In my practice, I see many individuals who have many signs of hormonal depletion and what we call ‘adrenal fatigue’. While hormonal depletion is something that gradually happens with aging to all of us at some point, adrenal exhaustion arguably should not be happening like it so commonly is today for many folks. Or at the very least, it should not be happening NEARLY to the extent or severity that I commonly see it happening! And, it’s also happening earlier and earlier! Individuals in their late teens and early twenties are even showing signs of this nowadays on occasion!! How can this be? Well, let’s talk a little bit about something called the HPA axis and our modern lifestyles and why so many of us are stimulating and working ourselves into exhaustion at an early age!
Scientific studies have elucidated that humans are designed to live approximately 120 years in optimal circumstances. That correlates well with the oldest documented and verified human living to over 122 years of age. So what’s going on with our life expectancy and adrenal fatigue then you might wonder? Well for starters, it has a LOT to do with what we are and are not doing on a regular basis. In the USA, where life expectancy is just under 79 years on average for men and women combined, we are giving up approximately 1/3 of our lives based largely on our day to day habits and exposures! So what is shortening our lives and exhausting us? Well many a bad habit, one could say. Of course there are obvious ones, like smoking, drinking, working dangerous jobs like coal mining, etc. However beyond the more obvious ones, are other, more insidious problems both implicated in shortening life span but also in depleting our hormonal and adrenal reserves. In order to understand a little bit better, let’s talk about that HPA axis and our hormone feedback loops!
In our body, many, many systems function in ‘feedback loops’ to each. That means, depending on various stimuli from our senses and our brain’s interpretation of them, chemical messages are set into motion. One primarily neuroendocrine ‘feedback loop’ is something called our HPA axis. The ‘H’ stands for our hypothalamus while the ‘P’ stands for your pituitary gland and the ‘A’ stands for your adrenal glands. Many of you have probably heard about the stress response–your ‘fight or flight’ response. This is where you typically get a surge of stress hormones and neurotransmitters to deal with a perceived or real potential threat or stressor. Centuries ago, these were usually physical threats–an attacking clan, an animal, a natural disaster, etc. Today much more often they are lower grade but more omnipresent ones–like traffic jams, deadlines, trying to meet multiple obligations without enough time or prep, demanding bosses, difficult work schedules, etc. etc. While none of these are ‘life threatening’ stressors, they still induce this response quite often and over time, gradually deplete and wear out our reserves of things like cortisol, adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine. And with these depletions, over time, the body loses its ability to compensate and we begin to feel tired, and run down, and even with a number of good nights of sleep, good food, we still don’t have the energy we need and desire to feel good and often keep up with our hectic lives!
The fact is is that we, as humans, are not designed to be in ‘stressed out’ mode all the time. Or in fact, even most of the time. We have two arms of a branch of our nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, that are supposed to both kick in at times and keep up in relative balance–our parasympathetic or ‘rest and digest’ system and our sympathetic system–our fight or flight response system. Our modern lives are way too often keeping us in what we call ‘sympathetic dominance’, which is depleting our bodies and not allowing us ‘down time’ to rest, recoup, regenerate, and ‘fill up our tanks’ sufficiently. This not only can lead to adrenal exhaustion but when we can’t repair and regenerate effectively, we age faster, and ultimately die sooner too!
Of course like most things in life, it is easier to prevent this in the first place rather than fix it when it has already happened, but thankfully there are solutions for both situations. For those realizing they don’t want to go any further down this road towards exhaustion and feeling ‘old’ before their time, practicing elements of ‘moderation’ in one’s lifestyle are key as well as keeping regular routine practices in place, such as:
1 ) a regular sleeping schedule of at least 7.5-9 hours nightly;
2) regular exercise of 30-45 minutes of moderate level intensity (too much high level intensity can be an adrenal stress too, note!) 3-4 times weekly
3) a healthy diet free from antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and GMO foods as much as possible
4) minimal sugar and caffeine in the diet (both of which stress the neuroendocrine glands and systems of the body such as the adrenals, the pancreas, and the brain)
5) learning to say ‘no’ to certain things that might overextend or commit you to more than you truly can or need to handle
There are of course many more things that could be said on prevention, both these 5 are some good starters. And for those already unfortunately feeling the effects of too much work and stress, doing targeted testing such as neurotransmitter and hormone testing to examine levels in the body can be very helpful in establishing a baseline to then put together a targeted nutritional approach in building up hormonal and neurotransmitter stores, nutrients, and more. Often times this will involve a cocktail of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, specific ‘superfoods’, sometimes hormone replacement, changes in one’s lifestyle habits including sleeping and exercising routines, and more. While there are commonalities to the presentation of each client’s case, each person’s case is indeed unique and will need to be tweaked to make it particular to their specific situation and respective labs.
Remembering that customizing a treatment plan and that figuring in biochemical individuality is key to each client’s case and success will ensure each person gets better results and is getting on the path to recovery more swiftly and fully! Very often, there is no real shortcut to health and vitality! We have to put in the good, lifestyle habits for the long haul!!