You know what your adrenal glands are and a lot about what they do in your body.
But did you know they can become overburdened due to stress primarily? And when that happens, your adrenals become fatigued. Once that happens you can benefit greatly from going through an adrenal cleanse.
Why an Adrenal Cleanse?
On a daily basis, the hormones produced and released by your adrenals perform several necessary functions. They help regulate your metabolism, keep you energized, regulate your blood pressure, and help you deal with stress.
They also become very significantly affected when stress becomes chronic. When fatigued, they can no longer produce sufficient levels of the necessary hormones, such as cortisol, to not only fight stress but also keep your body working efficiently.
Fatigued adrenals particularly affect two major areas: blood sugar and hormone function.
Hypoglycemia
Low blood sugar, occurs with underactive adrenal glands. You will feel this result especially between meals and when sleeping. Because of lowered cortisol levels when adrenals are fatigued, blood sugar levels also lower. So, shakiness, irritability, and light-headedness typically occur. You also will find yourself awakening more often during the night.
Anytime you experience or even anticipate stress, your body responds by raising blood sugar levels in order to meet the stress. In other words, you require more energy when stress hits your body. This becomes even more important if you suffer from Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS).
Normally, cortisol helps your body maintain a balance between blood sugar and insulin. With AFS, your cortisol levels typically drop as your adrenals become more fatigued. As a result, this leads to lower blood sugar levels, increased insulin levels, and hypoglycemia.
In addition, cortisol also works to aid in the release of stored glycogen from your liver when the need arises. Once your liver releases glycogen, it converts to glucose in order to provide energy to your cells. However, with lower cortisol levels, this reserve becomes inaccessible.
When you suffer from AFS, even mild stresses can increase the demand for blood sugar to convert into energy. But your adrenals can’t produce sufficient cortisol to help tap into the reserves you normally maintain. In addition, with increased stress, comes increased insulin levels.
Insulin opens up the cell walls allowing glucose entry into your cells to burn for energy. Normally, cortisol aids in insulin resistance to prevent too much glucose from getting into your cells. To clarify, this prevents a too-rapid decrease in blood sugar.
However, with AFS, lower cortisol levels mean less insulin resistance. As a result, your body uses up the blood sugar it has, leading to increased hypoglycemia.
Reactive Hypoglycemia
A related condition, reactive hypoglycemia, may occur following the consumption of a meal rich in carbohydrates. In people who do not suffer from AFS, this condition can occur following such a meal. Apparently, the consumption of a lot of carbohydrates can stimulate the release of high levels of insulin. As a result, a rapid decrease in blood sugar can develop, leading to symptoms of hypoglycemia.
In people who do suffer from AFS, this condition may occur more frequently. For example, already low levels of blood sugar may trigger cravings for sweets. Consuming a lot of sweets and carbs during meals then stimulates increased levels of insulin as mentioned above.
In a person who already experiences difficulty balancing blood sugar and insulin, as occurs with AFS, this produces both a higher risk of reactive hypoglycemia.
Hormone function
Typically, your hormone function will suffer when your adrenals become fatigued due to their influence on what is called the OAT axis. The OAT axis refers to the hormone circuit of the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) stress response. It contains the ovaries, adrenals, and thyroid.
These three organ systems depend on each other through their hormones. Therefore, with fatigued adrenals, you also find menstrual cycle problems and often estrogen dominance along with dysfunctional thyroid. In addition, a thyroid that becomes underactive can lead to the weakening of your adrenals. Likewise, any imbalance of ovarian hormones such as estrogen dominance makes any symptoms of hypothyroidism worse.
For example, estrogen dominance can increase those thyroid-binding proteins found in your bloodstream. This leads to lowered levels of thyroid hormones even though blood tests may not show this.
In addition, insufficient levels of adrenal hormones can make estrogen dominance more likely. This results when the adrenals make more cortisol at the expense of progesterone. Low levels of progesterone feed estrogen dominance.
As a result of the above, a vicious cycle ensues assuring continuing problems.
An adrenal cleanse helps reverse this cycle and restore balance to your hormone levels.
Ways to Achieve an Adrenal Cleanse
You must keep in mind that doing an adrenal cleanse does not necessarily mean overnight results. What you set out to do leads to more long-term results. This means you should determine to stay with the course you set for some time. It requires an active choice to become more healthy and stay that way. You must also make sure to only do an adrenal cleanse under the right supervision because overdoing on a detox can backfire very easily for someone with a weak body like adrenal fatigue sufferers. Listen to your body if it doesn't like the cleanse, then stop right away.
With this in mind, the following make up many of the things you must do in order to achieve a good adrenal cleanse.
Determine to Eat Better
This means learning the kinds of foods that support your adrenal glands, eating more of them, and eating much less of the kinds of foods that contributed to your ill health. Therefore, much of the time this means foods that do not contain pesticides or preservatives and are grown organically.
Healthy fats and nutrient-dense foods provide the best nutrition for your adrenal cleanse. So, increase eating lots of vegetables, legumes, coconut oil, fatty fish, avocados, along with nuts and seeds. Herbs such as Ashwagandha and borage can help to restore your adrenals.
Decrease your consumption of caffeine and sugar. These two foods can lead to an addiction that then keeps you from getting good rest and nutrition. You may drink one cup of coffee or black tea in the morning and choose fruit in the afternoon. Learn to increase your energy more naturally.
Balance Blood Sugar Levels for an Adrenal Cleanse
Blood sugar drops during the day often mean reaching for a sugary snack to give your blood sugar a boost. That happens, but there will come a crash afterward. This proves especially true for those who suffer from Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS). Brain fog often results.
One key to preventing this lies in eating protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, and fiber about four times a day. As a result, you will stop the roller coaster of high and low blood sugar and stabilize its level.
Choose to Go Alkaline for an Adrenal Cleanse
The ideal pH for your body to function at its best falls in the range of 7.35 to 7.45. Your Standard American Diet (SAD) contains foods that break down into acid in your body. Foods such as gluten, sugar, fried and processed foods, and foods filled with hormones, antibiotics, and preservatives.
Changing to an alkaline diet helps you fight inflammation also. Fill your diet with alkaline foods such as organic vegetables, green juices and smoothies, and supplements with chlorophyll and spirulina to improve digestion and increase your immune health.
Get Plenty of Sleep
At least eight hours of sleep per night will help rest your hormonal system. However, if you experience AFS you should try for more. To get better quality sleep, your bedroom should stay as dark as possible. But you may try an eye mask to shut out the light. And avoid electronics right before bed. If you have trouble going to sleep, relaxation exercises can help. You can find many of these on the internet. Try several and find one that helps you the most.
Check Your Beauty and Skin Care Products
Whatever you put on your skin absorbs into your body. Therefore, you need to read the labels on all your beauty and skincare products to see if they contain hormone-mimicking chemicals that can confuse your system. Try to find all-natural perfumes and other products.
Remember Toxins in Your Environment When You Do an Adrenal Cleanse
Long-term exposure to toxins around you can significantly impact your adrenals. These toxins include chemical cleaners, perfumes in air cleaners, and anything that releases gasses in your home.
Typical household cleaning products contain substances linked to cancer, hormone disruption, asthma, and neurotoxicity. So, on a daily basis, you’re exposed to these substances. Over time, this kind of exposure adds to the toxic load in your body and to weakening of your adrenals.
Instead, use natural cleaners. Vinegar, baking soda, and borax can handle most, if not all, of your cleaning needs. Add essential oils like lavender and tea tree oil to add antiseptic properties to your cleaning.
Exercise, But Not Too Much
You know exercise helps you keep your body working right. However, you should get the right kind of exercise in an adrenal cleanse. If you already suffer from weak adrenals, vigorous exercise may not help. Mild exercises like walking or hiking, yoga, or dancing work very well to keep your body working well and not overtax your adrenals.
Adrenal Fatigue and Cortisol Supplements Dr Lam
Sweat Every Day for an Adrenal Cleanse
It may not work for everyone, but sweating helps in an adrenal cleanse by ridding your body of toxins. Yoga, detox baths, and saunas can help in this process. Sweating opens up your pores allowing accumulated toxins to leave your body. Be aware that you can release lots of toxins and get a retoxification reaction from over detoxing, so make sure to drink a lot of water and stay hydrated.
Increase Vitamin C When You Do an Adrenal Cleanse
Under stress, your levels of vitamin C contained in your adrenals diminishes rapidly. Consuming foods rich in vitamin C throughout the day helps replenish these levels. Some of these foods include dark leafy green vegetables, peppers of various colors, strawberries, cooked tomatoes, guavas, green peas, and citrus fruits.
Conclusions Regarding Adrenal Cleanse
Your adrenals can become fatigued due to the excessive stress of daily life. Once this occurs, they no longer can supply sufficient cortisol and other hormones your body needs to function properly. This can lead to numerous health risks.
It can also lead to dysfunction of the hormone circuit of the NEM stress response. As a result, you may experience estrogen dominance, menstrual cycle problems, lowered thyroid hormones, and weakened adrenals. A major problem here comes from the vicious cycle that results from your ovaries, thyroid, and adrenals.
An adrenal cleanse can help re-balance those hormones.
What Can You Do?
If you are suffering from weakened adrenals and want to undergo an adrenal cleanse, here are a few things you can do to help alleviate the situation:
Change your eating habits to include more adrenal-supportive foods.
Get sufficient sleep.
Control your blood sugar with the right foods at the right time.
Clean up your home environment.
Add proper supplements.
Whatever course of action you decide to take, however, please do so with the guidance of your healthcare professional. He or she will help you assess the benefits of your choices and help determine the right amount.
