Stress level most of us live with daily is totally over the top! Consider some of these things when you are taking a quick inventory of your stress level:
1. Do you have lots of physical stress? This includes things like overwork, lack of sleep and athletic over-training.
2. Do you have chemical stress? There's all that stuff in the environment, but this also includes allergies, foods that cause an inflammatory response, processed sugar and carbs, chemical calories, food additives, food substitutes (like Slenda and Equal), caffeine and energy drinks along with "natural occurring" chemical imbalances in the endocrine gland system, and alternating bouts of mild constipation and diarrhea.
3. I your body exposed to thermal stress? Are you regularly over-heated and/or over-chilling your body?
4. How much emotional and mental stress do you have?
This is a relatively new perspective for people beyond the regular marriage/divorce/job change/moving stuff.Watching too much news on the television, being in the presence of loud people and even unspoken family tensions all contribute to your stress.
Stress activates the adrenal gland response. Your Adrenal glands sit just above your kidneys; they secrete more than 50 kinds of hormones necessary for life, energy production, fat storage and fluid balance.
When we are chronically stressed, we set the stage for stress-related illnesses that have three stages . First we have an alarm reaction in our body, which alerts the brain and nervous system, triggers the release of certain hormones and increases adrenal activity. The adrenals are working overtime in case you need to respond with fight/flight/freeze. Once the initial alarm stage is over, your body goes through a temporary recovery phase of 24-48 hours. You'll feel tired, listless and less able to respond to other stresses effectively. Your body will secrete less cortisol, which in unhealthy.
Adrenal fatigue can often cause paradoxical reactions, odd responses out of the norm of the expected. Here's a list of red flags signaling you need to pay attention and get help!
* You get tired instead of calm when taking steroids
* You have sudden anxiety attacks and feelings of impending doom while at rest
* You have erratic heart palpitations even though your cardiac function is normal
* You experience dizziness and lightheadedness while at rest when you're under extreme stress or when you eat certain foods like carbohydrates.
* Your blood pressure is all over the place
* You wake up in the wee hours for no good reason and cannot get back to sleep
* High losses of vitamin C or magnesium make you constipated
* You become far more emotionally fragile than usual and find yourself crying for no apparent reason.
* You feel good after taking your supplements but crash shortly after.
The second phase is called resistance with chronic severe and on-going stress, the adrenal glands try to adapt and rebuild themselves. In some cases, they even increase in size.On the way to total adrenal exhaustion, the adrenal glands hemorrhage, the thymus gland atrophies, which decreases our immune strength, and we no longer have the ability to cope (much less function) in our day-today lives. Some of us seek help at this point, but because adrenal fatigue is so common most of us brush it off. We tell ourselves, "Everyone deals with stuff, I just need to get it together". Wrong!
The Third stage is adrenal exhaustion we lose the ability to adapt to stress at all.Our bodies literally give up. Our adrenal glands no longer provide protective stress responses and they cannot produce the important hormones that influence almost all of the major physiological processes in our bodies. These hormones affect how we use carbs and fats, how we convert fats and proteins to energy, how fat is distributed across our bodies, our blood sugar balance, gastrointestinal function and heart rate. By stage three most people drag themselves to the doctor's office and it's not pretty!
So let's take a proactive step first detoxify your life. This means getting rid of foods that cause inflammation or interrupt your hormone balance, but it also means cleaning up your environment. Research has shown that reading the news or listening to it on the radio is less stress-inducing than watching it on TV. And removing stressors from your life may also mean you need to let go of some toxic people or reduce your interactions with them." You need to reduce the things that are pushing your stress buttons!" Others things you can do to support your body and actively manage your stress levels. Slow gentle movement like Tai Chi, stretching forms of yoga, walking, strolling through the park or walking around the block at lunch break. Contemplative
6 to 9 months for minor adrenal fatigue
12 to 18 months for moderate fatigue
Up to 24 months for severe adrenal fatigue
If you are all the way into stage 3 adrenal exhaustion, you need to hit the reset button on your life and get healthy NOW!. The final stage of full exhaustion is Addison's Disease and recovery is difficult at best.
And remember, you don't get here overnight. And you get back to feeling great. Just don't stress about it.
If you have a family member or you want to talk to me personally about this. email me or call me I would be glad to help you with your health.
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