Health | Lifestyle | Wellness
The Controversies of Adrenal Fatigue
The HPA Axis Dysfunction — 10 things you need to know
Picture this — you always seem to feel exhausted, struggling with getting up in the morning, feeling lethargic during the afternoon, and having a “second wind” later in the evening.
In some cases, you just want to sleep all weekend or all week long, the idea of a staycation in the woods/cabin, away from digital and human distraction sounds real good now!
Many women I worked with all describe this to me over and over again — they are overworked, they can’t seem to let go of certain responsibilities, their health and weight, just somehow isn’t showing the results they want despite “eating right and moving right”. Worst yet, their mood and outlook in life are just going downhill.
Enter Adrenal Fatigue.
Or more accurately, adrenal fatigue symptoms.
You might have heard of the term “Adrenal Fatigue” springing up on health websites these days. More people are realizing the limitations of how allopathic medicine is failing us in terms of achieving optimal health.
So as a professional health and wellness coach who advocates on taking care of our energies, here I am presenting to you the ten things about adrenal fatigue you ought to add to your arsenal of health and well-being knowledge.
Ten (10) Things about Adrenal Fatigue you need to know
1. Adrenal fatigue is an oversimplified term.
A more precise term to use is hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction or dysregulation or HPA axis maladaptation. These terms explain the phenomenon of adrenal fatigue symptoms more accurately.
2. Adrenal fatigue is more widely accepted and acknowledged in the functional medicine or naturopathic world.
This means that a visit to your regular doctor may not reveal much about HPA axis dysfunction and that’s really because HPA axis dysfunction is not really taught in the medical schools. Furthermore, they also may not acknowledge the HPA axis as an area of concern when it comes to prevention health.
3. Adrenal fatigue is not exactly an endocrine illness.
Except in the case where the adrenal glands have been overworked, and there are actual clinical diagnosis names for it — Addison’s’ disease or Cushing’s’ syndrome, adrenal fatigue really is describing the current state of health.
4. Adrenal fatigue is often not a standalone explanation for adrenal fatigue symptoms.
When your HPA axis becomes dysregulated, it often also means that some other hormonal systems are also under distress, eg the HPT axis or HPO axis, or even your gut-brain connection. So some of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue may overlap with others. And getting to the root cause of the symptoms becomes even more complicated and crucial.
5. Body systems do not work in isolation, they work in an integrative manner.
If you are experiencing symptoms of adrenal fatigue, and if you only just focus on caring for your adrenals alone, it may not be going to generate a sustainable outcome.
In the case of the women’s endocrine system, one also has to look at her reproductive system which encompasses her female sex hormones mainly estrogen and progesterone, and to a certain extent, testosterone and thyroid hormones
6. There is a difference between stress and stressors and their role in our survival.
From an integrative or holistic point of view, stress and stressors can be both “good” and “bad”, and it all depends on the state at which one is.
Stress is a state of condition. Stressors are things or situations that promote stress. Stress plays an important role in the human body to survive during a fight-or-flight situation, or just before a sprint or fight competition. The body needs stressors to “activate” the stress system and in turn “activate” the other bodily system, in order to do the job effectively. So in this case, the “stress” is a good form of stress.
The trick here is learning how to manage the stress environment, or in this case, the stressors, so that the HPA axis is not taxed out beyond its capability.
It is imperative to know there are typically four (4) types of stressors that has an impact on the HPA axis:
- Perceived stress (your perception of how threatened you feel, typically you feel insecure or unsafe.)
- Circadian disruption (shift workers and frequent travelers are particularly prone to this)
- Inflammation (often due to underlying chronic illness)
- Blood sugar dysregulation (typically due to poor nutrition habits)
7. Each case is highly unique; so there is no one “perfect” plan or program.
However, we do want to adopt a “take the good and ditch the bad” concept when comes to formulating a working program for you.
Eg. Obviously, eating consistent high glycemic index or highly processed food is detrimental to recovering from adrenal fatigue, because of the effects they have on our blood sugar levels. So we ditch the bad.
In another case, consider when one person seems to do well with say, adding oats to their diet because research definitely shows oats help to manage spikes in blood sugar, it may not necessarily mean this works for another, possibly due to allergic reaction.
8. Diagnosis or understanding your own HPA axis is best ascertained through a 24–hour salivary cortisol, blood test, or a D.UT.C.H. test.
These are usually ordered through your physician or your naturopathic doctor. You may be able to order it on the test’s website and get it delivered to you; however, you won’t get a full picture of the results, since interpreting them is just as equally important as getting tested.
9. We don’t exactly “cure” adrenal fatigue.
Instead, we build resilience to function optimally against stressors in our environment. This is by far, in my opinion, the most important key concept of adrenal fatigue.
Recall from point 6 about the way how stress influences us. Thus, we want to build a robust and resilient body to combat stressors, so that the HPA axis is not consistently overworked.
How can do that? Typically it involves good lifestyle management and habits.
10. Our understanding of adrenal fatigue is still in nascent.
Lastly, it is good to take note that, lots of research are still required in learning about adrenal fatigue and its management especially within the various ethnic groups for a more unbiased understanding of it. It is heartening though, that so far, research has seen consistently good results with getting the fundamentals of lifestyle management right to recover from adrenal fatigue symptoms.
So there you have it. I hope this article has helped you to gain a deeper understanding of the HPA axis and perhaps, open your awareness to why it is time we need to care for our adrenal glands.
If you prefer watching a video of this, I have recorded uploaded on my channel here.
Hello there, Thanks for reading. I am honored and grateful for your time. I don’t claim to know everything, but I will always strive to share every single bit of truth with thought and humility.
If you like to read more of my stories and be inspired along the way, Let’s connect. One real story at a time, one practical move at a time.
