Adrenal Support

Adrenal Fatigue

The adrenal glands produce hormones that help to balance your blood sugar, which helps your body to manage your daily flow of energy. As blood sugar levels drop, the adrenals release hormones that cause the blood sugar to rise, and increases energy. The adrenals also release hormones when we're under stress, releasing energy. It's the "fight or flight" response from the days when we needed to run away from wild animals, which now kicks in for everyday stressors, such as traffic jams, arguments, and work pressures. Major symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:

• Slowed Healing from injury or illness          • Low Immune Function

• Always Tired                                             • Depression

• Brain Fog and Poor Concentration             • Poor Digestion

• Food or environmental allergies                  • Poor Sleep                                               

• Non-refreshing sleep (you get adequate sleep, but still wake fatigued)

• Craving salty and sweet foods                    • Low stamina, slow to recover from exercise

• Premenstrual syndrome or difficulties that   develop during menopause

• Sensitivity to cold

Reduce Stress

We live in a stressed society. Most Americans experience excessive stress every day from things like paying bills, our job, raising children, relationship issues, or violence in the news. When you're trying to restore your adrenals, you want to try to calm your body. Make healthy choices for your adrenal glands. Choose to read something that will stimulate the brain or watch a comedy instead of watching a horror movie or violent news story. Try listening to relaxing music and add extra aerobic exercise. At lunch consider something calming like brisk walking, tai chi, yoga or pilates. Exercise directly offsets stress. The more stress you have the more important aerobic exercise becomes.

Avoid Stimulants

The second biggest threat to your adrenal glands is stimulants. These stimulants give us energy by shocking the adrenal glands into producing energy. When their effects wear off it is common to feel a crash of energy as the body tries to reset itself. This shock and crash energy pattern depletes the adrenal glands and leads to burnout. Over time people will feel like they need their morning stimulant just to get back to normal. Things to avoid include: caffeine, ephedra, guarana, kola nut, processed sugar, energy drinks, and prescription stimulants.

Balance Your Blood Sugar With Your Diet

To minimize stress on the adrenal system, and ensure maximum energy, you should consider a low-glycemic (low-sugar) diet, consisting of sufficient protein and fat, low-glycemic carbohydrates, eaten in smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day. Sugar and simple carbohydrates put stress on the adrenal glands by rapidly shifting blood sugar levels. By switching to vegetables, fruits and proteins, and high fiber carbohydrates, blood sugar remains more stable, providing less strain on the adrenal glands. Buy organically grown produce as much as possible. For more information on a list of foods and their glycemic index value visit our website at www.cottagegrovechiro.com Log in under the member login on the left hand column and click on the Handouts from Health Talks tab. In restoration of the adrenal gland function one should include potassium rich foods and avoid foods high in sodium. This will help to keep the sodium/potassium balance in the body. In the standard American diet, people consume excessive amounts of sodium. Researchers recommend a dietary potassium-to-sodium ratio of greater than 5 to 1. Intake of potassium should be about 3 to 5 grams per day.

Getting Adjusted for Adrenal Support

Chiropractic adjustments are extremely important for adrenal function. The adrenal glands are richly fed by nerves that connect to the spine and by getting adjusted, the glands can be stimulated and strengthened. A healthy nervous system will allow the body to begin functioning better and take in the nutrients needed to maintain healthy adrenal glands. Should you get your adrenals tested? In general, if you feel happy and well, have steady energy, steady disposition, sleep soundly seven to nine hours a night, wake up feeling rested, recover well from stress, and maintain a healthy weight without dieting, then your adrenals are probably working well. On the other hand, if your energy lags during the day, you feel emotionally unbalanced much of the time, you sleep poorly or less than seven hours a night, can’t lose excess weight even while dieting, or use caffeine and sugar products as “pickme- ups” - these are all red flags indicating adrenal insufficiency and that nutritional support is needed.

Supplements for Adrenal Support

The Stress & Adrenal Support chewable vitamin supplement is formulated specifically to handle all these symptoms of weakened adrenals and more. It delivers an advanced formula directly to your body to get your adrenals working properly on their own. Immediately you will notice you’re sleeping better, have more energy, an increased ability to handle stress, and less fatigue which will result in a happier, brighter future for you.