What the heck is adrenal fatigue?

It’s a term we hear tossed around but is often not fully understood.

It’s not just being tired after a busy weekend or late night; no, this is sustained fatigue that seems to just continue to get worse.

I suffered from this for a very long time without knowing what it was. And no amount of coffee or caffeine pills (which is what I later resorted to) would fix it. I just remember always saying “I am so tired of being tired!!”

It just kept getting worse and more and more health issues popped up.

That’s because adrenal fatigue is a silent killer, which does not let its presence be felt until the very end of its run. During the initial stages, the symptoms may be tiredness from work and trouble dealing with stress, but once the situation starts to get worse and the adrenal glands cannot further cope up with all the stress, you will suffer from a variety of different health issues.

Some initial clues that you might be suffering from adrenal fatigue, include:

>> You feel edgy, overwhelmed, or exhausted instead of energized and enthusiastic

>> Your sleep is unrefreshing and/or it’s hard to fall asleep or stay asleep instead of deep and restful

>> Your mental function is fast and scattered, erratic, or it’s hard to generate ideas rather than feeling sharp and focused

If those feel like you, you might wonder how this even happens.

Really it all comes down to prolonged exposure to stress.

Stress goes beyond the mental/emotional kind – it can include things like:

• Not enough sleep
• Too little or too much exercise
• Gut pathogens
• Food sensitivities
• Nutrient deficiencies

This puts the body into a state of flight or fight – very much in the same way if you were being chased by a bear. The body doesn’t know the difference between the different types of stress.

Once the body is in that state, it shuts down non-essential functions such as hormone production – which helps our body manage stress.

I work with so many clients who experience adrenal fatigue that I thought you might find it interesting to do a quick self-evaluation to see if you experience it too.

To take the self-assessment, click the image below:

If you are like I was and in a deeper state of adrenal fatigue, I totally feel your pain! I was in the deepest level of it for a long time and now I experience none of those symptoms.

In fact, I’m just over a week away from my 40th birthday and I feel better now than I did at 30 and even 20!!

So just know that it doesn’t have to be like that forever. There’s hope!

And if you don’t want to try to navigate this on your own, that’s where I can help! This is the work I do with clients every single day and I can help you carve a path to start feeling better using functional labs, which is a true shortcut to feeling better (rather than just guessing).

If you’re interested in learning how I can help, then book a call with me. I’d be happy to hear what’s going on with your health and explain my process to getting you back to thriving!