Combating Adrenal Fatigue

Understanding and nourishing the important function of your adrenal system is crucial in surviving adrenal fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout.  Approximately 80% of adults experience adrenal fatigue at least once during their lifetime and nowadays, I am seeing more and more youth experiencing it! Many practitioners are unaware of solving the root cause of adrenal issues. Understanding the factors that can attribute to adrenal imbalances is a good starting point. Poor diet void of nutrients, chronic inflammation, sleep disorders, emotional stress, depression, weight management issues, hormonal imbalances, elevated cortisol, under-active thyroid, and regular fatigue can start the vicious cycle.

Functional medicine lab testing is key in providing insight into the imbalances causing adrenal fatigue. A saliva hormone test that checks your stress hormones throughout the day will show your levels of cortisol, DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Cortisol is necessary for energy production, blood sugar metabolism, anti-inflammatory effects and stress response. DHEA is essential for energy production and blood sugar balance. DHEA is a precursor to other hormones, mainly testosterone. Some of the common imbalances identified through testing include estrogen dominance, estrogen deficiency, progesterone deficiency, androgen (testosterone and DHEA) excess or deficiencies, adrenal dysfunction and adrenal fatigue.

An organic acid test is useful to evaluate your energy production, central nervous system function, reveal high levels of GI yeast and bacteria, detect nutritional and antioxidant deficiencies, determine problems in fatty acid metabolism, identify excess oxalate, evaluate glutathione production, folate metabolism, imbalances in the adrenal system and neurotransmitters indicating focus issues, mood regulation, toxic stress in the brain and CNS.

A hair test can offer insight into your mineral balance since calcium and magnesium are important to keep at optimal levels to achieve optimal adrenal functioning. Appropriate thyroid testing will also offer some insight.

Simple steps to start today:

1. Incorporate balanced, nutritious, whole food meals throughout the day. Remove sugars, unhealthy fats, processed foods and other inflammatory foods from your daily food regime.

2. Deal with any emotional stress with journaling, meditation, yoga, exercises, deep breathing and visualization. Focus on positive lifestyle changes.

3. Be cognizant of the toxins in your environment as well as personal products.

4. Get to bed an hour earlier each night.

5. Stay hydrated by drinking pure water daily.

Take the guesswork out of what’s going on inside your body and get answers now. Work with an experienced practitioner offering you a customized regime to fit your needs, and reset your imbalances. One size fits all does not work when it comes to your body chemistry and your health. The first step is to truly believe that your health is worth it because you are worth it.  What I find perplexing? Why many people will not invest in their health in obtaining the answers road-mapping how their body is functioning and then implementing their customized regime while eating nutritious, balanced meals.  May we all realize we are worth it.