Conquering Stress with the Stress-Busting ABC’s of Adrenal Health
Are stress + your adrenals to blame for your current health issues? Stress, especially chronic stress, can lead to:
Fatigue
Food sensitivities / Food cravings for salty foods, sugar, and carbohydrates
Anxiety
Depression
Irritability
Bone and muscle loss
Weight gain
Increased fat storage
Insomnia
Inflammation
Eczema
Allergies
Headaches
High blood pressure
Frequent illness with decreased immune function
Elevated blood sugar
Memory and concentration problems
As well as low libido and sex drive
If any of these sound like you, then you’re in the right place. Check out our ABC’s of adrenal health below to get your energy and your life back.
There are multiple options when it comes to supporting your adrenals. Here are the stress-busting ABC’s of adrenal support. You may notice big changes with just one of these, or you may need to address all of them to really see results. It all depends on your body, your specific needs, and how long your adrenal glands have been working overtime.
A: Avocado + other healthy fats
Avocado and other healthy fats, such as omega 3’s, found in olive oil, avocados, nuts, olives, eggs, butter, and fish help feed your adrenal glands. Fatty acids are the back bone of hormones. Your adrenal glands need fats to be able to produce all of the necessary hormones they are responsible for.
Tip: Add a healthy fat to your meals and snacks for an easy way to increase your healthy fat intake-– throw some avocado on top of your eggs in the morning, add a bit of extra oil when roasting veggies for dinner, add a hardboiled egg to your salad at lunch. Snack on olives, and add fish into your weekly dinner rotation.
A fish oil or other omega 3 supplement can help fill in gaps in your diet.
B: B vitamins + Blood sugar Balance
B vitamins: Not only do your adrenal glands require B vitamins in order to do their job, but stress actually causes your body to use up your B vitamins at a quicker rate than normal. That means that when you’re under stress, you need extra B vitamins. B vitamins such as B1 (thiamine), B5 (pantethine), and B12 all directly affect your adrenal glands’ cortisol response to stress. Vitamin B3 (niacin) and B12 also play a role in your sleep/wake cycle which can be affected by stress and cortisol.
Tip: Eat animal protein like meat, seafood and eggs to make sure you’re getting enough B vitamins in your diet. Typically at least 3 servings/day but this varies from person to person.
Blood sugar Balance: Keeping your blood sugar stable helps decrease stress on your adrenal glands and promotes a healthy insulin curve. The goal is to avoid the blood sugar roller coaster that is caused by spikes and dips in blood sugar due to high sugar intake, lack of fats and fiber, lack of exercise and dehydration. The spikes and dips that create that blood sugar roller coaster lead to inflammation, stress, anxiety, and poor energy, focus, and sleep.
Tips: Eat balanced meals regularly. You want fat and protein and fiber (veggies like broccoli, leafy greens, squash, sweet potato, etc.) at every meal.
Avoid sugary foods and beverages, and any foods marked “fat-free” or “low-fat” as these tend to cause a spike in blood sugar which leads to an inevitable dip in blood sugar.
Also make sure to exercise and drink plenty of water!
C: Connection + vitamin C
Connection: Connecting with others and maintaining our social interactions is a vital part of managing stress. Isolating ourselves can increase anxiety, depression, and feelings of overwhelm. Our social interactions can help provide a sense of connection and safety during times of stress. This includes intimacy with our partner, maintaining friendships, and quality time with our children, parents, and other loved ones.
Tip: We spend a lot more time with technology instead of with other people these days. Take the time to really connect to those around you, without technology intervening. Make a conscious effort to put your phone away and spend some real quality face to face time with others.
Vitamin C- Your adrenal glands have a high concentration of vitamin C and require vitamin C to produce cortisol. This means your adrenals are using up vitamin C at a more rapid rate, and need extra replenishment, during and after periods of high stress.
Tip: Add some kiwi, grapefruit, strawberries, bell pepper, broccoli, oranges, and Brussels sprouts to your menu for the week to load up on vitamin C.
Vitamin C supplementation has been shown to help lower cortisol levels, especially after intense stress (such as running a marathon).
Note: If you’re going to supplement, quality and source matter. Some vitamin C supplements are high in sugar – watch out! Also, look for a vitamin c supplement that is from a non-corn source (corn is usually the reason that too much vitamin C can cause diarrhea) to allow you to take higher doses without undesireable side effects.
D: Diet + Vitamin D
Diet—in addition to eating plenty of healthy fats and making sure you’re getting enough B vitamins and Vitamin C, eating a well-balanced diet is key to getting your adrenals glands back on track. You need a balance of vegetables, protein, and healthy fats. Eating regular meals with a balance of nutrients also helps keep your blood sugar stable which can get out of balance when you’re under stress.
Tips: Focus on healthy eating. That means healthy food choices and healthy eating habits.
Eat animal protein (eggs, fish, poultry, and red meat) to obtain protein, amino acids, B vitamins, and iron.
Eat a variety of vegetables to provide your body with a variety of necessary nutrients, including vitamin A, B vitamins, and vitamin C. Variety in your diet also helps promote a healthy gut microbiome.
Avoid sugar – sugar messes up your blood sugar levels but it also promotes inflammation and is a huge stress on your adrenal glands. If your adrenal glands are in really sorry shape, you may even need to avoid fruit for a while until your adrenal glands can handle even natural sugar again. Sugar also promotes dysbiosis in your gut (an imbalance in the bacteria that make up your gut microbiome) which is already fighting an uphill battle due to the negative effects that stress has on the gut and its beneficial bacteria.
Consume Probiotics. Stress negatively affects our gut microbiome by decreasing the beneficial bacteria in our gut and increasing some of the more pathogenic species. Probiotics can help restore the balance.
Limit caffeine. Caffeine is an extra stressor on your adrenal glands which are already working hard enough. Caffeine affects your cortisol levels and when consumed later in the day can increase cortisol levels when they should be decreasing to allow you to sleep at night. Drink all of your caffeine by noon at the latest and avoid it completely when possible.
Limit alcohol intake. Alcohol can sometimes give us the illusion that it is helping to reduce our stress and we use it to help us relax, but in reality it does the opposite. Once the alcohol wears off you still have all of the stress that you started out with, but you now have placed extra stress on your body, including your liver and adrenal glands by making them process and detoxify that alcohol from your body. Alcohol can also disrupt your sleep making you more tired and fatigued than you already were.
Sit down to eat. Take the time to sit, eat slowly, and truly enjoy your food. Eating on the run doesn’t allow for our bodies to fully process and digest food and can disrupt our digestion.
Avoid screen time while eating. Focus on your food. Eating while distracted often leads us to eat more than we need to, ignore our hunger and satiety (fullness) cues, and can leave us feeling unsatisfied at the end of a meal.
Vitamin D: Vitamin D deficiency has been identified to play a role in depression, autoimmune disease, fatigue, and decreased immune function. Get enough vitamin D to keep yourself energized.
Increased levels of vitamin D are associated with lower levels of stress hormone (i.e. cortisol) in addition to its other benefits and Vitamin D supplementation has been shown to decrease cortisol levels. This means that enough vitamin D helps regulate your stress response and the amount of cortisol your adrenals are producing. So if your vitamin D is low, you may be more likely to have higher cortisol levels than if your vitamin D levels are adequate.
The best source of Vitamin D is the sun. If you’re in the Pacific NW like we are, the UV rays are the strongest, and thus provide the most opportunity for vitamin D, is between 11am and 2pm. Getting outside for 10-15 minutes per day (without sunscreen and with short sleeves/pants to expose your skin to the sun) during these hours is usually enough to get the Vitamin D that you need during the summer months. The rest of the year, or if you can’t get outside during these hours even in the summer, you might need to supplement.
Tip: Some vitamin D can also be found in some seafood and egg yolks. So add these foods into your diet, get outside, and soak up that vitamin D.
E: Exercise + Emotions
Exercise is great for your heart, bone health, weight management and metabolism, but it is also a key part of managing your stress. Exercise acts as a natural stress reliever by decreasing cortisol levels and boosting endorphins which help decrease pain, act as a natural mood booster, and help you sleep. As endorphins increase, your stress levels decrease. So while you may be feeling tired from your adrenal fatigue, exercise can actually help boost your energy during the day and give you a more restful night’s sleep at night.
Tip: Don’t overdo it. If you are feeling even more fatigued after exercise, you are over doing it which is actually stressing out your adrenal glands more than it is helping. Decrease your exercise to an amount where you notice a boost in your energy afterwards and then slowly increase your exercise from there as tolerated.
Click here for more information about finding the right exercise for you.
Emotions play one of the most vital roles in healing your adrenal glands and the way your body responds to stress. If there are underlying emotions or if your stress is emotionally rooted, then you have to deal with the emotions and the emotional triggers in order to help your body deal with the stress. You have to address the emotional aspect of your adrenal health as well as the physical. No amount of exercise and diet changes will completely transform your stress response without addressing the underlying emotional triggers too. This may look like working through past emotions, releasing toxic thoughts, or eliminating destructive emotional patterns.
Tip: Treating emotions includes dealing with past trauma (i.e. childhood trauma) and day to day emotionally stressful situations (i.e. work, finances, the kids, etc.) in addition to our daily range of emotions.
Some ways to work on emotions:
Mindfulness, including deep breathing and meditation, has been shown to decrease levels of cortisol in the blood indicating its beneficial effects on the body’s stress levels and stress response. It’s also a great way to help reduce anxiety and get out of our heads for a few minutes each day.
Journal. Writing is a great way to express emotion. It helps us get our thoughts out of our heads and putting them onto paper can help. This is especially useful if you tend to internalize thoughts and emotions or repeat the same thoughts over and over in your head. Get them out of your head and onto paper to break the cycle. You can shred (or even burn) them when you’re done if you want an extra step of eliminating those thoughts.
Counseling/Therapy are often overlooked in our society. This can be a great tool for working through some of your emotions, past trauma, and unresolved issues, to help you move forward. Getting an outside perspective on our issues can be helpful in working through emotions to reduce stress.
Art is a great way to express emotions. This can be through drawing, coloring, painting, or any type of art that you find relaxing, therapeutic or expressive. It tends to be more abstract than writing in a journal or working with a counselor but can be just as beneficial.
Gratitude has been scientifically proven to reduce stress. It helps to improve connection and relationships with others, increase happiness and empathy while reducing depression and anger, improve self esteem, and mental strength. Gratitude also benefits your sleep which we know helps promote a healthy cortisol curve.
Note: I frequently use NET (Neuro Emotional Technique) for patients to help identify and work through both past and present emotions that may be contributing to current stress as well as the stress response. Identifying the underlying and usually deep-rooted emotions is vital to being able to work through them.
R: Rest + relaxation
Rest and relaxation. Your body needs rest. Our bodies are not designed to be on the go all day while running on very little sleep. Something’s gotta give and the way we over-schedule our lives these days, it’s usually our health. Make sure you are taking time for your body to get rest and it’s a bonus if you can find something that you find relaxing to help promote a healthy cortisol curve and a healthy mental state and mood.
Tip: Find activities that you personally find relaxing, not what other people tell you are relaxing. So if you don’t like taking baths, then don’t choose this for your relaxation in the evening. I know it sounds simple, but we are told by so many external forces what we should be doing for “self-care” and it’s just not realistic for everyone’s self-care to look alike. You need to pick activities that YOU find relaxing- so maybe that is a hot bath, or maybe it’s reading a book by yourself away from everyone else, or a phone call to a friend or loved one, watching a movie with your partner, or maybe it’s getting outside and playing soccer or lifting weights in your home gym. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you find that you feel relaxed during and/or after that activity, then do it!
Make time for something that is just for you. This may have to happen after the kids are in bed and your daily chores are done, and that’s okay, as long as you make it happen. Make time for yourself – get out of your head and simply take time to do something that you enjoy. The most important part: don’t feel guilty about it. You work hard and you deserve it!
S: Sleep, Stress management + Supplements
Sleep: If you are tired and fatigued, you need sleep! You need restful rejuvenating sleep. This means falling asleep without being dependent sleep aids (melatonin, sleeping pills, alcohol, etc.) in order to get solid sleep without waking up throughout the night to wake up actually feeling rested. Insomnia can definitely contribute to adrenal fatigue, but adrenal fatigue (via a disrupted cortisol curve) can contribute to insomnia so tackling both of these together is essential.
Sleep hygiene is essential. Create a bedtime routine, maintain a regular sleep schedule, create a sleep friendly environment (dark room without lights and/or screens), avoid screen time before bed, exercise earlier in the day, and avoid stimulants (like caffeine and sugar) late in the day. For more information on improving your sleep, click here.
Tips:
Mindfulness. Meditation, deep breathing, yoga, and reading, are all great ways to help decrease your body’s stress response and help you feel more relaxed and at ease. They can help get your mind off of the daily stressors, decrease cortisol levels, and improve your sleep.
Have fun. Somehow in our busy over-scheduled lives we forget to take time for fun. We get so preoccupied with work and chores, and the other million things we have to do every day, we forget to have fun! Allow (or schedule if you have to) time for something fun to let your stress melt away. This doesn’t have to happen every day – but making sure it happens regularly is a great way to find balance between work and play.
Supplements: There are direct ways to support your stress response with nutritional supplements designed specifically for your adrenal glands. These supplements contain a varying mix of herbs and nutrients to directly and quickly support your adrenals
Tips: Picking out the right adrenal supplement for your specific needs is based on many factors. For a truly comprehensive analysis, schedule your appointment for individualized recommendations but here are a few tips to get you started.
For overall adrenal support, Integrative Therapeutics Adrenal complex, HPA adapt, Thorne adrenal cortex and Cortrex, and Standard Process Drenamin work great.
If you have taken antibiotics, oral contraceptives, corticosteroids (like prednisone), or antacids/reflux medications, all of which can deplete your B vitamins, look for supplements containing B vitamins, including Pantethine (B5) and other B vitamins such as Thorne Basic B complex and Stress B complex. Combination products like Thorne Phytisone and RLC labs a-Drenal also contain B vitamins among other ingredients.
For fatigue, comprehensive products such as Thorne Cortrex, Adrenal cortex, RLC a-Drenal, and Standard Process Adrenal complex, Adrenal dessicated, Drenatrophin PMG, Rhodiola and Ginseng, are helpful.
If you feel tired during the day but have trouble sleeping at night, you may need to work on rebalancing your cortisol curve. Products which include phosphatidylserine, L-theanine, withania, and ashwaganda can help this, such as: Integrative Therapeutics Cortisol Manager, L-theanine, Phosphatidylserine or Thorne Iso-Phos.
If you are fatigued and stressed, with occasional anxiety, check out: Integrative Therapeutics HPA adapt and Standard Process Rhodiola & Schisandra.
If you eat a diet that is lower in fat and lacks fish, add in a fish oil such as Ecological Formulas EPA 625, Integrative Therapeutics Pure Omega HP, or Thorne’s Omega plus, Omega superb, or Super EPA.
If you are not regularly getting sun exposure, you may need to add in a vitamin D supplement.
If you are a vegetarian, check out Integrative therapeutics cortisol manager, Thorne Phytisone, and Vitanica Adrenal assist which are herb based, and you may need extra B vitamins too.
Check out these products and more at our online store. Some of our current favorites, listed by brand:
Integrative Therapeutics: Adrenal complex, Cortisol Manager, HPA adapt, L-theanine, Phosphatidylserine, Pure Omega HP/Pure Omega Ultra HP
Standard Process: Adrenal dessicated, Drenamin, Drenatrophin PMG, and MediHerb Adrenal complex, Rhodiola + Ginseng, Rhodiola + Schisandra
Thorne: Adrenal cortex, Basic B/Stress B complex, Cortrex, Iso-Phos, Omega plus, Omega Superb, Pantethine, Phytisone, Super EPA, and Vitamin D-5,000 or D-10,000
RLC labs: a-Drenal
Vitanica: Adrenal assist
Ecological formulas: Pantethine (B5), Vitamin C-1000, EPA 625