Adrenal Fatigue and the Importance of Nutrition for Recovery Without warning, stress can wreak havoc on your body and leave you weak and defenseless. Especially when stress is unending, it can result in the deterioration of your adrenal function. When this happens, you can suffer from adrenal fatigue and the best way to combat it is to pay a closer look at your everyday nutrition.
Stress and Your Adrenal Glands When your body comes under stress, your adrenal glands do what it can to help you respond to it. Primarily, it signals the release of more cortisol. This is your body’s main stress hormone, which is responsible for initiating a fight or flight response against stress. To prepare for your stress response, cortisol would regulate certain functions in the body. First, it would increase energy production and supply the body would relatively more glucose. While this is happening, the cortisol would also prevent insulin production to help prevent glucose storage since your body needs it to deal with the stress. This hormone would also increase your heart rate and force blood to pump faster. At the same time, cortisol would also temporarily suppress your immune system since it is not necessary when it comes to stress response. Typically, when the stressful episode is winding down, your adrenal glands respond by reducing the amount of cortisol being secreted in the body. As this happens, the functions that cortisol also interfered with would return to normal. The problem is, nowadays, the type of stress that people tend to experience is chronic. That is stress that seems to have no end. Because of this, your body could continue to have elevated levels of cortisol. This triggers a significant hormonal imbalance in the body which causes Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS). Typically, adrenal fatigue affects the body in stages. In the beginning, your body would still be able to perform a normal function. However, you may notice that you can no longer achieve peak performance. As it worsens, you may also experience weight gain, sluggishness, and irritability. Reduced exercise tolerance and chronic fatigue can also manifest over time.