Fighting Fatigue

Understanding your adrenal glands and adrenal fatigue may just get your life back into balance.

Your Adrenal Glands

Your adrenals - two walnut-sized glands that sit atop each kidney – are known as “the stress glands.” Despite their tiny size, they play a gigantic role in your energy, endurance, vitality and health. Your adrenal glands are responsible for producing many sex hormones, regulating blood pressure, balancing fluids and, most importantly, helping the body deal with stress.

Anytime you perceive a stress your brain signals to the adrenal glands to release cortisol. Cortisol has many functions to help the body in times of stress. Cortisol reduces inflammation, normalizes blood sugar, regulates the immune system, assists with memory formation, controls sleep and mood, and influences cardiovascular activity. Cortisol helps to keep the body in balance. Wait, it sounds like a good thing to constantly pump out cortisol. So, what’s the catch?

The problem arises when your adrenal glands cannot keep up with the constant demands for more cortisol. The more stress you have in your life, the more demand you are putting on your adrenal glands. As you now know, these glands are tiny and mighty, but they can only take so much. Eventually, your adrenals get worn out and this is when your health gets compromised.

The Causes

Adrenal fatigue is caused by an overload of stress. The number of stressors you have, whether or not you perceive them as a stress, the intensity and frequency of each stress, and the length of time exposed to each stress creates your total stress load. The important thing to remember is that it is the accumulation of stressors and your capacity to handle them that determines stress overload.

The Stages

The stressors listed in the graphic, as well as many more, can all affect your adrenal glands. Stress is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, it is the result of excess stress that leads to adrenal fatigue. There are three stages of adrenal fatigue:

• Stage I: This stage is referred to as the “fight or flight” response. It is an acute reaction to a stress that stimulates an increase in cortisol levels. Stage I is a normal and critical response to stress.

• Stage II: This stage is referred to as the “resistance reaction.” In this stage cortisol levels remain high despite getting over the initial stress response. Stage II leads to high blood pressure and blood sugar, as well as increased risk of diabetes, cancer and other diseases.

• Stage III: This is the stage of “adrenal fatigue” or adrenal failure. If Stage II persists for too long, cortisol levels fall below normal and dysfunction of multiple organ systems can present, leading to severely compromised health.

The Symptoms

Knowing the signs and symptoms to look out for can help get you back into balance. If you have one or more of these symptoms, you may have adrenal fatigue:

• Chronic colds and infections

• Autoimmune disease

• High blood pressure

• High blood sugar

• Diabetes

• Impaired short term memory

• Brain fog

• Chronic fatigue

• Feeling exhausted all the time

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Hypothyroidism

• Hypoglycemia

• Thirsty but not holding water

• Food cravings

• Trouble falling and staying asleep

• Difficulty waking up

• Needing caffeine to “wake up”

• Needing alcohol to “wind down”

• Abnormal periods

• Increased PMS symptoms

• Erectile dysfunction

• Loss of sex drive

• Longer time to heal

• Easily sprain or strain tendons and ligaments

Adrenal Fatigue and Disease

Hypoadrenia is the medical term for sub-optimal adrenal function. You’ve seen how stress effects adrenal function, but did you know that disease can also negatively affect your adrenals? That’s because chronic disease is another form of stress! Unfortunately, this becomes a vicious cycle – chronic stress leads to reduced adrenal function which leads to disease and further taxing on the adrenal glands.

Any chronic disease – from arthritis to cancer can lead to adrenal dysfunction. This dysfunction can then lead to other diseases and syndromes, specifically:

• Asthma and allergies

• Alcoholism

• Chronic and recurrent respiratory infections

• Chronic fatigue syndrome

• Fibromyalgia

• Hypoglycemia

• Ischemic heart disease

• Rheumatoid arthritis​

Adrenal Fatigue and Weight

When you are under stress, your body reacts to each stressor the same way – an impending work deadline is treated like you’re running from a tiger. The adrenal glands release cortisol which stops insulin from doing its job of storing energy, aka blood glucose. So, blood sugar remains high during times of high stress in case that glucose is needed for fuel.

This is a good thing when you are literally running for your life – you need that energy to keep your legs moving! But when you are sitting at your desk for hours on end, this reaction is overkill. Cortisol is also known as the “fat storage” hormone so stress becomes a double whammy of high blood sugar and increased fat storage. In fact, frequent and prolonged stress can lead to a cascade of events that will compromise your health. Chronic high blood sugar may lead to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and, if not corrected, Type II diabetes. Weight gain may also lead to diabetes as well as many other health conditions.

Adrenal Fatigue and Allergies

Cortisol is a strong anti-inflammatory. If you have ever taken corticosteroids, a synthetic form of cortisol, you know well how powerful it can be. Your adrenal glands and their ability to produce cortisol are important in mediating inflammatory reactions in the body, including the inflammation and histamine release that occurs with allergies. Just like the vicious cycle of “disease leads to disease” with adrenal dysfunction, allergies will tax the adrenals and eventually create low cortisol production which can lead to more allergies or more severe symptoms from those allergies.

Getting Back into Balance

Reducing your total stress load is key to overcoming or preventing adrenal fatigue. There are the typical stress management techniques we should all be working on:

• Finding a work-life balance

• Exercising with adequate recovery

• Getting quality sleep

• Incorporating relaxation in to your day

• Changing your perspective of your stressors

• Finding a good support system

• Building truthful and rewarding relationships

Foods to Balance the Scales

In addition to managing stress, certain foods and supplements can help you stock up on resources and support your stress load without tipping the scales.

• Combine quality fats, protein and carbohydrates at every meal. This will help regulate blood sugar.

• Load up on colorful vegetables. Vegetables are full of necessary vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytonutrients that are key to optimal health.

• Eat a wide variety of whole, natural foods. Avoiding processed foods and replacing them with whole foods will reduce stress caused from unhealthy foods.

• Avoid sugars, this includes reducing natural sugars from fruits. This will help better regulate blood sugar.

• Vitamin C. This vitamin is vital to adrenal function.

• B Vitamins. Specifically B3, B5 and B6 are important for energy production and adrenal function.

• Licorice Root. This is an anti-stress herb known to increase energy and support the adrenal glands.

• Ashwagandha. This herb is anti-inflammatory and supports adrenal function.

Managing your stress through diet and lifestyle changes can help get your energy and health back into balance.

Resources:
Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome, James Wilson, ND, DC, PhD
The Cortisol Connection, Shawn Talbott, PhD, FACSM

Photo Courtesy of:
http://carlyshankman.com/could-it-be-adrenal-fatigue/