Posts Tagged ‘Adrenal Fatigue’

Many people have gone through numerous trendy diets and exercise regularly, yet still have pounds to release! What is not working then? There are many reasons why diets and physical exercise alone don’t work. First plain and simple “Diets to lose weight” don’t work period!

Second is the age factor – OK I know no one wants to hear that they are getting older, it is not about the number of years, more about the aging process itself and how it affects the hormones responsible to maintaining the homeostasis or health of your body. The homeostasis can be compromised by many external factors such as the environment, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the eating habits and most importantly the level of stress in your life.

Let’s identify some factors:

Hormonal imbalance: such as Adrenal Exhaustion due to STRESS, Thyroid, SAD (Seasonal affective disorder) is a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year.

Food sensitivities : You have a physiologic sensitivity to sugar or gluten (or both!) or other foods that is driving you to want those foods. We crave the very foods we are sensitive to because we’ve grown used the abnormal biochemical state those foods produce.

Neurotransmitter imbalance: Again Stress, Depression, and Chronic Fatigue – If we look first at biochemistry, it helps to understand the role of serotonin, one of the neurotransmitters most relevant to weight gain and loss. Serotonin is responsible for regulating mood, sleep, and body temperature, among other functions. What makes the cravings even more troublesome is that people with a serotonin deficiency often have a heightened pleasure response to carbohydrates.

Stress Old and New: It won’t surprise you to know that stress, and how you react to it, can be tangled up in your eating patterns. Stress activates your fight-or-flight response with the release of adrenaline and cortisol. This process can alter your digestion and your relationship with food. If you stay stressed for long periods, your body’s daily cortisol cycle will spiral out of whack, upsetting the normal internal conversation. Chronic stress allows these effects to continue indefinitely and you risk Adrenal Exhaustion, Hyper/hypothyroidism, Depression, Candida, SAD (Seasonal affective disorder) and other health issues like Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Hypoglycemia.

While we all have stress in our lives, each of us will respond to it differently and that includes how, when, and what we choose to eat. If a person believes that showing his/her feelings and emotions is a sign of weakness, he/she might use food to hide that fear. Some people become obsessive-compulsive, and use strict food management to gain a sense of control over a stressful situation, especially one which is ongoing. Others retreat from stress, taking comfort in their favorite foods.

THINK ABOUT THAT! When we revisit in our mind old stressful events we set the cascade of chemicals reactions in motion once again! I call this “Living in the Past” or Negative “self-talk” – “Why did I do this?” “Why did he said/do that to me? “I can’t believe he/she….to ME!” worries do the same, you are in the future thinking of what worst can happened to you!

Stress is not a disease or a symptom- it is a learned behavior established early in childhood from our family programs. To change our response to stress is to let go of our old re-action to OLD and PAINFUL triggers. In NLP it is called an Imprint – in psychology an Engram – When you are able to accept all circumstances in your life as a RESPONSIBLE individual fully knowing that you have created then with your thoughts, you let go of VICTIMIZATION – you accept WHAT IT IS and start living in the NOW!

Emotional eating – healing starts with awareness! Whether we are using well-loved foods to calm ourselves, or depriving ourselves of them as punishment, we are preoccupying ourselves with food to prevent unwanted feelings, including — but not limited to — the big ones: anger, fear, despair, and shame…Emotional eating has its roots in actual emotions. No matter why you have these cravings or binging you need professional help!

If you feel exhausted and “burned out,” depend on caffeine and high-sugar snacks to get through the day, or are frequently “tired but wired,” you may be struggling with adrenal fatigue caused by STRESS. The demands of an “always on the go” lifestyle fall most heavily on the adrenals, and such demands tend to peak between the ages of 35 to 55.

Adrenal fatigue causes a host of health problems, from exhaustion and weight gain to immune suppression. Yet most people with impaired adrenal function don’t realize their adrenals are the cause of their symptoms and that most of the time it is caused by stress even if they don’t “feel” stressed – or that they can heal themselves with natural support. Cortisol, DHEA, Aldosterone and Adrenaline are the main adrenal stress hormones.

An abnormal Adrenal rhythm can influence many function of the body:

1-Lack of Energy production

People who have a hard time rising in the morning or have low energy level throughout the day often have abnormal adrenal rhythm and low blood sugar.

2- Muscle and joint fatigue

Reduce tissue repair and increase tissue breakdown with chronic pain

3- Bone Health

If level of cortisol is too high in the morning our bone do not rebuilt well and we may more prone for Osteoporosis

4-Low Immune Health

Short and long-term stress is known to suppress the immune system responses to the surface of our body (lungs, throat, urinary and intestinal tract) reducing the production of antibody

5-Sleep disruption

Lack of REM sleep cycles reducing regenerative sleep

6- Less Skin regeneration

Occurs normally at night but impaired due to high level of cortisol

7- Thyroid Function

Hypothyroid symptoms Level of cortisol control thyroid hormones production

8- Grain intolerance and stress response

High level of cortisol also affects the ability to digest grains. The gut becomes inflamed within 30 minutes after ingestion of grains creating gas and bloating symptoms.

Your Natural Health care provider will be able to support you with preventive measures such as diet and lifestyle, offering new strategies to change your response to stress with natural remedies.