Stress and Adrenal Fatigue

With the holiday season fast approaching and family and financial pressures mounting many people are experiencing an increased amount of stress in their lives.  

When I see clients they are more likely to bring up issues such as weight loss, immune system concerns, and hormonal imbalance rather than stress.  However, all of these issues often have a common underlying theme and that is stress and adrenal fatigue.

The adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys, determine how the body adapts to stress through the secretion of hormones including cortisol and adrenaline.  They are very well suited to immediate life threatening stress the so called “fight or flight response” that occurs when we need to react to an immediate stressor, for example running away from an attacker.  Adrenaline causes our pupils to dilate and blood to be shunted to our muscles allowing us to keep on running when normally exhaustion would set in.    The adrenal glands are not well suited to the kind of chronic everyday life stressors that we experience on a regular basis.  Financial, emotional and job stress is often prolonged causing us to be in a “fight or flight” state for weeks or months on end.

In the early stages of the stress cycle we experience what is called a “resistance phase”.  During this time cortisol promotes an overall increase in blood glucose and insulin levels, fat accumulation and depressed immune system function.  Elevated cortisol levels also alter the production of hormones from the ovaries resulting in increased circulating estrogen and decreased production of progesterone making us more susceptible to both breast cancer and osteoporosis.  High cortisol causes thyroid hormones to be less efficient in your cells which can lead to weight gain, particularly in the abdominal region.

After cortisol levels have been high for some time we enter the “exhaustion phase” of the stress cycle.  At this point the adrenal glands are fatigued and cortisol levels can become very depressed. This is when illness sets in as the body’s coping mechanisms just don’t have any fight left in them.  This explains why when we finally get a chance to relax over the holidays it’s usually with a nasty cold.

How do we break the stress cycle?  Listening to one’s body, meditation and stress reducing lifestyle changes can all help. Sometimes it isn’t easy to change patterns and extra help is needed.  This is where Naturopathic Doctors can be of assistance.   Herbs such as rhodiola, astragalus and eleuthrococcus, acupuncture and dietary changes can all help to balance cortisol production and shoulder some of the burden while other lifestyle changes are being made. Naturopathic doctors can perform saliva testing of cortisol levels to determine where you are in the stress cycle, develop a treatment plan and monitor improvement.  

If you are exhausted and feeling continuously under the weather maybe it’s time to check on your adrenal glands!