Month: May 2022

When it comes to energy, vitality and many other aspects of your health, your adrenal glands pack a hefty punch. Only the size of a walnut, these two mighty glands are part of your endocrine system and they sit just on top of your kidneys. They produce an array of hormones (chemical messengers), which include our stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, sex hormones such as progesterone and hormones that help control blood pressure, fluid balance and salt retention in the body—just to name a few.

If we live a high-stress, fast-paced lifestyle, or live our lives on an emotional rollercoaster, our adrenal glands can get a walloping. In the last one hundred years or so our way of living has taken a radical change. Yet in terms of evolution, this is just a tiny speck of time and biologically our body has not yet had a chance to evolve to cope with our modern lifestyle.

To our body, any kind of stress, be it because we’re in immediate danger or simply feeling financial, relationship or work pressures, is interpreted as a direct threat to our life. Its protective mechanism is to fire off the stress hormone adrenaline which is designed to get you out of danger. Caffeine has the power to activate this biochemical response, sending a message to the pituitary gland in your brain that it needs to send a message to the adrenal glands to make stress hormones: adrenaline and/or cortisol.

Adrenaline makes your heart race, your thoughts race, and gives you a jittery feeling that can make it difficult to feel calm and centred, despite your best efforts. It also diverts blood flow away from your digestive system to your arms and legs—because if you’re in danger you need a powerful blood supply in your periphery to help you get away quickly. You also need fuel to help you escape, and the most readily available, fastest-burning fuel inside the body is glucose (aka sugar) which we get from carbohydrates.

Your liver and muscles store glucose in the form of glycogen, and adrenaline communicates to your liver and muscles when energy is required. Glycogen is converted back into glucose, and this glucose is released back into your blood. Your blood glucose (i.e. sugar) subsequently shoots up, ready to fuel your self-defence or your escape. And you feel amped up, although many people today don’t identify this, as they have become accustomed to it being their norm. This biochemical response can also mean that we crave sugar since elevations in our blood sugar lead to “crashes”. This creates a fatigued state that makes you feel as though only more caffeine or high-sugar food can fix it.

---

Signs that you’re adrenal glands need support

Fatigue, energy spurts and crashes, sugar cravings, poor quality sleep, anxiety, shaky hands, feeling as though your heart is going to beat out of your chest, digestive upsets such as reflux, bloating and IBS.

---

You can already start to see a picture of how our adrenal glands are affected by everyday living—and this is not even the entire story. If our body continues to perceive that it is in danger, it may lead to additional cortisol (our long term stress hormone) production, which brings with it a whole new array of health concerns.

If you’re feeling that your adrenal glands are getting a workout and might benefit from some support, you might like to reduce your caffeine consumption for a while (aim for one coffee a day maximum or omit it entirely). Additionally, we can communicate to our body that it is safe with slow, diaphragmatic breathing (with an emphasis on slower exhalation than inhalation) so try incorporating a breathing exercise into your daily routine. Remember too that unscheduled time to rest (beyond sleep) is essential for our health so try to include a small pocket for downtime each day.

Are the signs and symptoms of stress and overwhelm slipping beyond your notice?

Ongoing stress can affect our body in myriad ways, but many people may not necessarily link this to the changes they experience in their body. For example, it’s easier to explain away a bloated tummy as the result of something we’ve eaten than it is to connect it to the pressure we were feeling to meet endless tight work deadlines, the worries niggling away at us about our weight or health, or an uncomfortable conversation we had. Yet, the latter scenarios can all be just as likely to have affected our digestion as the actual food we consumed. Perhaps even more so.

Another reason why many people don’t necessarily connect the dots between their stress and their symptoms, is because so many have now come to view their consistently high stress levels as ‘normal’, as well as the recurring symptoms they experience (which may be common, but not normal). Or, they perceive that others around them have more stress to deal with, so they’ll often say that their stress “isn’t that bad” or that they have nothing really to complain about.

So, what should you look out for when considering if stress and overwhelm might be affecting your body and health (provided other more serious reasons have been ruled out)?

Some potential signs and symptoms of chronic stress include:

• Low energy
• Sugar cravings
• Feeling irritable or anxious
• Reflux and indigestion
• Bloating, tummy cramps and/or changes to bowel habits
• Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• Waking up unrefreshed, despite enough hours in bed
• Feeling tired but wired
• More frequent infections – you seem to catch whatever is going around
• Low libido
• Thinning hair
• Irregular periods or periods stopping altogether (and pregnancy and other causes are ruled out)
• Premature ageing of the skin – you notice changes in your skin that seem to be occurring more rapidly than would be expected with the natural ageing process.

Of course, there can be other factors contributing to many of these symptoms and if they are unexplained and ongoing, it’s best to check in with your doctor. However, if you suspect that stress is likely playing a role, there is so much you can do to start to address this.

In my work, I like to consider any health challenge through three lenses – the biochemical, the nutritional and the emotional. I call it my three pillared approach. So, let’s explore how you can apply this to help your body better cope with the demands of our fast-paced, modern life.

The biochemical

From a biochemical perspective, you can influence the stress hormone production in your body through how you breathe. Long, slow breaths that move your belly out on the inhale, and back in towards your spine on the exhale, activate the calm arm of our nervous system, which results in a decrease in stress hormone levels. This truly can make such a difference, plus it’s free and can be done anywhere. Of course, the goal is to produce fewer stress hormones in the first place so truly getting to the heart of what daily stress is really all about for you can be vital as well, which often blends the biochemical with the emotional pillar. For example, when you run late and if this stresses you out, are you really just worried about what the person on the receiving end of your running late might think of you? Many of our daily stresses stem from concerns about the disapproval of others although it may not look like that on the surface.

The nutritional

When you’re churning out stress hormones, it’s especially important that you’re including a variety of whole foods to provide your body with the nourishment it needs. Nutrients of particular importance include magnesium, vitamin C and B-group vitamins.

The emotional

We can do all the ‘right’ things in terms of nutrition and incorporating restorative practices, but if we’re not turning off the tap on our stress, so to speak – or at least turning it down to a dribble – it’s going to be difficult for us to truly get the relief we need. So, the emotional part involves pulling back the curtains on our everyday stresses and what is actually at the heart of them. Exploring our perceptions of pressure and urgency can be so vital in helping us to change how we view and respond to potentially stressful situations, and can ultimately transform how we experience each day.