Do you ever feel crazy because technically you're “healthy” and “fine,” but you always feel drained and depleted?
Do you struggle to recover after a sickness, a stressful event, or even a few late nights?
Do you start your day and run out of gas before you even begin, only to get energetic late at night and repeat the cycle all over again?
Have you tried everything to help your hormones, blood sugar levels, cravings, and weight but all the things people tell you aren't working?
There may be two tiny little glands in your body that need some love. Your adrenals.
The adrenal glands are small organs that sit on top of the kidneys. They maintain and boost our energy, kind of like a car shifting into first, second, and third gear as we go about our day. They also help our body survive during times of stress. Since many of us live in a state of constant stress, they wear down quickly.
The adrenals are part of the endocrine system. Also known as the suprarenal glands, they're involved in producing over 50 hormones that drive almost every bodily function, many of which are essential for life.
Adrenal glands play a huge role in stress response. Here's how it works:
- Your brain registers a threat, whether emotional, mental or physical.
- The adrenal medulla releases cortisol and adrenaline hormones to help you react to the threat (the fight-or-flight response), rushing blood to your brain, heart and muscles.
- The adrenal cortex then releases corticosteroids to dampen processes like digestion, immune system response and other functions not necessary for immediate survival.
- Your adrenal glands are also responsible for balancing hormones.
Our adrenal glands aren't meant to always be firing. They are there to jump in when needed and not be running the whole show. But excessive caffeine, lack of sleep, emotional stress, demanding schedules, hormonal imbalance, diet, alcohol abuse, and always pushing ourselves to the max can damage the adrenals to cause them to fatigue. This pushes us into a ‘survival mode' both physically and emotionally.
Fortunately, supporting your adrenals can be a pretty simple process. But functioning when they have given up? Almost impossible. So let's give them the TLC they deserve!