The Thyroid

It sits at the front of your throat, right beneath the larynx, barely larger than a butterfly — and yet it governs almost everything that happens inside you. How fast your heart beats. How warm you feel. How much energy you have in the morning. How quickly your mind works. How deeply you sleep. How easily you gain or lose weight. How stable your mood is.

Medically, the thyroid is the pacemaker of your metabolism. It produces hormones that reach every single cell and tell it at what speed it should work. Too much of them, and you burn from the inside out. Too little, and you feel as though you are wading through honey. From a psychosomatic perspective, a different question arises: What regulates your inner tempo? Who determines how fast you live — and whose beat are you actually keeping?