Adrenal Exhaustion In Plain English and Simple Steps To Avoid It

What is a huge common factor of the following symptoms have?

• Fatigue
• Allergies
• Bacterial overgrowth
• Chronic Infections
• Depression
• Insomnia
• Hpoglycemia
• IBS
• Autoimmune disease

If you guessed stress, you are absolutely right. Which is probably not a surprise to you. We hear this quite often, but the challenge is having an understanding of how our bodies are affected and what to do about it. Our focus is to have a “plain-English” understanding of what our bodies do to deal with this stress and how we can support them.

How does our body deal with stress?

First, lets address how our bodies deal with stress. Are you familiar with the Adrenal Glands? If not, they are two little glands that lie on top of your kidneys, and are the primary glands responsible for creating the hormones our body needs to deal with stress. But that is not all that these glands affect, they also have an effect on other very important hormones our body needs, such as ones needed for the kidneys, liver, ovaries, and testes. So as you can imagine, the better the adrenal glands work, the better our bodies work. There are two main hormones that I will need to talk a little bit about, so that we can have a basic understanding of how our bodies deal with stress. These hormones are cortisol and DHEA, and lets see how they work together.

Cortisol is the primary hormone that directs immune function and is involved in nearly all aspects of how the body functions. When cortisol and DHEA work in harmony, the body is then considered to be in a “normal” state of adaptation to stress. In other words, when these two hormones have a normal ratio between them, then the body can handle stress effectively. When we are not able to maintain this harmony then we enter a stage of maladaptation to stress. The longer we stay in this maladaptation to stress, the more we comprimise the functions of the body. This can lead to hormone, immune and metabolic systems breakdown.

There is one more hormone I must briefly introduce for its importance, it is pregnenolone. This hormone is the pre-cursor to all these hormones. The most important aspect of this hormone is how evenly it is being used by the body. Namely, this hormone ideally will be distributed in harmony to create all the hormones the body needs to function properly.

However, whenever we find ourselves in a longer period of maladaptation to stress, that pregnenolone harmony/balance is affected. Basically, when we are constantly stressed, the body will direct more pregnenolone to the cycle of creating more cortisol to deal with the ongoing stress, which means that the other hormones are not getting their “fair share” of this pre-cursor, and as you might already imagine, if these other hormones do not get what they need, then they are not being created in their appropriate proportions, which affect body functions. The longer this cycle continues, the more our bodies are affected and particularly the higher the adrenals are affected. Adrenal fatigue can become the outcome of prolonged stress maladaptation.

What contributes to this adrenal exhaustion?

There are many factors that can potentially lead in adrenal exhaustion. These include tissue damage, inflamation, pain, blood sugar dysregulation, and/or mental and emotional stressors. All of which affect our cortisol production and ultimately “steal” from the other hormones that the adrenals need to produce for our bodies. I will go a bit more into these factors as the article continues.

How can we support our body to help it stay in harmony (and avoid adrenal exhaustion)?

I’ll break this down into several categories trusting it will help keep it simple.

• Positive Lifelyle practices - This is the things that most of us have heard about. What can you do to help your body deal with stress? Exercise, go for a walk, meditate, do yoga, Tai Chi, visualization, and/or deep breathing. Doing these things support the body becoming more relaxed and deal with daily stressors more effectively.
• Nutrition - Of course, you knew we couldn’t go without mentioning this area. I promise not to go too deep into it, but I will mention some significant factors. Since sugar levels and allergies affect the adrenal function, then it stands to reason, that these are important to consider. For example, having foods or drinks that raise or blood sugar levels, will cause the adrenals to make more cortisol to deal with these stressors, throwing off the harmony of the other hormone production, thus affecting our adrenal stress. Yes, this applies to alcohol as well, as a matter of fact, it converts to sugar faster than almost any other food and it goes directly into the blood stream.Allergies to foods such as gluten, causes the body to have an inflamatory response which again asks the body to produce the cortisol to help deal with this stress. You may be starting to see a pattern, the more stress, the more cortisol gets produced, the less other hormones get produced, the less effective the body becomes, and therefore, the more symptoms we begin to have…such as fatigue, and the others mentioned at the beginning of this article.
• Supplementation - In this area, I must begin by reminding you that this article is not intended to cure, diagnose nor should it be taken as such. Please connect with the appropriate professional to help you make an informed and empowered decision.That being said, here are a few supplements that may support you:

  1. Adrenal Support - Helps maintain normal adrenal function. Supports the body’s ability to regulate stress. Supports a healthy biological terrain.

  2. Master Gland- Provides nutritional supplementation for all of the glands of the body. Supports energy metabolism. Provides protection to the glandular system. Contains essential minerals in an easily assimilated form.

  3. DHEA (for women) (for men)- Improves energy and overall health. Helps the body in its efforts to cope with stress. May help improve quality of sleep. Supports joint function and mobility. Supports proper metabolism. May improve memory and mental alertness

  4. Stress J- Promotes natural calming. Supports proper stress mechanism function. Aids proper digestion. Provides help for occassional stress relief.

  5. Peace & Calming- And if you like essential oils, this one is an excellent one I’ve used. When diffused, it helps calm tensions and uplift the spirit, promoting relaxation and a deep sense of peace. When massaged on the bottoms of the feet, it can be a wonderful prelude to a peaceful night’s rest. Peace & Calming may be especially calming and comforting to young children after an overactive and stressful day.

  6. Natures Cortisol Formula - Cortisol is a hormone produced in the adrenal glands in response to stress. It promotes the formation of glucose, which is used as fuel during stressful situations. Nature’s Cortisol Formula contains Relora to help the body manage stress and maintain cortisol levels already within the normal range.

• Mental/Emotional - In this area, there are soooooooo…. many different things that you can do. However, I will mention some of the most recent and highly effective technologies that have been quite impressive to me.1. Voice Repatterning - This is a technology that uses your own voice to identify stress patterns and their underlying mental/emotional roots, then feeds back the body a repatterning balancing frequency according to what your body is willing to receive. The result, is a diminished/eliminated stress pattern at a sub-conscious level, and the best part for me is that I didn’t even have to re-experience the stressor to address it. It is really quite an amazing technology.

  If you want to find out where you can experience this technology, contact us and we’ll help you find a practitioner near you.

  2. Therapies - There are many emotional/mental therapies available. Any that help you reduce your stress/charge on any level can be quite useful to the body’s ability to handle overall stress, thus allowing the body to fuction in harmony.

  3. Get a coach - Every professional that has been successful in their area of expertise has a coach. Why do you think that is? It helps them stay focused on what they want to accomplish and relieves them of the added stressors through the support they get from their coaches. Don’t know where to get a good one? Contact us and we’ll help you find one.