Hi Reader,
If you've been pushing yourself to exercise — showing up faithfully, doing the "right" things — and you keep feeling worse instead of better, I want you to know that there is a very real, very well-researched reason for that.
And it has nothing to do with how hard you're trying.
Here's what's actually happening inside your body, and I want to walk you through this slowly because I think it will finally make some things click.
When you exercise — especially high-intensity movement like HIIT, running, or heavy lifting — your body triggers a release of cortisol, your primary stress hormone.
In a healthy, well-regulated body, this is a good thing.
Cortisol rises during the workout, your body adapts, cortisol drops back down, and over time you get stronger.
That's the cycle fitness is built on.
But research from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reveals something new about bodies dealing with chronic illness, autoimmune conditions, or adrenal dysregulation.
When your body is already living under chronic physiological stress, that post-exercise cortisol spike doesn't resolve the way it should.
Instead of rising and falling cleanly, it compounds on top of an already overloaded stress response.
And sustained elevated cortisol — the kind that builds up over weeks and months of pushing through workouts your body isn't ready for — actively suppresses immune function, increases intestinal permeability (which you might know as leaky gut), disrupts thyroid hormone conversion, and drives systemic inflammation.
The very thing you've been doing to heal yourself may be quietly working against you.
I know that's hard to hear.
But I also think part of you already knew something wasn't adding up.
This is why I love how 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV) reads when you sit with it honestly.
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
I've heard this verse used to push women harder, encouraging more discipline, earlier alarms, no excuses.
But when I read it alongside the science, I see something entirely different.
Glorifying God in your body means stewarding it wisely.
It means paying attention to what it's actually telling you rather than overriding it in the name of discipline.
Right now, in this season, the most honoring thing you might be able to do is choose a gentle walk over a HIIT class — not because healing doesn't require anything of you, but because you understand that a temple requires thoughtful care, not relentless pushing.
Here's something practical and simple I'd love for you to try this week.
For the next seven days, pay close attention to how you feel in the two to three hours after you exercise — not during, not the next morning, but in that window right afterward.
Do you feel genuinely energized, clear-headed, and like your body appreciated the movement?
Or do you feel depleted, foggy, achy, and like you need hours to recover?
That window is one of the clearest, most honest signals your body sends about whether your current movement practice is helping or hurting.
Researchers call this your body's "recovery response" — and in women with chronic illness, a consistently poor recovery response after exercise is one of the earliest signs that the type or intensity of movement needs to change.
This doesn't mean stopping movement altogether.
It means finding the kind of movement that works with your body's current capacity. It might just look a lot quieter than what you've been doing.
I'd really love to hear from you on this one.
Hit reply and tell me honestly — how do you feel after you exercise right now?
Energized, or exhausted?
There's no wrong answer, and I'm not going to suggest you're doing anything wrong.
I'm asking because your answer tells me something important about where your body actually is right now, and sometimes that one conversation is the beginning of everything changing.
You deserve movement that heals you, not drains you.
And I believe we can find that for you.
With care,
Andrea DuMez, RN, CHN, NBC-HWC
Registered Nurse | Holistic Nutritionist | Integrative Health Coach | Certified Metabolic Balance Coach
