; they restore it.
An especially compelling example of environmental provision can be found in Inonotus obliquus, commonly known as chaga mushroom. Chaga grows abundantly in cold climates and is traditionally harvested in winter in Alaska. Notably, this coincides with the season when thyroid activity and energy availability are lowest. Research published through the National Institutes of Health has demonstrated that chaga extracts exhibit moderate cytotoxic activity against a range of cancer cell lines without inducing high toxicity. Most strikingly, the strongest inhibitory effects observed were against thyroid cancer cells. This selective activity suggests a unique protective relationship between chaga and thyroid tissue.
The seasonal availability of chaga raises an important biological question: why would a thyroid-protective medicinal mushroom be most abundant precisely when thyroid stress is greatest? From an evolutionary and ecological standpoint, this alignment appears intentional rather than coincidental. The land provides what the body lacks. In winter, when sunlight is minimal and metabolic output declines, chaga emerges as a supportive, protective agent for thyroid cells. This reflects a broader ancestral pattern in which humans relied on locally available, seasonal resources to maintain physiological balance.
This relationship underscores a key flaw in modern approaches to thyroid disease: the assumption that the body should function identically across all seasons. Metabolically and hormonally, humans are not static organisms. Energy production, sleep needs, immune activity, and hormonal output naturally fluctuate throughout the year. Seasonal variation is not a weakness; it is an adaptive strength. Pathology emerges when cultural narratives prioritize productivity over survival, efficiency over alignment, and constant output over biological reality.
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, particularly in northern populations, may therefore reflect a profound disconnection from environmental cues rather than an inherent immune defect. When individuals are chronically deprived of sunlight, minerals, rest, and seasonal rhythm, the thyroid becomes a bottleneck for energy regulation. The immune system, responding to persistent stress and dysregulation, becomes involved not as the original cause, but as part of a broader systemic imbalance.
Reframing Hashimoto’s as an issue of misalignment rather than malfunction opens new pathways for healing. By restoring connection to sunlight, embracing seasonal rest, supporting mineral balance, engaging in appropriate movement, and respecting the body’s natural energy fluctuations, thyroid function can recover. The goal is not to force energy production, but to create the conditions in which energy can be produced safely and sustainably. Thyroid disfunction stems from demanding energy from the body via stimulates while not doing anything to produce it naturally. In the process external stimulates once enter the body, they damage our biological internal energy producers.
In this light, the body is not failing, it is communicating. Hashimoto’s is not a betrayal by the immune system, but a signal that the organism is being asked to live out of season. When we realign with biology and environment, the thyroid no longer needs to shut down. Health, then, becomes less about intervention and more about remembrance: returning the body to the conditions it evolved to thrive within.
REFRENCES:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39204121/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26480842/
