We treat so many women in the clinic who are suffering from all sorts of hormonally driven problems, and we are always translating these symptoms into what the body is actually saying… which is often MY ADRENALS ARE SUFFERING!
What are the adrenal glands?
Your adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys and secrete important hormones, like cortisol, adrenaline, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).
These hormones help you to respond and adapt to the stresses in everyday life.
Although the stress response is triggered by a primal gland in the brain called the amygdala, it is the adrenals that kick into gear to play out the stress response.
When stress is perceived by the amygdala, it stimulates the pituitary gland to release ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic releasing hormone), which stimulates the production of cortisol, adrenaline and DHEA by the adrenals.
These hormones do some pretty cool things to help us get out of danger… things like making our blood clot quicker, our liver release glucose into the bloodstream to give us easy access to energy, increases circulation to the peripheries for quick movement, and give us a big boost of energy. This is the fight/flight/freeze response.
The important thing to remember here is that the stress response is supposed to be ignited, stimulated, played out, and then, most importantly, we are supposed to return to a pre-stress state so the body can recover.
This is what no longer really happens in our society.
We have all the wants, needs and conveniences of the modern world, but internally we are still biochemically behaving like we are constantly being chased by a saber-toothed tiger.
This is what creates so much disruption in our bodies and health, and leads to adrenal depletion and insufficiency.
We no longer have the rest and recovery phase. We have constant stress triggers, and so the body adapts to constantly living in the stress response. It does this because it’s never receiving feedback saying that we are safe. And, when it comes to stress, it’s really a subjective experience, not an objective one.
What we mean by that is that two people can be put into the same objectively stressful situation and react entirely differently. We all perceive the world differently, and we all have different threats and triggers to stress. So, there is a lot that we can do to change our perception of stress, and to categorise stress triggers differently to reduce our body’s response to them.
Then there are stresses that are not perceived by our brain or emotional state, but are rather triggered by our body. These are things like illness, the weather (heat and cold are stressers to different people), fasting states, lack of sleep, and shock.
If we are exposed to stress triggers chronically, the adrenals become compromised in their ability to keep up with the increased demand for stress hormones.
When this happens, we are looking at the early or late stages of adrenal exhaustion… which we see a lot of here in the clinic.
The reason we often see people in the later stages of adrenal exhaustion is because when you’re living on elevated cortisol, you have a false (and scattered) sense of energy, and cortisol helps to reduce pain levels. So, generally, when you’re on the road to adrenal exhaustion you’ll just feel really stressed, wired, anxious and probably be living on self-prescribed stimulants… along with a glass or two of wine at night to help you wind down. Sleep is often disturbed, period irregularities can occur, allergies can become more dominant, gut problems can ensue… the body will throw up a lot of signals that it’s not okay, but when we are in a stress response we are biochemically geared to just push through… and so we do until we literally and biochemically no longer can!
Symptoms of ensuing adrenal fatigue include:
anxiety
depression
fatigue
insomnia
irritability
poor sleep maintenance (waking up frequently in the night, often feeling wide awake)
poor digestion (as stress reduces digestive function and enzymatic release)
addictive behaviours with food (especially sugary/salty food), alcohol, coffee… anything that can artificially keep us up or bring us down depending on the time of day!
Anxiety is a big problem with adrenal stress as we have falling DHEA levels coupled with oversecretion of adrenaline, which keeps us in that wired and nervous space.
As this becomes a more chronic occurrence, the results of high cortisol and adrenaline levels from prolonged stress include:
Diminished immune function, resulting in frequent infection or recurrent infection of persistent viral bodies like Herpes Simplex Virus
Depletion of cortisol, resulting in low blood sugar contributing to mood and energy changes
Less restful sleep
Increased cholesterol in the blood
Water retention
Loss of cellular potassium, a very important mineral
Lowered insulin sensitivity, with a higher susceptibility to diabetes type 2 and other insulin sensitivity driven problems, like PCOS
Loss of the capacity to produce sufficient DHEA
So what does DHEA do?
DHEA is a hugely important hormone, and it’s often overlooked when we consider how hormone imbalances have been impacted by stress.
DHEA has many functions in the body, including:
Precursor to testosterone and estrogen
Improves resistance to viruses, bacteria, parasites, allergies, and cancer
Prevents osteoporosis
Lowers total and LDL cholesterol
Increases muscle mass and decreases body fat
Increases serotonin in the brain (needed for healthy, happy mood)
if we have lowered DHEA, then we may have a diminished capacity to produce estrogen and testosterone, which has a flow on effect for hormonal problems.
When cortisol levels are raised, we also often forfeit ovulation, which consequently affects progesterone levels. This has a flow on effect as without a good estrogen to progesterone ratio, we have unopposed estrogen, which can wreak havoc in the body, as can the lack of progesterone alone!
Basically, the way the body sees it from an evolutionary perspective, is that if you are running away from a saber-toothed tiger, then it’s not a great time to get pregnant! So, our body will make cortisol and favour the stress response over the menstrual cycle.
Stress hormones also stimulate the sebaceous glands in the skin, increasing sebum production and contributing to acne. This is why so many women don’t respond to the Pill when it comes to clearing their acne, because the core driver of their acne is actually stress-related.
Often the hormone problems that we experience are actually being driven by stress… we just can’t see that because we get used to the way we feel, and we get used to what happens to us every day. This is why so many people are living in a biochemically stressed place, but not identifying with being stressed.
We created a super awesome quiz to help us to see how the body was actually coping with stress, because we found that so many people come in and are cool, calm and collected… but when we assess their body’s ability to cope with stress, we find they have massive adrenal problems (which is reflected by cortisol testing as well).
We normally only use this quiz in the clinic with our patients, but you can check it out for yourself to see how your hormone health is tracking, and more importantly, how your adrenals are coping!
When the adrenals are out of whack and struggling, there are so many cascading effects, and these secondary problems won’t resolve entirely unless the driving factor is treated effectively.
So, if you’re suffering from common things like:
acne
anxiety
depression
irregular periods
irritability
fatigue
muscle pain
mood changes
restless sleep
… start to consider how your adrenals are at play!
Take the next step
If you’d like to dive deeper into your hormones, reach out and we can arrange an appointment to find out more for you.
