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Why are we often tired and exhausted?
It is a combination of many factors in our lives, form diet to life style, exposure to toxins through our environment and stress. All these factors coming together can deplete our adrenals, which can lead to chronic fatigue.
The Adrenal Glands are two small endocrine gland, the size of a walnut, that sit on top of each kidney.
They are stress-handling glands and produce a variety of hormones that help you handle all types off stress – physical, mental, and emotional. The adrenal glands keep your body functioning in a dynamic balance, amidst whatever external or internal changes or challenges you meet. They help you to mobilize fight or flight and control fluid- and blood sugar balance. They help with anti-inflammatory responses to injury or invasion and strengthen the immune system. They produce steroid hormones, which are the vitality hormones that determine overall strength, energy and stamina and provide a stable and healthy mood. The steroid hormones are also the backup system for sex hormones, and so are vital for everything from healthy pregnancy to healthy menopause, and fertility.
How well you live, depends to a large degree
Upon how well your adrenal glands function
The adrenal glands produce a variety of hormones, which are released directly into the bloodstream, where they are carried to virtually all the cells of the body. Female hormone problems are often related to Adrenal or Blood sugar problems, and Estrogen Dominance.
Lets compare this now to Chinese Medicine. In Chinese Medicine we know, that YIN and YANG need to be balanced.
YIN is activity, heaven, day, male, summer, hot light, upward, surface, agitated……
YIN is nourishment, female, earth, night, autumn, cold, dark, moon, heavy, downward, bones, organs, calm……
The YIN Hormones are our Sex hormones (Estrogen, Progesterone, Testosterone) and the YANG hormones are our Stress hormones (Adrenaline, Cortisol and DHEA). Cortisol is produced in the outer adrenal gland and gets set free in Fight or Flight situations. It is our survival hormone. We need YIN and YANG balanced, than our body is healthy and happy physically and emotionally. If we live a stressful life, it demands a lot of YANG hormones. So whenever Adrenaline increases in our life, the Cortisol level rises. Adrenaline provides a short-term stress response and decreases fast. But Cortisol stays a long time in our bodies. If our life is now constantly stressful, Cortisol stays high all the time. It helps us to fight infections, balance the blood sugar-, fat-, carbohydrate-, and protein metabolism as well as focused thinking.
Now, if we have too much Cortisol in our body it leads to depression, osteoporosis, weight gain, high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and rapid aging. Through constant stress our body will transform our Sex hormones into Stress hormones (Cortisol) to handle the constant stress. But as the Cortisol rises day by day in our body, we become more and more sensitive to stressful events. It becomes a way of life. And the result is a breakdown of the entire YIN in the body, which affects bones, skin, muscles, brain, sex drive and much more. After some time the adrenal gland will collapse and can no longer produce enough Cortisol. Now the Cortisol will be to low and we experience symptoms as lethargy, feeling numb and tired all the time, infections, the whole body feels achy etc.
DHEA is a hormone precursor, which comes into play to buffer and antidote excess Cortisol in the body. It is also made in our Adrenal Glands.
What can we do to rescue our adrenals?
Living a balanced life between Yin & Yang (rest & activity). Eating really well, not exercising too hard, (too much sweating depletes our Yin), calming the mind through relaxation, meditation and Yoga. Be really careful with synthetic hormones, they increase the risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke. Rather balance your hormones with herbs, diet and acupuncture.
Avoid these
Pushing yourself to exhaustion, sugar, caffeine, junk food, skipping meals, staying up late, food that you react to or are allergic to, drinking sodas, coffee, alcohol, juice, making someone else responsible for your health, people who steal your energy, taking care of everyone and everything else, feeling guilty about caring for yourself, excessive seriousness, aggressive exercise.
Do these
Pace yourself, eat real, whole, fresh food, be compassionate and kind to yourself, eat every two hours, eat a combination of carb, fat, and protein, go to bed by 10:00 to 11:00 pm, sleep until 7:00 to 8:00 am when possible, eat balance, nutritious food, drink plenty of fresh water and herbal teas, become empowered and informed about you health, be with people who are concerned for your wellbeing and are helpful in your recovery, take care of and nurture yourself, find an inner balance and sense of peace with taking care of yourself, find things that make you laugh, do things that you enjoy. Keep your exercise mild to moderate.
Print our Adrenal Fatigue Symptoms Check List.
For questions talk to Claudia at 510-978-3444 or naturalhealingways@gmail.com
