Do you wake up feeling groggy, exhausted and struggle to get yourself out of bed?

You find yourself hitting the snooze button a couple of times but despite how much sleep you get you’re still really tired in the morning, your body feels like lead and you have brain fog?

You rely on coffee to get you going because your day ahead is of course BUSY! You struggle through the morning feeling like your dragging your body around, having more coffee to get you through the day.

Despite feeling exhausted for most the day, it then gets to 6pm and you get an energy boost and you’re ready to go! So, you head to the gym and do a high intensity workout only adding more stress to your already stressed out body.

You then get home organise dinner and maybe fit in another couple hours of work or study. You’re feeling good so you want to make the most of it. It’s then time for bed and although you’re feeling tired, you’re wired and can’t sleep.

Finally, you fall asleep and despite being in bed by around 10pm and having 7-8 hours uninterrupted hours sleep you still feel sluggish and exhausted when you wake up. And, so the viscous cycle starts again. You wake up and struggle to get out of bed, drinking coffee to get through your day only to find your energy levels peaking again in the evening when really it should be the time you start unwinding.

You’ve fallen into the ‘busyness’ trap of always being on the go and pushing yourself beyond your limits. You’re stressed, overwhelmed with a million things to do on your to-do list. You find yourself feeling worried, guilty or anxious a lot of the time. Life is busy. You’re a high achiever and you have lots you want to achieve and because you’re a perfectionist everything you do has to be perfect.

If this sounds like you then chances are you’re suffering from some stage of Adrenal Fatigue.

What is Adrenal Fatigue?

The adrenal glands which sit on top of your kidneys release several important hormones one of which is cortisol, being our major stress hormone. The purpose of your adrenal glands is to help your body cope with stresses and survive.

Your adrenal glands enable your body to deal with stress from every possible source, whether it’s emotional, chemical, physical or internal stress. Your energy and endurance all depend on their proper functioning.

When cortisol is in balance it is higher in the morning when you wake up and slowly goes down throughout the day so you can sleep well at night.

However, with adrenal fatigue the opposite happens, you have low cortisol in the morning but then it peaks in the evening. When we have cortisol surges at the wrong time we find that we can’t get going in the morning and we can’t fall asleep at night.

Lifestyle components that can lead to Adrenal Fatigue:

Culturally, we’re trained to think that we’re kind of supposed to feel tired all of the time. Adrenal fatigue is a huge issue in our fast-paced society where people wear ‘busyness’ as a badge of honour. We keep ourselves overbooked and overextended, we stay BUSY in order to achieve everything we set out to achieve.

Overtime, the effects of excess work, high stress, little time off and a fast-paced lifestyle can lead to adrenal fatigue. Despite our brains being able to handle this our adrenals can’t. They get burnt out very quickly by this modern way of life.

Some components of your lifestyle that can lead to adrenal fatigue:

• Excessive work and high levels of stress
• A fast paced lifestyle and making sure your diary is completely full
• Lack of sleep and staying up late even when you’re tired
• Not eating at proper times and making poor food choices
• Constantly driving and pushing yourself to your limits
• Trying to be perfect because of fear of failure or not being good enough
• Not making time to have fun and pleasure

If you have Adrenal Fatigue here are some things you might experience:

Even when you take the time to have a really good night’s sleep (in bed by 10pm, the full 7-8 uninterrupted hours) you still feel sluggish and exhausted when you wake up, then it’s possible this is down to early stage Adrenal Fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue is a syndrome with a wide range of signs and symptoms. Some of these include:

• Tiredness and exhaustion even when you’re getting enough sleep
• Inability to deal with stress
• Problems with concentrating and memory
• Decreased energy and motivation to exercise
• Excessive sweating and perspiration with little activity
• Getting sick often
• Dizziness when standing or feeling faint
• Feeling nausea
• Clouded, fuzzy thinking, easily distracted
• Salt and sugar cravings
• Find it difficult to lose weight
• Muscle tension especially stiff neck and shoulders
• Feeling depressed and/or frequent anxiety
• Easily frustrated

Sound familiar?

What you can do to start feeling better:

There are various factors that play a part in healing from adrenal fatigue, diet, lifestyle and mindset all play a part. It starts with acknowledging where you’re at and making small changes each day to reduce your stress and increase your energy levels.

Self-Awareness – Get to know yourself

Generally, if you have developed adrenal fatigue it is likely that there is something big going on with you. So you need to uncover the reason behind why you push yourself so hard beyond your limits and why you ignore the signs your body has been telling you for some time. It’s essential to get to the root causes of why you’re suffering from adrenal fatigue.

Self-awareness is a great way to explore some of the deeper patterns and beliefs that may be holding you back. Some reasons may be:

• You’re a high achiever and perfectionist – nothing is ever good enough
• You set yourself unrealistic goals and then beat yourself up if you don’t achieve them
• You’re never satisfied if you do achieve a goal and you’re straight away onto the next one
• You’re very much living in the past or the future and very rarely in the present moment
• You’re driven by fear – fear of failure, fear of not being good enough
• You measure success by how busy you are. How many things you can do in a day, how many goals you can achieve. If you’re not busy then you think you’re not working hard enough
• You can’t relax – when you try to you’re feeling guilty because you’re not being productive. You can’t switch your mind off and it’s constantly going a hundred miles an hour

It’s time to stop judging yourself and start seeing and connecting with who you are. A strong foundation of confidence and self-worth will help you to make the choices that are best for you and your health.

Deliberate Self-Care

This is so important. You need to prioritise yourself care and value yourself worth, health and wellbeing. Listen to your body and honour it’s needs and wants. Take some time out of your day to just be, to sit, rest, relax and replenish. Try and spend 15 minutes each day away from technology so your mind can rest and switch off. You may be surprised by the amount of creative ideas that pop up when you allow yourself this space.

Sleep

Make sure you’re going to bed by 10pm and that you’re getting 7-8 hours sleep at night. Even though your energy levels peak in the evening, try and combat this with an evening ritual that will get you in a relaxed sleepy mood. Take a bath, do the Legs Up the Wall yoga posture, enjoy a restorative yoga class, meditate, read a book etc.

Morning Ritual

Implement a morning routine – meditate, journal, exercise, reading, whatever works for you. By having a morning ritual you start the day in a relaxed state, prioritising yourself and needs and setting yourself up for a great day. You need to fill up your buckets so you then have enough energy to give to others.

Gentle Exercise

Don’t push yourself when you’re not feeling up to that high intensity cardio class. Our adrenals get burnt out from over exercising. When you’re feeling tired, listen to your body. Yoga, a pilates class or a nice walk will be much better for you when you’re feeling exhausted.

Go outside and be in nature and enjoy the sunshine

Being in nature grounds you which is a great way to de-stress. Take your shoes off and let your feet sink into the ground. Getting 20 minutes of sunshine everyday will also boost your Vitamin D and help with your adrenals.

Increate your intake of green vegetables

Green vegetables are full of almost every vitamin and mineral we need and are great for reducing stress. They are alkalising on our blood and cleansing to our entire system. Add them to your smoothies or add a super green power to your water.

Have FUN!

Include fun activities into your day and become absorbed in something you enjoy. Remember what you enjoyed doing when you were young and start bringing those activities into your day. Try something new and do it just for the pleasure of it.

Learn to say NO!

This is so important and also one of the hardest to do especially when you’ve been saying YES all your life and you don’t want to disappoint anybody! Learn to set boundaries and put yourself and your health first so that you can create some space in your life, space to refuel and spend time with yourself and those you want to.

When you start to include deliberate self-care & rest, mindfulness practice, good sleep, wholefoods into your diet, healthy boundaries and fun and enjoyment into your life you will begin to see positive results.

If you want to find out how long until you start feeling normal again and what to do so that you don’t revert to your old way of living check out my blog post here.

Start to put your focus towards feeling better and you will see results!