Still tired?
After a few weeks off, most of us are feeling great but as we get back to our usual routine of work, kids and life that familiar tired-in-the-bones feeling starts to come back again.
You may have tried to lose weight in the past year or so, exercising with high intensity intervals, long endurance sessions or weights and trying to eat right, only to feel more exhausted. Worse still, it seems that fat is still steadily accumulating around your mid-section and isn’t showing any signs of shifting
If you relate to this, you, do these other symptoms sound familiar?
- Reliance on coffee, tea, energy drinks, alcohol, sleeping pills or anti-depressants
- Lethargy and lack of energy
- Low sex drive
- Decreased immune response – recurring colds, coughs, flu
- Difficulty sleeping
- Cravings for salty or sweet foods
- Erratic blood sugar levels or Type 2 diabetes
- Alternating diarrhoea and constipation
- Food and inhalant allergies
- Anxiety, anger, irritability, depression
- Thyroid issues
- Arthritic pain
- Asthma, respiratory infections, skin conditions
If the answer is yes, an adrenal dysfunction issue (or HPA – that’s Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal – axis dysfunction if you want to be technical about it) could be the underlying cause.
The fact is, we live in a stressful world and we’re constantly surrounded by stressors.
Stress comes in many forms – nutritional, lifestyle, emotional, physical, electromagnetic and mental. Our body can’t differentiate where stress comes from – it just knows it’s under chronic stress and acts accordingly.
Your body’s reaction to stress can damage your health and counteract your attempts to lose weight.
The following diagram from Paul Chek’s book ‘How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy’, shows a healthy rhythm for the stress hormone cortisol in the top section. As cortisol (the black line) rises – this helps us wake up and get moving in the morning. As the day progresses, cortisol drops and release of repair hormones (the white line) rises as we wind down for the evening. This is all controlled by a feeback loop consisting of hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain and the adrenals (hence the term HPA axis).
When we’re subjected to chronic stress, no matter it’s origin, stress hormone production rises and as you can see in the lower section of the diagram rest and repair hormone production is compromised causing a whole cascade of effects through the body and, over time some or all the symptoms listed above.
When you consider that exercise is also a form of stress, it starts to make sense that no matter how much you exercise, if you’re under chronic stress and your rest and repair hormones are down-regulated the weight will not shift and symptoms will appear.
So, what to do about this?
Our Kaizen Adrenal Dysfunction test shows us the exact pattern of your cortisol through the day as well as your DHEA (a pre-curser to your rest and repair hormones) reading. From this, we can assess exactly how your body is coping with stress and make a health and lifestyle plan specifically tailored to your needs.
We’ll look at stress in your life – that’s nutritional, lifestyle, emotional, physical, electromagnetic and mental stress – and how we can start to minimise it with sustainable lifestyle changes, allowing your body’s rest and repair mechanisms to get going again. We’ll focus on how to work with your body instead of fighting against it to alleviate your symptoms and improve overall health.
If what you’ve been doing to improve your health hasn’t been working for you, its time to take a new approach and make a difference this year.
