Adrenal Fatigue – What YOU Can Do About It
Adrenal fatigue is a collection of signs and symptoms, that results when the adrenal glands function below the necessary level. Most commonly associated with intense or prolonged stress
By managing your stress, changing what you eat, when you eat and getting enough sleep you can do a bunch to help yourself.
What Are the Adrenal Glands?
The adrenal glands are small glands located on top of each kidney. They produce hormones that you can’t live without. Cortisol helps you respond to stress and has many other important functions. With adrenal gland disorders, your glands make too much or not enough hormones.
The Adrenal Glands – Beyond Fight or Flight
We all know they control your fight or flight but how does this help or hinder us in today’s fast pace high pace environment?
We are no longer being chased by tigers but to say we don’t have stress would be an understatement for most of us.
Managing stress is an important thing but not always 100% do-able.
What do the Adrenal Glands Do?
The Adrenal Glands help the body keep the balance so that we can feel good and be on top of our game when we need to:
- During our workday
- During stressful driving situations.
- Being calm in annoying situations
but what happens when we have too high a demands on our adrenal glands?
Adrenal Fatigue
What if we work ourselves into a situation where we depend on the fight or flight body management of our adrenal glands all the time?
You guessed it these glands become “fatigued”
Hi – I’m Mary Howard RN with Powerline Health bringing you another episode of Essentially YOURS. Where we try to come alongside you in your busy life and give you a few extra tools to help you in your day.
3 Things About the Adrenals we will go over Today
- 3 things your adrenal glands do for your body
- 3 things you can do to “help” your Adrenal glands
- 3 Outcomes you will feel as a result
3 Things Your Adrenals do For You
- They help you adjust to your environment – so, feeling of cold, hot, feeling hungry or sleepy.
- They help you with recovery after exercise.
- Blood sugar, Cortisol Levels and weight gain or loss
This 3rd one is one that I have struggled with and thought maybe you have as well and that encouraged me to do some research, practice on myself and share what I have learned both from my research and from my personal experience.
Common Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue
- Anxiety & and inability to relax – including the inability to sleep
- Mental Fatigue as well as physical fatigue and difficulty being able to focus – even on important tasks.
- Inflammation with lots of soreness, inability to recover from an unusual amount of exercise & additionally causing weight gain
Ultimately over time, these things can lead the body to breakdown with disease or auto-immune disorders because we are not bringing the body back to a “normal” healthy state often enough to re-build and refresh the adrenals glands.
When the adrenals become depleted bad things happen in the body
Where to start to help your Adrenal Glands?
- What can we do about it?
- What are some of the 1st things we can do to manage our stress?
- and additionally, how can this affect my weight gain or loss?
I had all these things going on and I asked my Natual Pathic Dr – Petermann (Challenge Life Better YouTube Channel) and he gave me some suggestions to try.
The 1st thing we can do to Help Our Adrenals
The 1s one being: Eat your last meal at least 3 hours before going to bed.
Adding to that I try to be active for a while after that meal too – not just sit on the couch after the evening meal.
Just changing that – made an amazing difference! I started sleeping better almost right away.
Of course, removing things that continually stimulate your adrenals the last hour of your day is important as well.
We actually do need to plan out enough hours of sleep just like we plan out any other things in our life.
I have found 5 hours is really not enough. 6 hours is functional but for me 7 hours is optimal. On weekends I might get 7.5 and feel really good. Some people 8 hours of sleep is a good number but I have found I can’t stand to stay in bed that long. What is your optimal amount of sleep?
The 2nd Thing You Can Do To Help Your Adrenals
The 2nd thing that has helped my adrenals is intermittent fasting. We really don’t need more than 3 meals a day. (6 pm to 6 am is 12 hrs of fasting. Til 10 am 16 hours of fasting)
Avoid Snacking – It Causes Insulin Spikes
Snacking and eating more than 3 meals a day cause the body to have frequent insulin spikes. Those insulin spikes cause the overproduction of Cortisol – a stress hormone that tells our body to “store fat”.
3. Not Eating 3 Hours Before Bed – Clean Up Receptor Sites
That is the other reason not eating 3 or 4 hours before bed works so amazing. The body has time to work through the food we ate and now has time to clean up receptors in the body, repair muscle and tissue that has been damaged or overtaxed in the body during the day. Build muscle – those types of things.
Not Snacking Reduces Stress On The Body
Getting rid of sugar, sugary drinks and drinking more water doesn’t just give the body the ability to have fewer calories it also cuts out those insulin spikes so they body doesn’t need to work so hard. Not eating between meals Cuts down stress on the body, reducing the stress on the adrenals and stops the body from storing fat.
As this get’s easier for you to only eat caloric things 3 times a day try moving into eating only 2 meals a day and you will feel amazing.
Nutritious Meals Are Key to Adrenal Health
Be aware tho – those 2 meals need to be balanced with vegetables, Proteins, and fats. Keeping sugar out of your diet as well as bread & pasta to a minimum you will feel so much better. The fewer carbs you eat at a meal – the more you lean toward fat and protein as your energy sources the better you will feel. It also makes it easier moving to 2 meals a day will be.
I don’t recommend completely cutting out Carbs (carbohydrates) from your diet as fresh fruit, root crop foods like carrots and sweet potatoes are very good for you.
Be Aware of YOU – Actively Reduce Stress in Your Life
The 3rd thing you can do for your Adrenals is: be aware of you:
- Long walks. Exercise often – even at the office get up and move around at least a few minutes each hour.
- Meditation – that can mean prayer, focusing on your breathing. Thankfulness journaling. That type of thing.
- Just being present in the moment especially with family. Taking those few minutes on your commute from work to home to think about: how can I be a better Mom or Dad or Sister or Brother… those things will make your day end so much better for yourself and those around you. You can do this on your way to work as well: What needs to happen to be the best, most productive day at my work or office? Who do I need to be on my “A” game for – to help the most…
- Start healthy habits – gradually replace unhealthy habits with healthy habits and be sure to stop and tell yourself you did well
I hope that something I have shared with you was helpful in your day.
What kinds of questions do you have?
There are herbs that help to support the adrenal glands. Would you like to learn more about them?
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Herbs that Support The Adrenal Glands
Do you struggle with Adrenal Fatigue?
Some of the symptoms of Adrenal Conditions
Do you struggle to feel a balance in your body?
Are you having difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating on tasks?
Are you struggling to have enough energy and difficulty with your weight?
Herbs to help the Adrenal Glands
Often these things can be adrenal glands that are out of balance.
When your adrenal glands are out of balance often your hormones become out of balance.
There are a few herbs that help to support your adrenal glands and we wanted to share a few of those with you.
Licorice Root
- Licorice can
stimulating the adrenal gland, stimulating your body to have a healthy level of cortisol.
- Licorice Root can speed the repair of the stomach lining and restore balance there as well.
- There are more than 300 different compounds in licorice, some of which have antiviral and antimicrobial properties.
Hawthorn Berry
- Hawthorn has a history as the herb to strengthen your heart – both physically and emotionally.
- Hawthorn Berries are known to be vasodilators, having some blood pressure lowering activity by relaxing of the blood vessels farther from the heart.
- Because of
this it is also used to reduce anxiety.
- It seems to lower cholesterol by increasing the excretion of bile, reducing the formation of cholesterol, and enhancing the receptors for LDLs.
Fennel
Fennel is used for various digestive problems including heartburn, intestinal gas, bloating, loss of appetite.
- Fennel can relax your muscles — including your digestive muscles.
- Fennel can helps regulate the Blood Pressure.
- Fennel can also be useful to flush out toxins and sludge from our bodies, thus helping to cleanse the blood.
A few Additional Herbs that Support the Adrenal Glands
Ginseng – helps with energy, blood sugar, memory and mood
Echinacea – Helps with anxiety and inflammation
Gotu Kola – Great to help with memory, focus and to fight fatigue
Ginger – helps with inflammation as well as improving Blood Circulation
St John’s Wort – Helps improve the mood, fight depression and elevate certain neurotransmitters in the body.
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