Adrenal Fatigue:
Symptoms & Solutions for this Under-Reported Condition Even Your Doctor
Doesn't Know
If your life is full of stress and you're finding yourself more and
more exhausted, you may have adrenal fatigue. Learn the symptoms of
adrenal fatigue and steps to bring back your vitality.
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Feeling exhausted? Low on willpower? Having difficulty losing weight? Think
it's your thyroid? Think again...because many hypothyroid symptoms are
so similar to adrenal fatigue that the two are often confused.1
On top of this confusion, tests for thyroid and adrenal problems are often
difficult to interpret correctly. Some doctors believe that even if you had
low thyroid function, it could be adrenal stress causing the problem to begin
with, which would be difficult to diagnose without more tests.2
Body Ecology teaches that creating energy in a person's body is essential
in order to establish, regain or maintain health...and it's your adrenals
and your thyroid efficiently working together that really supply you with
energy.
Your adrenals, two walnut-sized organs that sit on top of your kidneys, are
the workhorses of your body. If you are exhausted, chances are, your adrenals
- AND their partner the thyroid - need attention.
What happens when the adrenals and thyroid have lost their life force or
"spirit?" Your digestive system, the organs in your brain (e.g.,
hypothalamus and pituitary), your thyroid, liver, endocrine system, sexual
organ system, heart and central nervous system suffer.3
Adrenals and Stress
The adrenals are your "life saving" organs because they control
your body's hormones and help you survive in stressful situations. They act
as control organs for your "fight or flight" response and secrete
many of our most important hormones including: pregnenolone, adrenaline, estrogen,
progesterone, testosterone, DHEA and cortisol.
Cortisol, often referred to as the death or stress hormone, does have
some life-giving tasks. For example, cortisol helps: prepare your body
for survival in stressful situations, metabolize carbohydrates, protein and
fats into energy, slow the immune system's inflammatory response, regulate
the balance of converting insulin in breaking down sugar for energy and helps
maintain your cardiovascular health and blood pressure.3
Cortisol becomes the "death hormone" when levels remain too
high - which it does under chronic stress. The human body was designed
to respond effectively to stress and then have periods of rest in between.
Unfortunately, our modern day society is so full of constant stressors that
we are no longer having that time of rest.
There is an eloquent connection between your adrenals and your brain. These
organs are constantly in communication with each other using chemical messengers
(or hormones) that flow between the adrenals, the hypothalamus and the pituitary.
When your adrenals are constantly stressed this sets off an autoimmune, inflammatory
response in your entire body. The adrenal-hypothalamus-pituitary feedback
loop regulates the secretion of cortisol.4
All of your organs AND your immunity are impacted negatively by the resulting
constant assault of cortisol. Cortisol suppresses DHEA the" youth hormone."
Your brain obtains this hormone from your adrenals. DHEA is the most abundant
hormone in the body and your brain has an enormous "appetite" for
DHEA.
When you understand all these connections, it is easy to see why there is
such a wide-range of symptoms when the adrenals start to burn out.
Common symptoms of adrenal fatigue are:
- Cravings for sugar
- Cravings for salt on food when you eat
- Feel dehydrated and thirsty and require plenty of water
- Difficulty falling asleep at night, sleep lightly or wake early or often
- Difficulty relaxing, nervous, anxious or hyperactive
- Often spacey, or foggy thinking, even memory loss
- Lack willpower to accomplish
- General exhaustion
- Hormone imbalances
- Low libido
- Weight gain, especially in abdomen and waist area
- Losing muscle tone
- Sagging skin, dry, yellow or pale in color
- Hair starting to gray, thin out and become dry
- Lips losing their color
- Loss of appetite
- Anorexia
- Weight loss
- High blood sugar
At Body Ecology, we believe adrenal fatigue is an underlying factor in just
about every physical, emotional and spiritual problem we are suffering from
today.
7 Foods and Lifestyle Habits that Tax Your Adrenals AND Healthy Alternatives
By now you know how a stressful lifestyle affects your adrenals, but what
about diet?
What you eat absolutely affects the health of your adrenals. The worst
offenders create an acidic condition in your blood and rob your body of precious
vitamins and minerals.
Certain nutrients, especially B-Vitamins, Vitamin C and minerals are essential
for feeding your adrenals. Of these, perhaps most important are minerals (sodium,
potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, manganese, etc).
Here are some common foods, drinks and lifestyle habits that contribute
to adrenal fatigue AND what to choose instead:
- Sugar
- Instead: Use stevia - an all-natural herbal sweetener that gives
you a sweet taste without feeding candida, raising your blood sugar or robbing
your body of minerals. Learn more by reading: The
One Supplement that Should be in Everyone's Cooking Cupboard.
- Coffee
- Instead: Replace your morning cup of adrenaline boosting coffee
with far superior options. Vitality SuperGreen - this gut-healing green
drink is full of the nutrients that your adrenals and thyroid love. On top
of that, it provides a natural source of alkalizing energy for your body.
For more information, read: Are
You at Peak Vitality? Answer these Key Questions. A shot glass of fermented
spirulina will get your energy up and almost instantly. One ounce of
black currant juice in 4 - 6 ounces of young coconut kefir is another classic
Body Ecology adrenal tonic.
- Too much animal protein - most people don't have enough stomach
acid to digest animal protein properly, creating an acidic condition in
their blood.
- Instead: follow the 80/20
rule and enjoy meals with 80% vegetables and 20% protein.
- Also use Body Ecology's ASSIST
for Protein
- Fermented
foods and liquids are a must for digestion of proteins. That means animal
proteins and vegetable proteins.
- Processed foods strip your body of minerals making your blood acidic
and your adrenals weaken quickly. Over time you will look and feel older
than your age. This is one of the most important anti-aging
secrets to delay and even reverse old age.
- Instead: change your diet step-by-step focus on Body Ecology's
7 key healthy eating habits and immediately introduce at least one of
our fermented
foods and liquids into your diet. These are the new and true "fast
foods" of today. They are quickly becoming the new "stars"
in the natural foods industry. But no one knows fermented foods like we
do here at Body Ecology. Why would we call them a fast food? How much time
does it take to open a jar of cultured veggies or a bottle of CocoBiotic
or BE Wholegrain
Liquid?
- Soda pop
- Instead: try Body Ecology's probiotic
liquids for their immune-boosting and adrenal nourishing properties.
To make the new "soda pop" once again we have a great solution.
Pour a small amount of your favorite fermented liquid (like BE WholeGrain)
into a glass. Add sparkling mineral water and stevia
to taste. If you are a parent or a grandparent please introduce your own
little ones to this great alternative. Then watch their health and their
behavior change for the better.
- Drugs - this includes over the counter, recreational and prescription
drugs. For more information, read: How
this All-Too-Common Habit is Making Your Blood Dangerously Acidic.
- Stress
- Instead - Get plenty of rest and heal negative emotions. take time
for self-care routines like meditation, yoga, deep breathing and getting
plenty of sleep. Negative thoughts and emotions can sabotage your best efforts
at relaxing. Try effective emotional clearing approaches like the Emotional
Freedom Technique (EFT). Just like diet, thoughts and emotions become
habits. EFT is a great way to easily change these thought habits and start
healing your emotional health.
Carpe Diem
Let's face it, we are all so busy we often don't take time out for ourselves
- to rest, relax, breathe or nourish ourselves in the ways we wish we could.
Often, it's because we fall into "doing," putting off self-care
until "someday when we have the time."
After awhile, our busy lives and diets become habits that feel
"too hard" to change. In some ways, breaking this addiction-to-being-busy
habit means stepping out of easily and starting anew...and even that takes
time we don't think we have.
And yet, in the end, it's energy, vitality and just plain feeling good that
we all truly seek. It's the only way we can truly be happy. The vital constitutional
energy that is stored in our adrenals is essential to reaching old age looking
and feeling like a teenager. Interestingly, just a few changes - maybe just
one step in the right direction of healing your adrenals (and don't forget
your thyroid) - can be just what you need.
Make a few simple changes today to invest in your adrenal health. For
a comprehensive guide to nourishing your adrenals and boosting your
energy, get your copy of the Adrenal
Fatigue CD by Donna Gates.
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There's nothing that feels better or gives more energy than your health...and
isn't that worth the effort? For more on adrenal fatigue, listen to Donna
Gates' comprehensive CD on Adrenal
Fatigue and start building your energy and vitality today!
Sources
1 Hypothyroidism and hormone imbalance.
http://www.womentowomen.com/hypothyroidism/hormonalimbalance.asp?id=1&campaignno=thyroid&adgroup=adgroup2thyroid&keywords=low+thyroid
2 Thyroid testing for hypothyroidism.
http://www.womentowomen.com/hypothyroidism/testing.asp
3 Adrenal Insufficiency. Pituitary Network Association.
http://www.pituitary.org/disorders/addisons_disease.aspx
4 Raber, J. Detrimental effects of chronic hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
axis activation. From obesity to memory deficits. Gladstone Institute of Neurological
Diseases. 1998.
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/hpa.htm
Bowen, R. Glucocorticoids. Colorado State University. May 2006.
http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/adrenal/gluco.html
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