Come on body!! We push our precious bodies so far and they work so hard for us! Especially here in Southern California, I don't know about you, but I will push my body until it collapses (12-15 hour days sometimes). I am a typical overachiever, I was pregnant in grad school and had a 2 year old and still pushed myself to finish early. It is no surprise after giving everything else in my life 100% of my energy that at some point my body screamed out....STOP!
It is funny how it happens. We are going along, everything is fine, working hard and pushing ourselves. 4-6 hours of sleep is enough right? WRONG! Your body will figure out a way to knock you off your feet if you are not listening to it. Unfortunately, for some people that means their body stops working properly. This can show up in a variety of ways, you could be feeling slightly more tired than usual and no amount of sleep seems to help you catch up, you could be exhausted instead of exhilarated after a workout, you could be cranky for no apparent reason, or wake up feeling more tired than you were when you went to bed the night before, or maybe you are tired and cranky all day then around 6-7pm you get an enormous surge of energy and all of a sudden you could clean your whole house and do all your food prep. Everyone else is sleeping and even though you have been tired all day long (wishing you were in bed) yet now you couldn't go to bed no matter how hard you tried.
All of these symptoms and more are signs of adrenal fatigue. Adrenal Glands are tiny organs that live on top of your kidneys and help to regulate the HPA (Hypothalamus - Pituitary-Axis). They regulate hormones and are responsible for cortisol and adrenaline production. When you push your body too hard and don't give it proper food and rest these tiny organs can start misbehaving producing only tiny bits of cortisol in the morning leaving you sluggish and tired and higher amounts in the evening giving you that much needed surge of motivation at the WRONG time of day! Exercise will push these glands to produce adrenaline which will further tax them leaving you more tired than when you started. Boy oh boy, what a complicated mess!!
So what do we do when we find it nearly impossible to get our heavy body out of bed every morning? How do we heal these precious organs and get out of our incredible bodies way of healing itself?
1. Make sleep your #1 priority!!
(Side note: I was diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal fatigue 2 years ago and my doctor told me this and I literally laughed in her face. I told her, "you know I have 2 children under 3 years old and you want me to sleep 8-9 hours a night??").
This is the most important thing you can do for your body. Our bodies heal when they are at rest, if you are not sleeping, you are not healing.
2. Stop any physical exertion that you can. Walking is great but nothing too hard and do not push yourself! If at any point you are getting that adrenaline surge, you are further taxing those tiny organs.
3. EAT!! When you skip meals your blood sugar tanks too low, when your blood sugar gets too low your body over compensates by producing adrenaline. You are not running on your "stored fat" you are running on adrenaline. Excess adrenaline will get stored in your fat cells as toxins. You are not doing yourself any favors by skipping meals. Eat regular meals and keep your body running on glucose and fat not adrenaline! Give those puppies a rest.
4. Eat high quality foods and enough to keep you satisfied all day.
5. Practice some self love! You have pushed your body to it's breaking point, now it is time to give it some grace and for goodness sake #loveyourself
6. Get a coach: find someone (if it isn't me) that can help you through this process. It is a long road but one worth taking. Especially if you have someone leading you every step of the way!
If this sounds like you, please reach out, I would love to help you heal!
Be well my friends.
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