Do you feel tired but wired? Anxious? Crave sugar? Can’t sleep?
All of these and many more symptoms can be related to the constant stress we feel in our lives. You know that stress can have a huge impact on our health and wellness, but let’s break it down so you know what happens when you’ve got adrenal fatigue, a term used often these days.
Your adrenal glands look like walnuts that live on top of both of your kidneys. These important glands produce many vital hormones. I suspect you’ve heard of cortisol and adrenaline, the two (or technically 3) most important hormones to deal with stressful situations in our lives.
Those are the hormones that kick in when you, in a split second, hit the brakes because someone at a cross road overlooked their red light, or any other ‘fight-flight’ situations.
But what happens when they become “overworked?”
Some pride themselves of being an “adrenaline junky” and love the state where they are totally alert and live in the moment. With most of JOYVIAL’s clients being senior executives, I imagine you’ve been there.
But what happens when you feel constant stress? Like all day, every day? It wouldn't feel like that awesome "rush" anymore, would it?
Your adrenal glands literally get so overworking that they simply can't keep up and give up. This impacts not just your response to stress but literally every other hormone in your body including your sex hormones, your thyroids that are responsible for your metabolism, and so much more.
Do I have adrenal fatigue?
When your adrenal glands start getting tired of secreting stress hormones day in and out, you can start getting other symptoms.
Symptoms like fatigue ranging from chronic to crippling, difficulty falling or staying asleep, difficulty waking even after a good night sleep, mood swings, weight loss or gain, joint pain, sugar cravings, even frequent infections like colds and the flu are signs that your adrenals are overworked.
First off, I have to tell you that there aren't medically accepted blood tests for adrenal fatigue. In fact, it's not recognized by most medical professionals until the point when your adrenals are so fatigued they almost stop working. At that point, the official diagnoses of "Adrenal Insufficiency" or "Addison's Disease" may apply.
However, if you do have symptoms, you should see your doctor to rule out other conditions.
What to do if I have these symptoms?
There are many actions you can take to reduce stress and improve your health and energy levels. I outline over a dozen ways in a free PDF you can get when subscribing to my website (if you are already subscribed and don’t have the booklet, feel free to email me and I’ll send it to you).
Besides paying a lot of attention how you assess each situation in your life (i.e. glass half full or half empty), you’ll want to prioritize sleep, movement, eating nutritious foods, take high quality supplements (ask me about the ones I take), and a few breathing techniques that can be truly lifesavers (no need to sit cross legged for a 20-minute meditation).
Conclusion
Your adrenal glands produce hormones in response to stress. After long-term daily stress, they’ll get tired impacting almost all processes in your body.
The most important thing you can do is to get tested to rule out other potential conditions and to start incorporating stress reduction techniques to reset your system into the calming ‘rest-digest’ state.
I encourage you to benefit from the support of one of my health coaches. You may ask yourself how adding another meeting every other week may seem counterproductive, but you’ll learn to incorporate gradual, positive changes into your life that can greatly improve all aspect of your life.
Most importantly if you are under chronic stress today ask yourself if you think you’ll be able to sustain your current pace in the long-term. The answer is ‘no’. Constant stress feeds inflammation which negatively impacts your brain and directly increases the likelihood for you to develop diseases.
Would it be helpful for us to support you on your journey to living your healthiest, most JOYful life? We’d love to guide you every step of the way. Click the 'Contact' button in the top right corner or simply send us an email to info@joyvial.com to schedule your free discovery session.
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