More than 80% of us will experience adrenal fatigue several times during our lifetime. It's an epidemic that most people have no idea exists. The few who are aware of it do not fully understand its cause or how to cure it. This is not surprising, as medical science is still in the dark about this common condition.
Do you have adrenal fatigue?
If your adrenal glands are working irregularly, you may experience symptoms such as weakness, lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, easily confused, forgetfulness, difficulty doing basic tasks that you once found easy, hoarse voice, indigestion, constipation, depression , insomnia, not feeling rested after waking from sleep, and relying on naps to get through the day. Some other common signs of adrenal fatigue include 'crashing' in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon, feeling tired all day but more energetic in the evening, and feeling completely exhausted at night but unable to fall asleep . After childbirth, fatigue and depression often develop in women and are often the result of adrenal exhaustion during childbirth. Since 80% of us will experience adrenal fatigue, if you have any of these symptoms, it could affect you too.
Tired adrenal glands can also affect other glands and organs, including the pancreas, heart, liver, brain, and central nervous system. However, if you experience more severe forms of adrenal fatigue symptoms, you may develop neurological fatigue, which is caused by the swelling of the central nervous system due to viruses like Epstein-Barr and shingles.
The cause of adrenal fatigue
The adrenal glands are two small clumps of tissue in your endocrine system located directly above your kidneys. It is well known that the adrenal glands are responsible for producing hormones essential to your health, such as adrenaline and cortisol. But it's not well known yet that the adrenal glands produce most of the female reproductive hormones, including estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. This means that the health of the adrenal glands has a direct impact on a woman's libido and ability to conceive. It is widely believed that the adrenal glands stop producing enough hormones when they are fatigued. This is a misconception. In reality, the function of the adrenal glands varies with emotional stress, environmental factors and existing health problems in the body. Because of this variability, the adrenal glands can fluctuate between producing too much or too little hormone. It is this fluctuating behavior that characterizes true adrenal exhaustion, with one gland always being weaker, stronger, or more heavily loaded than the other, prolonging the healing process. In fact, each adrenal gland has its own intelligence and is responsible for producing hormone mixtures specific to the situations it manages. For example, the left adrenal gland is primarily responsible for producing the hormones needed when someone has the stomach flu or food poisoning. The right adrenal gland is primarily responsible for producing the hormones needed when someone is obsessed with a hobby or interest in their life. For some situations, such as coping with a crisis or falling in love, both adrenal glands produce the necessary hormones. This vital information has not yet been discovered, nor is it considered or researched, and affects our ability to heal.
The stress response
Our bodies' innate intelligence means that the adrenal glands know that they produce greater amounts of critical hormones such as adrenaline when we are under stress or when we are having highly charged emotional experiences. These hormones give us the ability to meet the challenges we face as a short-lived survival mechanism. However, if the stress lasts for a longer period of time than we were designed for, the adrenal glands will eventually become damaged and start to behave erratically. Unfortunately, in this modern age, the demands placed on us are higher than at any time in history. Prolonged periods of stress are the norm rather than the exception, and we pay for them with our health.
It's not just the adrenal glands that are fatigued by frequent or constant stress. The adrenaline flowing from the adrenal glands, while necessary for survival, is highly acidic and corrosive in nature and in many ways resembles battery acid flowing through your body. An occasional release of the hormone is not a problem for the body and copes well when it is really in a fight or flight situation, but when adrenaline repeatedly floods the system due to frequent or persistent stress, it quickly becomes harmful to your brain, pancreas, liver and other organs and tissues.
The adrenaline epidemic
We are all familiar with the potentially devastating effects of drug and alcohol addiction, but no one knows that the original addiction we faced as humanity was adrenaline itself. Medical science and research are not yet aware that adrenaline is as addictive as a Schedule 1 drug. Although it was quite rare hundreds and thousands of years ago, in the fast-paced, stressful modern era we live in today, 50% of us are now addicted to the adrenaline hormone. It's our drug of choice.
As with any addiction, the more we act on it, the more we become numb to it. Over time, we need more of the drug to satisfy the addiction. This is not only true for people who enjoy adrenaline sports such as rock climbing, bungee jumping or base jumping. It also applies to millions of us juggling the demands of a job, children, spouse, household and caring for parents, other family members and friends. To keep up with the breakneck speed of life, many of us find ourselves in an almost permanent fight or flight state, with caustic adrenaline rushing through our bodies constantly.
Unwittingly, a mother can become addicted to the adrenaline rush that allows her to keep up with her exhausting schedule and pull over and over on this precious resource. The busy executive may rely on adrenaline to get through day after day of early meetings, skipping lunches, and late nights at work. However, every time the adrenaline rush that carries us through an activity passes, there is always an inevitable low, along with the damage the adrenaline leaves in its wake. With our to-do lists constantly being replenished, it's easy to choose to stick with the behaviors that will trigger the next adrenaline rush so we can keep going at the same pace. Or if we try to relax, the adrenaline let-down reflex can cause us to keep ourselves too busy so that we are still releasing adrenaline and being stimulated. We can begin to forget what a healthy level of adrenaline feels like and get so used to the feeling of the hormone coursing through our veins that we become addicted to it.
Recovering from Adrenal Fatigue
Fortunately, it is possible to heal from adrenal fatigue and protect ourselves from the adrenaline released in stressful situations. Let's take a look at the key steps for improving adrenal health.
The grazing technique
There are some trends these days that suggest that we shouldn't snack or that skipping meals is beneficial for our health. These misconceptions result in even more stress on the adrenal glands. If we don't eat for more than an hour and a half to two hours, our blood sugar drops and our adrenal glands are forced to pump out adrenaline and cortisol to make up for the lack of sugar in the bloodstream. With the corrosive nature of adrenaline and the negative effects of cortisol, the adrenal glands can quickly become overloaded, resulting in fatigue, weight gain, sluggish liver and other conditions and diseases. The best eating strategy we can use for prevention and cure is to graze every one to two hours, depending on the severity of your adrenal fatigue symptoms. If you are bedridden with fatigue, you may need to graze every hour. If you are functional but have symptoms that you are struggling with, eating every one and a half to two hours is ideal.
The best food to graze on is a balance of natural glucose, sodium and potassium rich foods. I've mentioned this many times in my posts on Social Media, but the ideal 'grazing' food thinks of a combination of a piece of fruit and a piece of vegetables. eg. a banana and a piece of cucumber or more extensively an apple, celery stalk and a date.
You can still enjoy your regular meals, but it's important not to compromise on snacking every one and a half to two hours either.
Glucose saturation
Glucose saturation, like grazing, is another important part of adrenal repair. Our body mainly works on glucose (mainly in fruit), together with mineral salts (included in cucumbers, celery, leafy vegetables). If we wait more than an hour and a half to two hours to eat, and we don't have enough glucose stores in our liver (most people don't), we set ourselves up for blood sugar crashes that result in hypoglycemia and the onset of insulin resistance, plus the adrenaline surges. and cortisol responses I described above. To give ourselves the best protection against adrenal fatigue and other conditions and diseases, we need to make sure we eat plenty of glucose from fruits and carbohydrate-rich vegetables, along with leafy greens for mineral salts. A still unknown secret to many is to drink half a liter of pure celery juice daily on an empty stomach. This simple juice is the most potent way to restore adrenal gland health, along with grazing the combination of fruits and vegetables.
Hope for healing
The challenges of today's life mean that stress is a very real and often unavoidable part of our lives. In fact, we are putting more stress and demands on us than ever. But that doesn't mean we can't cure adrenal fatigue or other stress-triggered symptoms and conditions. We just need to know the true cause of our symptoms and the right steps to facilitate healing.
The truth is that your body wants to heal. It loves you unconditionally and works hard for you every day. All you need to do is give it the resources it needs to begin the healing process. The simple tips I've shared here will give you a healing toolbox to work with. For more information and explanation about this, my lecture on 15 June about Lyme Disease may be interesting, the subject of adrenal exhaustion will then receive extensive attention!
Regards Aschwin
Orthomolecular therapist
Lyme recovery therapist
Medical Medium Therapist
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