Burnout and Our Adrenal Glands - 5 tips to banish burnout!
Our busy, modern day lifestyle leaves many of us overstimulated, under constant pressure and stressed. We are working longer hours, not getting enough quality sleep and turning to coffee, poor diets and sugar to push through the exhaustion. Without any reprieve, this picture can increase our risk of many chronic diseases. To turn it around and avoid total exhaustion or burnout, we need to start looking at our adrenal glands!
Burnout otherwise known as adrenal fatigue, is a chronic negative response caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion and occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to cope with the constant demands of life.
What are the adrenal glands and what do they do?
The adrenals are two small glands situated on top of the kidneys that secrete hormones to maintain homeostasis (balance within the body). One of these hormones is cortisol. Cortisol should rise in the morning to wake you up and peak roughly an hour after waking. As the day progresses cortisol declines as our sleep hormone Melatonin rises to allow for a restful night's sleep. Cortisol also plays a role in reducing inflammation, regulating blood sugar and blood pressure.
Normal amounts of stress are considered healthy. Stress is what gets you up in the morning, it encourages changes, it creates adaptation and makes you stronger physically and biochemically. However, long term stress (think a stress work environment, an unhappy relationship, a loved one dying, lack of sleep from being a Mum / Dad, anxiety / depression, inflammation in your body from diseases, shift work… the list goes on), or excessive amounts where the body hasn’t had time to recover can deplete your adrenal glands, especially without the correct nutrition and lifestyle changes to support it.
Over time, this state of constantly being activated can lead to underproduction of cortisol and adrenaline as your adrenal glands become exhausted and can’t perform optimally. This is often referred to as “Adrenal Fatigue” or “Low Cortisol”.
The modern lifestyle means you’re constantly exposed to stress from all aspects of your life - work, relationships, family, finances, exercise etc. Beyond the everyday stressors, other factors can affect the health of your adrenal glands including:
Emotional stress (work, relationships, overthinking)
Anxiety / depression
Refined or heavily processed diet
Insufficient intake of nutrients or under eating
Poor gut health
Shift work
Sleep disturbances including a lack of and poor quality
Recurrent late nights
Chronic illnesses, autoimmune conditions or conditions such as hypothyroid, systemic inflammation, pain
Excessive exercise or overtraining
Perfectionists, Type A personalities
Overcommitting and pushing beyond your limits
Other non specific symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:
Fatigue - the kind of tiredness that no matter how much sleep you have had you still never wake refreshed
Difficulty getting to or staying asleep
Decreased ability to handle stress
Cravings - sugar, salt, caffeine
Increased central weight gain around the abdomen
Lightheadedness when standing up too quickly/dizziness
Increased time to recover from illness or heal wounds
Lack of motivation
Decreased tolerance / patience
Cynicism and irritability
Muscle aches and pains
Brain fog / poor concentration
Dark circles under the eyes
Poor gut health
PMS - premenstrual syndrome
Low mood and anxiety
Blood sugar imbalance or insulin resistance
Chronic inflammation
Low libido
Alterations in sex hormones or fertility issues
Although it may seem like adrenal fatigue is a permanent condition. There are ways to nourish the body and mind to restore energy and vitality.
Think of your body as a bank account. If you want it to stay nice and healthy you need to make sure whatever you withdraw your replenishing. If you're constantly using up energy, you need to make sure to be replacing that energy with nutrient dense foods, good quality sleep, down time and stress management techniques.
Before you begin working on supporting your health it's important to understand what your stressors are. This will make it easier to identify your needs.
Here are my top 5 ways to support your adrenal health and banish burnout for good.
1. Eat a balanced diet, nourish yourself!
I am a big believer in food as medicine. This should be the first step in improving any health condition and burnout is no different.
There are two principles when it comes to improving nutrition for adrenal health.
1. Remove / heavily reduce those items that will make you feel worse i.e caffeine, refined sugar, & alcohol. Although you are probably craving sugar / crabs big time, ditching sugar is going to be so important for your recovery and boosting energy levels. Sugar combined with stress increases weight gain by 50% in just 2 weeks!
2. Increase items that will aid in replenishing the body i.e protein, a variety of fresh vegetables and healthy fats at three main meals a day
Other considerations when developing a healthy nutrition plan include:
Eating regularly throughout the day - aim for 3 main meals a day!
Staying hydrated - aim for at least 2-2.5 litres of water a day. Dehydration alone can create fatigue!
Identifying any food intolerances or sensitivities that may be contributing to fatigue.
2. Improve Your Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene refers to the routines and habits that can be implemented before going to bed each night that ensure you're getting the best quality and duration of sleep. This is incredibly important for repair, memory consolidation, and the release of hormones for growth, weight loss and appetite!
Good sleep hygiene can be anything from limiting your screen time, creating a relaxing environment, ensuring your room is nice and dark and an adequate temperature, and going to bed at the same time each night. Ideally before 10pm.
3. Address Any Underlying Nutrient Deficiencies
Nutrient deficiencies such as Magnesium, B Vitamins and Vitamin C can negatively impact cortisol production.
Magnesium
Extended periods of stress lead to magnesium deficiency and magnesium is a stress on the body itself. Signs you may be deficient include insomnia, high blood pressure, teeth clenching / grinding, twitching eyes, muscle cramps and fatigue. Magnesium has the ability to calm the entire stress response.
B Vitamins
B Vitamins play a crucial role in the production of cortisol so when the body is struggling to produce cortisol the body’s need for B Vitamins is heightened. Vitamin B5 and B6 are big players when it comes to cortisol. A good quality comprehensive B Vitamin complete taken daily can be vital in restoring adrenal function and energy production.
Vitamin C
The adrenal glands contain the highest concentration of Vitamin C in the body and during times of stress huge demands are placed on these Vitamin C stores. Vitamin C has shown to protect the adrenal glands from the effects of stress. Dose is 1000mg of Vitamin C three times per day.
4. Herbal Medicine
This is where it's best to work with a practitioner who is qualified in herbal medicine as many of the herbs labelled as supporting stress actually work in very different ways depending on what’s happening in the body on a biochemical level. Some work to reduce cortisol, increase cortisol or by acting on the nervous system.
Some of my favourite herbs include:
Withania
Rehmannia
Rhodiola
Licorice
Licorice for example has been shown to have similar effects as cortisol within the body but it also extends cortisol’s halflife so it is active for longer in the body, which is perfect if you have low cortisol.
5. Reduce Stress
The last and one of the most important aspects to burnout is reducing your stress where you can and listening to your body.
This will look different for everyone depending on their specific stressors. It may look like resting whenever you feel tired, finding things that bring joy into your life, meditation, spending time with those you love or scheduling in some “you time”. For some this may include light to moderate exercise and yoga.
Identify where your energy drains! This is an absolute must! What is exhausting you and causing low cortisol? Do you have too much stress in your life? Is it the broken night’s sleep, the demands of work or trying to juggle work / children / running a household? Identifying your energy drainers is essential for reclaiming your energy back. Schedule some time alone and set the timer for 30 mins. Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper and on one side write down all of the things that you do that you don’t enjoy, your stresses and any thing or person that doesn’t make you feel good. In the other column write down all the things / people / activities that you enjoy doing. Compare the two lists now is the time to shorten the things that don't fulfil you and look at ways you can do more of the things from the fulfilling list.
Other ideas (aim for some form of daily practice):
Meditation
Breath work
Journaling
Yoga
Getting natural light within 10 minutes of waking
Reducing device use
Self-care practices: massages, facials
Infrared saunas
Alone time
A note on exercise: It’s very important to listen to your body! If cortisol is really low then exercise may not be advisable at this point. Gentle walking, yoga or pilates might be a more ideal choice. Avoid high intensity, endurance or exercising for more than 45 minutes until cortisol levels are back to normal.
Work with a practitioner who can perform adrenal function testing to understand exactly what's going on with your body specifically. This is a saliva or urine test completed several times throughout the day to look at that 24 hour cortisol picture.
Other testing that may be of use include methylation testing, thyroid testing, comprehensive stool testing or food intolerance testing.
