We all experience stress on some level, some stress is healthy and totally normal. However, over time, stress can become chronic and impact our overall health! Adrenal fatigue is a state of low resilience to stress and is dependent on many factors. Generally, it is a cortisol imbalance, also known as “mild adrenocortical deficiency”.
Your adrenal glands are responsible to produce cortisol, adrenaline and sex hormones. When you are subject to stress, whether emotional, physical or mental, production of your stress hormone increases while also impacting the production of other hormones mentioned. Your body shifts into a fight or flight response in order to sustain the energy you need for the time period. Over time, this results in a few possibilities – difficulty breaking down your stress hormone making you more anxious (“wired but tired”), or extreme exhaustion.
Symptoms of adrenal fatigue may include: fatigue, difficulty focusing and reduced cognitive ability, feeling tired but wired, anxiety, depression, insomnia, sleepiness, waking unrested, extreme exhaustion, low libido, digestive symptoms, craving salt, general weakness and feeling unwell, fatigue after a period of stress or work, getting sick often, headaches, cold hands and feet, reduced thyroid function, weight loss / weight gain. Honestly, a wide array of symptoms, and no two people are the same!
Adrenal fatigue can be presented differently, depending on your tendency. If you are in the resistance stage, fighting stress stage, you may be feeling ‘wired but tired’, anxiety, irritability, high blood pressure, and weight changes. Being in resistance stage for awhile, will tell your adrenals to pump too much cortisol – they will get tired eventually. This is when you will enter the burn out stage where you are more susceptible to infections, depression, low mood etc.
Every person is different and it’s important to recognize your hormonal pattern. Your cortisol should peak about 1 hour after waking up (8 AM) and again peak slightly around 12 PM. Cortisol should be the lowest at night and during sleep. Adrenal fatigue can throw off this pattern making you produce too much at the wrong time or too little during necessary times.
Dr. Tali uses salivary hormonal testing in order to assess the kind of support you need and understand your pattern better to customize a treatment plan. Depending on your needs, a comprehensive hormonal panel may be suggested if other systems in the body are involved such as thyroid, menstrual cycle etc.
There is no one thing that is directly correlated to adrenal fatigue, but rather, its a mix of causes.
Adrenal fatigue can be as a result of low resilience to stress. Mostly, this is the cause. However, resiliency to stress is greatly associated with your lifestyle including diet, exercise, mental health, sleep and nutrient intake / deficiencies.
While stress being the biggest factor in adrenal fatigue, anything that puts your body into stress impacts your cortisol the same way – sleep, poor diet, inflammation, little or over exercise.
Do you love coffee? Coffee is a good adrenal destroyer. It prolongs active cortisol in your body and cuts down your ability to break it, sorry to break it to you. Coffee increase your energy by raising your stress hormone levels, but the good news is, that you could raise your energy directly through your brain by improving focus memory and blood flow with the use of Naturopathic Medicine.
It’s important to address adrenal fatigue as the imbalance can throw off other hormonal pathways and affect your period, fertility, thyroid levels, testosterone levels and play a huge role in your metabolism. Dr. Tali`s approach to treating adrenal fatigue is very individualized as no two bodies are the same and adrenal fatigue can be presented very different from person to person. Your symptoms will be addressed but it’s also important to treat the root cause of your adrenal fatigue- WHY did it happen in the first place. Next, realigning the hormonal pathways that were affected by your cortisol imbalance.
Dr. Tali carefully selects individualized herbal medicine and supplements to tailor them to your cortisol patterns. She strives to make her patients become more resilient to stress, as this is the root cause to most health issues. We live in a world where we aren’t meant to: stress too much, eat junk food, sleep too little and be exposed to toxins. Therefore, it’s important to adapt your body to your lifestyle – Doesn’t that sound ideal?