Nutrition
Your adrenal glands are unique primary survival organs that live just above your kidneys. Their main responsibility is the production of cortisol and adrenaline, your fight or flight hormones. If we over train, live with high stress levels, get inadequate rest, or poor nutrition, our adrenals become overloaded and start to dampen production.
As an inbuilt safety mechanism to slow you down, this works well. The problem is that we don’t listen to the signs and continue to push on. Adrenal fatigue is very common today, it’s something we see often in athletes, and it can often be misdiagnosed. Balance is the key here, spotting the signs is vital so you can react.
Are you suffering from adrenal overload? Tick off the bullet points that apply to you below to measure yourself against the 11 signs your adrenals may be compromised:
- Trouble falling asleep even when you’re tired, or not feeling rested when you wake.
- Get irritable or angry really quickly.
- Craving sugar/carbs, fat, salt, or all of the above!
- Feel tired around 3-4 most afternoons, and hunt out a sugar or coffee fix.
- Noticed a gain in weight even though you are training, noticeably around your middle.
- Feeling anxiousness or depressed.
- Picking up bugs or getting sick more often.
- Drop in libido or irregular menstrual cycle.
- Suffering from memory loss or your brain feeling foggy.
- Your digestive system is a not good, upset bowels or indigestion.
- Not able to recovery post training, your body feels sore, muscles feel heavy days after.
If you scored high on the list, then it’s key that you take action to address your fatigue and bring your body back into balance.
BRINGING BACK THE BALANCE
SLEEP
A key tool that we have looked at before. Work on maximizing the sleep prior to 2am when your body is going through physical repair. You should be aiming for 7-8hrs per night to allow your body to get the maximum rest and repair.
EAT CLEAN
Cut out all processed sugar in your diet, alongside processed grains such as breads, pastas, biscuits, cakes etc. Eating as clean and healthy reduces the load on your body to process additives, preservatives and chemicals that are found in highly processed and packaged food. Eat whole grains, sweeten with natural sugars such as honey and maple syrup.
CUT DOWN ON COFFEE
We love a good coffee, but we mainline it these days! The additional stress from caffeine can be a huge overload on your adrenals as it cause the same hormonal reaction in your body. Wean yourself off the coffees, drink water to flush out the toxins and before you know it, you will feel a whole lot less stressed.
CUT DOWN ON EXERCISE
Reduce your exercise to shorter less intense sessions. A max of low 75% max HR will allow your body to rebalance and reduce your adrenal overload.
