How Stress and Trauma Impact Mitochondrial Function

When we experience chronic stress or past trauma, it doesn’t just affect our mood—it can also disrupt our energy systems at the cellular level.

In this seminar, we’ll explore how stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline change the way our bodies use energy, increase blood sugar, and contribute to fatigue, brain fog, and inflammation. You’ll learn how stress places extra pressure on detoxification and repair processes, why heavy metals can build up more easily, and how this can damage the tiny energy factories inside your cells—your mitochondria. We’ll also discuss how to support healthy mitochondrial function through nutrition, lifestyle, and stress recovery practices.

DATE: Thursday 15th May

TIME: 7-8PM AEST (Melbourne, Australia timezone)

LOCATION: Online, via ZOOM (or recording if you’re unable to attend in person)

Key Topics Discussed

  • The Energy Cost of Stress and Trauma

    Discover how stress and trauma don’t just affect your mental state—they impact your energy at the cellular level. This section introduces how your nervous system and mitochondria (your cells’ energy producers) are linked, and why stress can leave you feeling chronically depleted.

  • The Stress Response: Cortisol, Blood Sugar, and Burnout

    Learn how stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline change the way your body uses energy. We’ll explore how these shifts affect blood sugar, sleep, and inflammation—and why they contribute to fatigue, brain fog, and long-term burnout.

  • Detox Under Pressure: What Happens When Stress Slows Repair

    When you're under constant stress, your body's ability to detoxify and repair itself slows down. We’ll explore how stress increases your need for key nutrients and impairs important processes like antioxidant recycling, liver detox, and cellular repair.

  • Heavy Metals and Toxin Build-Up in a Stressed Body

    Chronic stress can make it harder for your body to clear environmental toxins. You’ll learn how heavy metals like mercury and cadmium can accumulate more easily under stress, and how they damage the mitochondria that power your cells.

  • Mitochondrial Dysfunction: The Root of Fatigue and Inflammation

    Here, we take a closer look at how mitochondrial dysfunction—especially something reductive stress and oxidative stress—contribute to poor energy, immune dysregulation, and chronic health issues. You’ll learn what happens when your cells can’t make or use energy effectively.

  • Rebuilding Energy: Nutrition, Lifestyle and Nervous System Recovery

    Finally, we’ll focus on what you can do to recover. This session covers practical strategies to support mitochondrial health, regulate your nervous system, and restore your energy—using targeted nutrition, lifestyle changes, and integrative stress recovery techniques.

Meet Your Host

Lou Chalmer is a scientist turned nutrition and genetics consultant and psychosomatic counsellor. She specialises in immune and nervous system function, and works with clients from Australia and around the world with a wide range of health issues.

Her approach is holistic, grounded in the principles of integrative health, where physical, emotional, and environmental factors are addressed together. Lou views the body and brain as parts of an interconnected network, rather than isolated systems. Her work is based on the understanding that many chronic physical and mental health conditions stem from mitochondrial dysfunction—disruptions in the body’s cellular energy production that impair resilience, immunity, cognition, and repair. Through targeted nutrition, lifestyle interventions, and psychosomatic support, she helps clients rebuild the foundations of long-term health and vitality.