Do you feel extra tired or even exhausted at the moment and don’t know why you feel like that? Have you gone through a longer period of stress, where you felt like you had lots of energy, but now the cup of coffee is empty? This might be a sign of adrenal fatigue.
When experiencing adrenal fatigue due to chronic stress you may feel exhausted, irritated, tired but wired, have brain fog, low sex drive, weakened immune system, digestive issues, inability to handle stress, low thyroid function, insomnia, anxiety, depression and several other symptoms. Fortunately, you can test your hormones and through life changes, stress management, rest, a healthy diet and supplementation recover from adrenal fatigue. Full recovery depends on where you are in the process and can vary from 3 months to 3 years – but nothing is guaranteed.
In order to address if you’re experiencing adrenal fatigue, we’ll talk about the root cause of adrenal fatigue and what it feels like, we’ll go through symptoms and how you test your hormones. I’ll guide you through how you can fix adrenal fatigue through lifestyle changes, stress management, incorporating a healthy diet and supplementation – and also the expected timeframe for recovery. Lastly, I’ll tell you my personal story of recovering from adrenal fatigue.
What Is The Root Cause Of Adrenal Fatigue?
Adrenal fatigue happens when our bodies and adrenal glands can’t keep up with the amount of stress we have been dealing with for a long time.
Our adrenal glands are placed on top of our kidneys and are responsible for producing stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline.
Cortisol is the primary stress hormone responsible for:
- Regulating blood sugar and blood pressure
- Regulating sleep-wake-cycle
- Regulating the nervous system and immune system
- Regulating the cardiovascular system and respiratory system
- Regulating reproductive system
- Regulating the body’s stress response
- Suppressing inflammation
- Helping our metabolism by controlling our body’s use of proteins, fats and carbohydrates
Cortisol is a steroid hormone that has an impact on almost every organ and tissue. Often, we’ll experience elevated cortisol due to stressful situations. Stressful situations can be acute, chronic or traumatic.
Acute stress is a here-and-now event that most likely won’t have a big impact on our long term stress response.
Chronic stress is long term stress. Chronic stress can happen for multiple reasons and be affected by:
- Childhood of stressful events
- Overworking/stressful work environment
- Stressful relationships
- Chronic disease
- Chronic pain or infections
- Diet high in sugar, inflammatory fats and caffeine
- Mental conditions and constantly negative thoughts
- Lack of important nutrients
- Excessive exercise
- Surgery
- Big life changes, feelings of pressure and lack of control
…and so on.
Stress is not defined by one thing alone and occurs when our body has been under pressure for an extended period.
Long-term stress can tire out your adrenal glands and cause:
- Weakened immune function making you sick more often
- Increased inflammation in your body
- Slow metabolism, weight gain or inability to lose weight
- High cortisol which might lead to high blood pressure
- Slow digestion and other gut-related conditions
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
Adrenaline and noradrenaline play a role as well – adrenaline is the fight-and-flight hormone that increases heart rate, elevates blood pressure and boosts energy. Noradrenaline is responsible for increased alertness in the brain.
Long-term stress can lead to adrenal fatigue where we’ll feel like the car ran out of gas and we’re trying to push it up a hill. We’ll feel exhausted and at some point – give in to the need for rest.
How Do You Know If You Have Adrenal Fatigue?
When we have been going through long-term stress our adrenal glands get tired and slow down on producing stress hormones – this will make us feel exhausted.
Adrenal fatigue is not categorized as a medical condition – nonetheless, a lot of people daily deal with stress and will at some point burn out leading to adrenal fatigue.
According to Dr. James Wilson, up to 80% of Americans will probably experience adrenal fatigue throughout their life, which I personally think is alarming, when thinking about that we’re not supposed to get that far out of balance.
Fortunately, we’re all different and respond differently to chronic stress due to different genes, nervous systems, experiences through life and mentality – what you find stressing, your neighbor might have no issue dealing with and vice versa.
When long-term stress becomes adrenal fatigue, we’ll not only feel exhausted but have multiple symptoms.
Symptoms Of Adrenal Fatigue
The symptoms of adrenal fatigue are individual, but can feel like:
- Low blood pressure
- Chronic fatigue or exhaustion
- Depression
- Low sex drive
- Low thyroid function
- Tired but wired
- Brain fog and inability to concentrate
- Anxiety
- Panic attacks
- Irritable
- Unable to fall asleep or stay asleep
- Very tired in the morning and dependent on coffee
- Restlessness and unable to relax due to feeling wired
- More energy in the night
- Hair loss
- PCOS
- Unable to handle even small amounts of stress
- Craving salty and fatty foods
- Dry skin
- Allergy
- Weight gain, especially abdominal fat
- Constipation, diarrhea, or bloating
- Cold hands and feet
- Joint pain
- Loss of muscle mass or difficulties maintaining muscle mass
- Numbness and tingling in extremities
- Chronic dark circles under the eyes
- Irregular menstrual cycle
The symptoms of adrenal fatigue can differ from person to person. If you’re wondering whether or not you’re dealing with adrenal fatigue, I’ll recommend you test your hormones – I’ll explain how further down.
Disclaimer: If you suspect you might have adrenal fatigue, I’ll recommend you talking to your healthcare provider or consult a specialist.
How Do You Test For Adrenal Fatigue?
If you’re feeling exhausted from an extended period of stress you might suffer from adrenal fatigue. Since adrenal fatigue is not recognized as a condition in conventional medicine – getting tested might be more difficult.
Nonetheless, it is possible to get tested through my practice or through a certified hormonal therapist.
I’ll recommend checking your hormones with a DUTCH complete test. DUTCH tests are one of the most advanced and accurate tests on the market and measure 35 hormones. The test measures steroid hormones, detoxification pathways and cortisol patterns – it’ll give a clear indicator on where to set in in order to recover from adrenal fatigue.
How Do You Fix Adrenal Fatigue?
If you’re suspecting you have adrenal fatigue and want to start recovery, there are a few steps you have to go through.
Fixing adrenal fatigue requires finding the root cause – what led you to long-term stress and how can you eliminate these stressors in your life.
Depending on how critical your symptoms are, you have to have in mind recovery is a process and something that might require some changes in your current life.
Acceptance of your situation is important to move forward. When we accept, we can let go and surrender ourselves to what our bodies need from us – kindness and love.
How Do I Reduce Stress To Recover From Adrenal Fatigue?
When dealing with adrenal fatigue, our bodies are kindly asking for plenty of rest (8-10 hours) and lots of nutrients to recover.
As I mentioned earlier, reduce stress and get plenty of rest. If you’re dealing with psychological stress, it might be an idea to get therapy or talk to a close one about your concerns. Finding a way to cope with your stressors whether it’s psychological or physiological – you can use different techniques:
- Write in a journal
- Meditation
- Deep breath
- Cold water exposure or ice baths
- Restorative yoga
- Go for a walk in nature and hug a tree
- Do joyful things
- Skip the hard workouts
When our body is exhausted it’s important to tune into the intuition and get out of the head – get rid of the voice inside telling you “I should, I could” and other people’s expectations. When you feel tired – rest. Minimize the to-do lists.
How To Reverse Adrenal Fatigue Naturally
Besides resting, diet is just as important to recover from adrenal fatigue.
When supporting our body the best possible way it’s asking for lots of nutrients but also supporting our gut health by lessening inflammation in the body.
Inflammation often comes from a diet containing sugar, gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, chemical additives, artificial sweeteners, flavors and colors and puts pressure on the adrenal glands. These should preferably be eliminated.
It’s important to eat throughout the day, preferably every third hour, to stabilize blood sugar and not later than an hour from awakening. This is to make sure you have stable energy throughout the day and not depend on stress hormones for energy.
It’s preferred to eat lean sources of complete proteins (40%), complex carbohydrates (40%) and healthy fats (20%). Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids that function as building blocks in our body.
Furthermore, getting vegetables and fruits that are easy to digest – the more, the merrier. Vegetables and fruits contain lots of vitamins and minerals important to support a healthy functioning body.
The plate of food should preferably have 40% protein, 40% complex carbohydrates and 20% healthy fats plus a good amount of vegetables. Snacks in between should preferably contain protein or fat and carbohydrates.
All kinds of caffeine should be eliminated and replaced by herbal tea, infused water with lemon or fruits and of course, if possible, filtered water.
Lastly, I’ll recommend drinking a cocktail a day – not a regular cocktail, but an adrenal cocktail. An adrenal cocktail helps replenish the body’s adrenal glands, electrolyte balance and supports hormones.
What Is The Best Supplement For Adrenal Fatigue?
A healthy diet and plenty of rest is often not enough when recovering from adrenal fatigue – supplementation can work wonders in supporting your mind and body.
Supplements can help restore energy, boost metabolism, fight free radicals and support liver detoxification, hormonal balance and brain health.
Some of the most commonly used for adrenal fatigue are such as:
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin D
- Magnesium
- Glutathione
- Coenzyme Q10
- Selen
- Ashwagandha
- Raw adrenal glandular
- Licorice root
- 5-HTP
- Tyrosine
As a disclaimer; When taking supplements I’ll recommend you consult with a specialist or your healthcare provider. Supplements can have side effects and should be taken carefully with other medications.
How Long Does Adrenal Fatigue Take To Go Away?
Recovering from adrenal fatigue is a process and unfortunately doesn’t go away with a blink of an eye.
With the right strategies of reducing stressors, getting plenty of rest and supporting your body well with nutrients and supplements – the timeline can vary from 3 months to 3 years.
There’s no right conclusion, but it depends on how affected you are from adrenal fatigue.
My Story Of Adrenal Fatigue
I’ve been walking in the shoes of adrenal fatigue – at some point I realized they were too tight and not the right fit for me. I knew I needed to change.
As a young adult, I didn’t really know myself, my boundaries, what I wanted in life and how to get there. I ended up in a career that didn’t suit me. I lost myself in the process of what I thought I wanted – and with a heavy carry-on from childhood, I thought I was doing the right thing by playing safe.
I was stressed out and I was putting even more gas on the fire, until the gas ran out and the fire subsided. That’s when I knew I had to quit my job – I was exhausted and suffered from adrenal fatigue.
At that time – I didn’t know the term adrenal fatigue but I knew I had to make some drastic changes.
I started my journey of finding the root cause and asking for help. I swapped my high-intensity training for walks in nature. I limited the mental stress through journaling and started doing things I genuinely enjoyed.
I forced myself to listen to my intuition and how I was feeling, instead of what I thought other people were expecting of me. I incorporated supplements and a healthy diet supporting my body – and most importantly, accepted that I needed to rest. So I did.
One day, I was walking through the streets and I found them. The perfect pair of shoes. I knew these shoes were the perfect fit for me.
I had changed my mindset, my career, my health and with that – I slowly got back my energy and vitality again – I recovered from adrenal fatigue.
My personal story is one of the reasons for my passion in functional medicine and why I want to help others, maybe you, find balance in life.
Finals Thoughts
If you are feeling exhausted and experiencing adrenal fatigue – finding the root cause is crucial to start recovery. It’s my personal opinion that we must accept the situation and pour kindness and love into the adrenal cocktail.
Also; reducing stressors, getting plenty of rest and support with a healthy diet and supplements are crucial.
Navigating what, when and how when dealing with adrenal fatigue might feel unmanageable in the situation. This is why I’ll recommend working with a specialist and getting your hormones tested to get a manageable plan for you.
