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Adrenal fatigue: Why rest and relaxation are crucial

Adrenal fatigue: Why rest and relaxation are crucial

Healing from adrenal fatigue can be confusing - in fact, you might have to go against some of your most strongly-felt health beliefs to recover and reclaim your energy. 

 

With adrenal fatigue think “pamper” - not challenge - the system

 

For example, with adrenal fatigue, hard exercise every day can actually worsen adrenal fatigue and throw your recovery back several months. Also, dieting is not the wisest thing when you have adrenal fatigue - especially any kind of diet extremely low in high quality carbohydrates. 

 

So, let’s talk about how to recover from adrenal fatigue and get your energy back!

 

What is adrenal fatigue?

 

Adrenal fatigue is caused by excessive, cumulative stress upon the body. Stress is cumulative, after all, and keeps accumulating throughout your lifetime. Stress is also any kind of stress upon the human body. 

 

This means that toxic stress is stress. Physical stress can be "toxic" stress.  And, of course, mental stress can be "toxic" stress.

 

So, working out when you haven’t slept, combined with stress from work, combined with marital problems or losing a loved one - all these life stressors can combine and result in a condition called adrenal fatigue - when your fight or flight system becomes exhausted of its ability to produce hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. 

 

What are some common symptoms of adrenal fatigue? 

 

* Excessive fatigue after physically exerting yourself

* It’s harder to bounce back after exercise 

* Your bones feel leaden, like it’s hard to lift your arm

* Inflammation

* Lowered ability to handle stressful situations

* Excessive menopause and PMS symptoms

* Intense sugar and caffeine cravings (as your body seeks 

  immediate energy) 

 

How do you recover from adrenal fatigue? 

 

With adrenal fatigue, you have to literally do the opposite of what caused your adrenal fatigue in the first place - that is, stop stressing your system in every possible way that you can. 

 

Avoid "strict" diets and exercise routines - at your lowest point in energy

 

One of the surest ways you can worsen adrenal fatigue right now is through dieting or over-exercising. Both strenuous exercise and strict diets cause massive stress upon the body and this is exactly what you want to avoid.

 

So, eat a very healthy, well-rounded diet, like the Mediterranean diet, which is full of healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats, healthy seeds, nuts, and low in inflammation-causing processed foods. 

 

For exercise, try an early morning easy, comfortable walk. This will help reset your circadian rhythms, helping you to get more restful sleep, and it will keep you healthy while you recover.

 

Easy (steady) walks will also help challenge the system just enough to keep your heart rate up and give you sustained energy while you recover. 

 

Avoid caffeine and sugar 

 

Caffeine and processed sugars give you a temporary boost of energy - and then a huge crash, which is more stress upon the system. Although you may feel like you really need caffeine and sugar right now, you will actually feel better if you avoid these altogether.

 

As a replacement, try herbal teas with a  natural sweetener or just a simple, nourishing soup.  The main point here is to not stress out your digestive system with too much food - at one time.

 

Avoid toxic people, toxic places, and toxins in your home or diet

 

We all have those people in our lives that literally drain us of our physical energy, mental and emotional energy. You need to avoid them like the plague right now because part of what caused your adrenal fatigue might have been too many people like this in the first place. 

 

You also want to keep your home free of endocrine-disrupting dust, to avoid fast food, frozen dinners, canned foods rich in toxins, and any kind of food loaded with artificial anything.  All these toxins will further stress your already-stressed-out system and inhibit your recovery. 

 

Install inexpensive charcoal and/or vitamin C filters in your shower to get rid of a major source of toxins that flood your body every time you inhale shower steam full of chlorine, arsenic, and other heavy metals. 

 

Make sure you drink only purified water and try and eat as organic and local as you can. 

 

Mindfulness and meditation

 

One sure-fire way to fight stress is to make this the year you begin a mindfulness or meditation routine. A simple ten minute “clearing” routine, in which you focus on nothing but your breathing, can do wonders for relieving stress and helping you recover more quickly from adrenal fatigue.

 

Other ways to combat stress and relax are hobbies like knitting or cross-stitching, reading, taking a relaxing bath while breathing in some pure essential oils you use in the tub or a nearby atomizer, or playing with your dog or cat. 

 

The "Bottom Line"

 

Toxic stress is a major cause of fatigue in our lives. We can literally become wiped out by an abundance of stressful people and situations if we allow them to. Life is stressful, but we must find ways to pamper our systems in the face of all this stress to stay maximally healthy. 

 

Editor’s note: The NaturalHealth365 Store offers the finest quality, energy-supportive supplements on the market.  Click here to shop now.

 

Sources for this article include: 

 

ChrisKresser.com

NIH.gov

NIH.gov

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