Adrenal Fatigue: Is it Real?

You have probably seen the late night infomercials proclaiming most people in the U.S. have adrenal fatigue. Is this true or is it just another scam to sell a product? We’ve done some research on the subject to find out.

Adrenal Fatigue is when the adrenal glands malfunction due to too much stress. In case you’re not familiar with the adrenal glands, they are two small endocrine glands atop each kidney. Their main function is regulating the body during high-stress level situations.

From our research, we’ve discovered adrenal fatigue is most definitely real. The main reason most of us haven’t heard of it is because the medical community calls it by other names such “The New Stress Syndrome” or the “21st Century Stress Syndrome”. It is estimated that more than 68% of the population in urban and highly-industrialized cities are suffering from adrenal fatigued.

In general, most people who are suffering from adrenal fatigue think it’s nothing at all and it will go away in a few minutes or after a nap. Additionally, many doctors do not diagnose people with adrenal fatigue because we’re living in a culture that treats symptoms instead of holistically treating the disease.

Do I have Adrenal Fatigue?

One of the main triggers of adrenal fatigue is a major crisis in one’s life that causes extreme stress. Common stressors include illness, huge problems at work, death in the family, etc. For people in those stressful situations, the adrenal glands can help give a boost of energy and produce adrenaline, cortisol and endorphine, but after that the organs reaches a limit or a ‘plateau’, it will not function properly.

Symptoms include:
1. Being incredibly tired for no reason, even after a full 8 hours of sleeping. There are reports that people who have adrenal fatigue exhibit a difficulty falling asleep and getting themselves together when waking up.

2. Easily exhausted, and has difficulty in concentrating for a long period of time. Being generally absent-minded.

3. Restlessness and mild depression.

4. It takes a lot of time to relax or takes a long time to focus. They exhibit behaviors of feeling run down and being “too stressed to relax”. Some can’t even take a good nap, and if they do, they don’t feel refreshed after waking up.

5. Having low stamina and tend to avoid too much exertion or exercise. They feel that they are slow to recover from illness, injury and even stress.

6. Their diet is poor and often they crave unhealthy food that has too much sugar or salt. Furthermore, their digestion is poor and sometimes resulting in constipation or irregular bowel movements.

7. Other symptoms are low immune function, heightened allergies, low blood pressure and extreme sensitivity to cold.

One thing is clear, experts and physicians who recognize adrenal fatigue observe a very distinct pattern of the disease: patients are fatigued when they wake up, fully awake only after lunch, feel restless in the afternoon, and very active at night.