You’re out in the woods, and all of a sudden you see a mama bear and her 3 cubs. Right as you see them, mama bear sees you. She immediately gets up on her 2 hind legs, props herself up, and lets out a fierce, deep growl that’s the loudest sound you’ve ever heard in your life.
What do you do???
Well, you’re absolutely terrified and your pupils dilate, your blood pressure goes up, your heart races, your ears perk up… Oh, and you probably run away faster than you ever have in your life. Basically, every sense you have is heightened.
This heightened awareness is your “adrenal response.” Your adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys and secrete adrenaline and epinephrine to keep up with periods of elevated stress.
Picture another example- you’re driving down the freeway in your car, rockin’ out to your favorite music, and then you look up in your rear view mirror and see red and blue flashing lights. That pit you get in your stomach- do you know what I’m talking about? THAT’S your adrenal glands reacting to the stress of getting pulled over!
So whether you have stress at work, stress at home, kids driving you nuts, an adult child with a drug or alcohol problem, death of a loved one, consuming too much sugar or caffeine… The list goes on and on, but all these things take a toll on your body and require excess work from your adrenal glands.
And these little glands constantly secrete their hormones over, and over, and over again. But eventually, if there’s just too much to keep up with, they get overwhelmed (just like you), and they give up. This is the point of Adrenal Fatigue…
Now you’ve reached your tipping point. Things have become too much, and you’re no longer able to cope. You experience symptoms like:
- chronic fatigue
- waking up at 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom
- feeling dizzy or lightheaded after standing up from a crouched position
- coffee and energy drinks don’t even help anymore
- sensitivity to bright light
- crave salty foods
- experience chronic pain
- general feelings of stress
When all of these things are going on, you also have excess inflammation in your body, excess pain- in the joints of your elbows, knees, hips, and spine. And things aren’t getting better- you’re just spiraling downward. You’ve got to get out of this mode and get a handle on things before they get worse.
Well, as awful as things sound, there IS actually hope. While you may not be able to control some of these stressors (you still need to pay the bills, so you can’t always quit your job!), you CAN take action to get out of this phase of Adrenal Fatigue and improve the quality of your life.
Check out my “5 Fixes for the Adrenal Downward Spiral”- I call them my 5 FADS.
Doing these 5 things help keep that stress under control so you can enjoy life again, get the sleep you need, and do the things that make you happy.
