What are adrenal glands? These are the triangular shaped glands that sit on top of your kidneys. They make and release hormones for helping you deal with stress.

When we become stressed out, our adrenals release the hormone adrenaline. The adrenaline triggers our fight or flight response, causing our heart rate to go up,  contracts blood vessels, and dilates air passage ways to speed up our ability to move quickly and get away. We experience this as feeling suddenly super-charged, ready for feats of muscular strength and/or quick thinking. Our body will quickly burn through our immediately available energy stores. This then leaves us in a state of low  blood sugar. Now our body is desperate for energy, so it now releases cortisol into the system in combination with the adrenaline to increase our blood sugar and increase the liver’s stores of glycogen in order to help our body return to it's proper balance.

So what happens if you put your body under stress often?  The amount of stress in the world we are living in now, and the diet of typical mordern person, is a set up for Adrenal Fatigue.  We have to make sure we are feeding our adrenals a healthy diet of fat, proteins, vegetables and foods with very low glycemic values.

 These are some guidlines to help our bodies keep those glands healthy...

Eat a diet rich in omega-three essential fats. Soaked or ground flax seed is a wonderful benefit.

Reduce your stress levels where ever you can.  Start a program of yoga, tai chi, or walking.

Get as much sleep as you possible can. Try to not stay up late.

Eat more good cholesterol.  Cholesterol is needed by the body to build adrenaline and cortisol. 

Eat more good saturated fats,only, now here's the key, by themselves or very low glycemic foods.Enough fat is important for stabalizing blood sugars, helping us to feel full, and keeping our moods even. All of those things are important to normal funtion of our adrenal glands.

Eat more salt. A diet that is high in potassium and low in sodium will definitely stress our adrenals.

Be careful with caffeine it can creat a false flight or fight response.

Take some adrenal glandulars, or and, some herbal adrenal support supplements.If we can do that, we stand a chance of keeping our adrenals healthy.  How do you know when to suspect Adrenal Fatigue?  Here are some symptoms below.  If you recognize yourself having  these symptoms, please go see your doctor and get a saliva test to see exactly how you are doing.

Symptoms may include:

* excessive fatigue and exhaustion
* non-refreshing sleep (you get sufficient hours of sleep, but wake fatigued)
* overwhelmed by or unable to cope with stressors
* feeling rundown or overwhelmed
* craving salty and sweet foods
* you feel most energetic in the evening
* a feeling of not being restored after a full night’s sleep or having sleep disturbances
* low stamina, slow to recover from exercise
* slow to recover from injury, illness or stress
* difficulty concentrating, brain fog
* poor digestion
* low immune function
* food or environmental allergies
* premenstrual syndrome or difficulties that develop during menopause
* consistent low blood pressure
* extreme sensitivity to cold

* weight gain 

Let's do everything we can to stay healthy in this fast paced world!

Namaste, Kathy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 7:30 PM and is filed under Health Issues . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.