10 Ways Thyroid Patients Can Beat Adrenal Fatigue

Your adrenal glands are located on top of your kidneys and, along with your thyroid gland, are part of your endocrine system. Adrenal glands secrete key hormones including cortisol, which helps your body maintain glucose levels needed for energy. Another key hormone is epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, the “fight or flight” hormone. The body releases epinephrine — which raises your heart rate and sends blood to your muscles and brain — when you are in acute stress or danger.

When you have chronically high levels of cortisol, you can have an autoimmune disease called Cushing's syndrome. Chronically low levels of cortisol are associated with autoimmune Addison's disease. Integrative physicians have identified another condition associated with insufficient — but not chronically low — levels of cortisol, known as adrenal fatigue, or adrenal insufficiency. The existence of adrenal fatigue is stillconsidered controversialin some endocrinology circles.

Integrative physicians theorize that when you have a preexisting endocrine dysfunction like hypothyroidism and are also exposed to chronic physical and/or emotional stress, your adrenal glands can become less able to produce enough cortisol, resulting in a chronic state of adrenal fatigue. Some doctors refer to this situation as non-Addison's hypoadrenia, subclinical hypoadrenia, hypoadrenalism, or neurasthenia.

In addition to fatigue and exhaustion, some symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:

• 感觉“b累ut wired”
• Morning fatigue, feeling tired after sufficient sleep
• 感觉不能to cope with stress
• Cravings for sweet and salty foods
• Difficulty sleeping
• Being most energetic at night, waking in the middle of the night
• Low tolerance for and recovery from exercise
• Brain fog, difficulty concentrating

Typically, in addition to a clinical exam and history of your symptoms, integrative or complementary practitioners run a 24-hour saliva cortisol/DHEA test. This test gets one DHEA(dehydroepiandrosterone) measurement, along with up to six cortisol levels — usually in the morning, midday, afternoon, dinnertime, bedtime, and middle of the night — to map your cortisol curve and identify any imbalances in your cortisol levels.

If you are diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, a first step is to make sure you haveoptimized your thyroid treatment. If that does not resolve fatigue, there are other lifestyle, nutrition, and treatment approaches that can help get your adrenal function back into balance and improve your energy.

If you feel tired, raise your hand. (If you get at least seven or more hours of sleep per night, put your hand down.) To those of you whose hands are still raised: Don’t blame your thyroid or adrenals if you are not getting theseven to nine hours of sleep that experts— including the National Sleep Foundation — say most adults need to function well. Your first step to combat adrenal fatigue, then, is to gradually increase your nightly sleep time, until you close that deficit.

Stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine, and simple sugar — as well as prescription stimulants such as amphetamines — may provide a short-term boost of energy, but in the longer term, they may further exhaust the adrenals, and make it harder for them to recover full function. Experts recommend that you limit or avoid any stimulant substances.

It’s important to learn to manage your stress levels. While some stress is unavoidable, you can make lifestyle changes, such as:

• Avoiding stressful news and media
• Limiting exposure to high-stress, toxic people
• Changing a high-stress job, or getting off a night-shift job
• Avoiding multitasking

A therapist or life coach may be able to help you craft an effective approach to managing stress, including an active stress reduction practice.

Most physicians who acknowledge and treat adrenal fatigue recommend that you manage your stress using an active stress-reduction practice that generates therelaxation response, as defined by Herbert Benson, M.D.These practices, which lower heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate, and help balance stress hormones, include:

• Breathwork — When you breathe deeply and properly, you increase the oxygen level in your blood, which canimprove energy. Considerpranayama yoga breathingorTransformational Breath
• Meditation/guided meditation
• Gentle movements, such as yoga, qi gong, or tai chi
• Crafts and handiwork, such as needlework, gardening, or coloring, or breadmaking

加工食品和含糖食品,食物充满了害虫icides and hormones, and foods contaminated with heavy metals are all dietary stressors. Experts recommend that for adrenal health, you should limit or remove these dietary stressors as much as possible and emphasize organic, hormone-free, pesticide-free meat, poultry, seafood, and produce, ideally as whole and not processed foods.

Under the direction of a knowledgeable practitioner, supplements may help to balance your cortisol levels to relieve adrenal fatigue. These include:

• Adaptogenic supplements such as the Ayurvedic remedy ashwagandha • Vitamin C • Pregnenolone, a precursor for DHEA • DHEA • B vitamins, includingB-12and B-1/thiamine •Iron•D-ribose• Licorice

When you’re exhausted, exercising doesn’t come to mind as a solution.Research showsthat regular, low-intensity exercise oxygenates your blood, improves heart and lung function, and can decrease your fatigue by 65 percent, and increase your energy by 20 percent. Until your adrenals are back in balance, limit adrenally-exhausting, high-intensity and endurance exercise, which can further strain your adrenal glands.

Evenmild dehydration is associated with an increase in fatigue. Getting enough water — known as rehydration — can reverse these effects and help improve your energy level. The old "eight glasses of water a day" is a good place to start. Some experts suggest as much as 1 ounce of water per pound of body weight. At minimum, drink enough so your urine is pale yellow or colorless.

For more significant adrenal fatigue that doesn’t respond to supplements and lifestyle changes, some patients appear to benefit from adrenal glandular supplements. These supplements, which can help support low cortisol levels, include actual glandular material from animals. Note: Most healthcare providers do not recommend taking glandulars unless directed by a professional.

If your adrenal fatigue is debilitating and cortisol levels significantly low, some physicians recommend a short course of prescription hydrocortisone, along with a program of lifestyle and nutrition changes and supplementation. The theory is that this gives your adrenal glands a short-term break, allowing them time to heal and return to full function.