Depression — Part 4 Of 5 — Adrenal Overload

Adrenal Fatigue
This topic hits extra close to home for me. I’ve been suffering/recovering from adrenal fatigue for close to a decade now.
Your adrenal glands are responsible for many things, but one of their primary jobs is to manage stress within the body. You might not associate stress with depression, but it can have devastating effects on your mood and many of the symptoms are similar to those you expect from “normal” depression.
The basic process looks like this: you see a lion starting to chase you and your adrenal glands kick into action with a huge burst of adrenaline. You enter your fight or flight response and decide to flee from the hungry kitty. Thankfully, you get away and your adrenal glands act again and pump you full of cortisol another hormone you’ve probably heard of.
Cortisol is the “long-term” stress hormone. Along with reducing the effects of adrenaline, it also gives you strength and stamina when facing lasting adversity. Cortisol is what keeps you alive when you are literally starving.
When stresses are infrequent, this system works brilliantly. Unfortunately, we’ve all been stressed continuously since forever. This has led many of us to adrenal fatigue whether it has been diagnosed or not.
Adrenal fatigue is when your adrenal glands are simply worn out. They can no long produce any of their hormones at an ideal level and specifically, cortisol.
If your body can’t produce cortisol in adequate levels or at the right time of day (if you are wired at night and exhausted in the morning, this is you) your body will not be happy. The symptoms of adrenal fatigue range from reduced immune function, sensitivity to light, and constant exhaustion to cravings for sweet or salty foods, heart palpitations, and grinding your teeth at night. The list of symptoms could cover pages; the adrenal glands affect that much.
Fixing adrenal fatigue in its entirety is usually a painfully slow process. There are many things you can do though and some of them help very quickly.
The first is sleep! Go to bed. In absolute darkness. And go to bed early if at all possible.
Next on the list is your diet. Everything you consider junk food is terrible for your adrenal glands. Lots of protein and vegetables from the highest quality sources possible is a really important long-term remedy for adrenal fatigue.
On the supplement side, GABA is one that works great. Again, I’m not going to give you recommendations because I want you to read about it or discuss it with a doctor to determine whether it is right for you.
I would love to tell you to keep your stressors down, but I know you will laugh if I did. Stress is a part of our life these days and it isn’t going anywhere soon. The best we can do is support our bodies in dealing with it to the best of our abilities. Get good sleep, eat healthy foods, and get a reasonable level of exercise. These are the most important things we can do for our health.
Julia Ross has a great chapter on adrenal fatigue in her book, The Mood Cure. Be sure to check it out to learn more and this type of depression and GABA.

