So how do our bodies deal with stress? Our two adrenal glands are small but life-essential glands. They are closely connected to our kidneys, laying right alongside them; their functions are closely intertwined. The adrenal glands kick in when we respond to a stressful situation. This can be as simple as skipping meals, eating too much sugar, and not sleeping enough or as difficult as endurance training, financial worries, the loss of a loved one, relationship issues, sickness, trauma, , medications, etc.

How often do we hear that someone is stressed out or overwhelmed? Indeed how often do we feel the same?  Stress affects the heart; it affects our blood pressure; and it affects our hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline. It also affects our liver, our immune system, our adrenals, and our blood pressure mobilization. When we are stressed, digestion, repair, and reproduction are put on the back burner.

Stress used to be a short-term phenomenon, not the long-term variety we experience in our lives today. We need to schedule daily ‘time-outs’, to get back to nature, to give ourselves permission to rest. While living on adrenaline is exciting,  it leaves us feeling exhausted and washed out. This is when we really become ill.

Although we have multiple systems in our body, the adrenal function is one of the most important as it affects digestion, immune health, tissue healing, pain, sleep, mental focus, and more. It helps to think about  adrenal as our ‘stress assessor’. Any perceived internal or external stress will result in a response involving the adrenal glands, which will affect our whole body, and mental well being.

So what causes our adrenals to give out? Well, it’s never happy if we skip meals, go to bed late, get emotionally upset, make poor food choices, or have recurrent infections, to mention just a few.

Adrenal fatigue occurs when the amount of stress overextends the capacity of the body to compensate or recover from the stress or combined stresses. This detrimentally affects our health on all levels.

On the other hand – a healthy adrenal function facilitates resilience, stamina, and life energy. Are you losing energy? Are you gaining weight? Do you have digestive concerns? Do you find it difficult to sleep?  If you do,  it’s important that you look at your nutrition, your lifestyle, your fitness, and you stress levels.

Get in touch if you’d like to learn more, or if you would like help to reduce your adrenal fatigue

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