I’ve gotten a lot of comments about the anatomy of the adrenal glands. The area you are feeling has to do the the lymphatics of the adrenals. Not exactly feeling the adrenal glands themselves, but the direct affect they have on the body. The adrenals are located about four inches out rather than the one inch mentioned in the article.

The adrenal glands are responsible for our base line energy. They put out hormones that make us feel good and give us a lust for life. There are many possible consequences to adrenal fatigue, with different manifestations for different individuals.

Adrenal symptoms will usually include extreme fatigue, although you could feel hyper or jittery at times. Other conditions often develop as well: lower back pain, depression, panic attacks and IBS to name a few. Here are 30 symptoms of adrenal fatigue if you’d like to check that out.

The definitive test for adrenal fatigue is a saliva test for cortisol levels at different times of day, at least four. However, there is a simple test you can do on yourself or have a friend do on you.

It is possible for most people to find and feel the adrenal glands, especially when they are swollen from trying to keep up with undo demand which leads to adrenal exhaustion. If your adrenal glands are easy to find, then you probably have adrenal fatigue.

When you press into an adrenal gland that is swollen from exhaustion, you will feel a very uncomfortable feeling in the area. This is not just from pain, but also because of toxins that you press out of the gland when you press into it. As you will see on the video, this is a good thing.

You may find that one gland is more swollen and uncomfortable than the other. This is common, and actually could be a good sign since major adrenal fatigue usually is accompanied by two very swollen and tender adrenal glands.

To find the adrenal glands you start at the belly button. Then, move up one inch and to the right or left one inch. They are on both sides, and you need to find both of them to determine what’s happening with them.

Good adrenal hunting, and let me know how it works for you in the comments below.

A very simplified explanation of the connection is explained in this short video. Knowledge is power. If you know what is causing your problem you can do something about it.

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You can also learn about adrenal support and http://selfadjustingtechnique.com/adrenals/30-symptoms-of-adrenal-fatigue/ on my blog.

There are different levels of what you can do for the adrenals. It depends on how bad things are, what you can afford — some of the better supplements are expensive, and what you are willing to do.

Adrenal dysfunction primarily comes from diet and emotional stress. We’ll start with diet.

Adrenal Dysfunction And Diet
The adrenals are the base line energy for the body. In Chinese medicine they call it kidney chi. They also say that cold food and drinks are hard on kidney chi and should be avoided.

One of the most important avoidance’s is processed foods which includes all forms of sugar (there are exceptions, I’ll talk about theme another time). Sugar includes honey, maple syrup, fructose, dried fruit, fruit juice, carrot juice, sweet fruits like red apples, oranges and bananas, and any other kinds of ‘natural sugar.’ The body metabolizes all of these sugars the same way it does white sugar. And, all put severe stress on the adrenals.

All processed foods like bread and noodles, even whole wheat or other alternate grains are also to be avoided. If grains are ground up they are processed and will metabolize in almost as bad a way as white sugar. It doesn’t matter if the original form was whole or not. White rice is also out unless you get the low glycemic kind. Thick whole oats are okay, but the steel cut ones aren’t.

If you’re really committed, you could give up grains all together. That will help a lot. This is really hard for most people to do, so only try this if you are really ready for something like that. Minimizing grains is another option. Eating boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes (not baked) can help you too feel full.

I’ve made it a life practice to not eat grains at all. I only eat animal protein, vegetables and a little fruit. This is called the paleolithic diet since that is what our most early ancestors ate. It is what our bodies evolved eating, and it’s what is best for optimum health.

Animal protein is essential to bringing up the adrenals. If you are vegetarian then things are going to be much harder to correct and will take much longer. I’ll write on how to do that if anyone wants me to.

Animal protein means fowl (chicken, turkey), eggs, fish and limited red meat like pork and beef. Different bodies can tolerate different types of animal protein, but that is a long discussion. Most body types do fine with fowl, eggs and fish, but rotate the types of fish you eat.

You can also use protein powders like whey and egg white protein. These are really good for when you are in a hurry.

It is stressful on the adrenals to go hungry, so it’s important to eat when your body asks for food. The problem happens an hour or so after hunger hits, when you stop feeling hungry. It’s an adrenal hormone that brings up the blood sugar causing you to not feel so hungry anymore.

Also, you should have animal protein every time you eat anything. The only exception might be if you were to have nuts as a snack to keep from being hungry. Almonds are the best as they are mostly fat, and the little bit of carbohydrate they have in them won’t cause a spike in the blood sugar. Cashews are not as good as they have a high carbohydrate content. Peanuts are not nuts, they are carbohydrate. They should only be eaten with protein.

Adrenal Supplements
Adrenal support in the form of supplement adrenal is a big subject. Here are three protocols with a little variation.

If your adrenals are in really bad shape you can take whole desiccated adrenal cortex, but only for a short time. Taking it for too long causes the adrenals to burn out even more. One an hour for five to seven days is one protocol that will kick start the adrenals. Stop taking it three or four hours before bed so you can sleep. You’ll feel pretty good in a day or two, but the adrenals are not yet in good shape. They need more nutrition to heal completely.

If you use the desiccated adrenal, take it for a few days, then switch to another protocol. I know this is repeating myself, but it’s important.

The cheapest nutrition is a few B vitamins and an amino acid. B6 is probably the most important one since most people in the world have a deficiency in it. The reason is that the body doesn’t have the necessary enzymes to convert B6 into its usable form. Red bell pepper has those enzymes if you juice or eat a lot of raw vegetables. About a half of a medium sized pepper a day is what it takes. The seeds are even higher in the enzymes. Otherwise, you can get pyrodoxyl 5 phosphate, or P5P. This is the enzyme activated form of B6. Five tablets a day with food in two doses is optimal. The ingredients on most will say either 50 or 34 mg, or something close to that. The numbers are the same, different parts are measured.

Two other B vitamins are pantothenic acid and niacinamide. The dossage is 300 mg per day with food, morning or evening, just pick the time you’d like to take it. Both usually come in 500 mg tablets, it’s okay to take the whole tablet.

Note: Be sure to get niacinamide and not niacin. The later causes a skin flush that is rather unpleasant and not necessary.

Vitamin C is also needed. 5000 mg a day. Break this one up into three or four doses, with food.

B12 is the final one. 400 to 600 mcg a day in two doses, also with food. Get the enzyme activated form if you can, it just works better.

The amino acid that helps the adrenals is found in mushrooms, so you can eat them raw or supplement with tyrosine. 500 mg in the morning will probably make you feel great.

These supplements are available in most health food stores for a reasonable price. You might not be able to find the adrenal cortex though. I use one from Standard Process called Whole Desiccated Adrenal. You can probably find it online even though it goes against Standard Process’s terms to sell over the internet, but people do it anyway.

The best supplements for the adrenals are from a company called Apex Energetics. It is against their terms to sell their products unless you are a licensed medical practitioner, but again, people do it anyway. Adrenastim and adrenacalm are the main ones. They are in a cream form which you apply topically. They come with a little spoon for measuring, a slightly rounded spoon full is a dose. In other words, not much. Apply it to an area where there isn’t any hair to impede absorption. Use the adrenastim twice a day, morning and around noon. It can keep you up at night, so avoid taking it too late. And, use adrenacalm three times a day.

If the adrenals are in pretty bad shape you will need adaptocrine. Four tablets a day in three doses if you can remember, two if you have trouble remembering to take supplement three times.

Another good protocol is herbal. I only use the highest quality herbs, and the only two companies that have good herbs that I know of are MediHerb and Kroeger Herbs. I’ve only used MediHerb, so I’ll give those dosages.

Use the liquid herbs from MediHerb, not only are they better, but they are more cost effective. Licorice root, the high grade, 4 ml per day, and Siberian Ginseng 11 ml per day. You can just mix them up and take them in two dosages on an empty stomach is best. This is for the first few weeks. After you feel better you will want to change the herbs, usually in four weeks or so.

Ashwaganda (withania) and Rehmannia are for when the adrinals are a little stronger but not yet fully healed. Mix the two with just a little more ashwaganda than rehmannia and take 15 ml per day, also on an empty stomach.

That’s the basics. There is a lot more to the subject, but you could easily get yourself back in decent shape in one to six weeks. Twelve weeks at the most. It all depends on age and how desperate the adrenals are.

Feel free to ask questions about this. Using the comment box with this post is the best as I’ll get those sooner than an email.

You can learn more about the adrenal glands from wikipedia.

Insomnia and Sleep Issues
Almost every sleep issue is an adrenal issue. At bedtime cortisol is normally low. But when cortisol is high, as can happen with adrenal fatigue, the body to go into fight/flight. The last thing you can do when in fight/flight is to sleep, so of course you can’t get to sleep.

Being able to get to sleep, but not being able to stay asleep is another sleep disturbance issue. The cause is low blood sugar waking you up, even though you may not feel hungry. Late at night, after food is digested, the blood sugar will start to drop. The adrenals, if they have the strength, release a little cortisol to keep the blood sugar steady so we can continue to sleep undisturbed. If your blood sugar is low, you will either wake up or your sleep will be restless.

With adrenal fatigue, night time cortisol levels are backwards from what is normal: high when trying to sleep and too low when sleeping.

Menopause and PMS
Menopause and PMS symptoms are quite common, but they are not normal. Both happen because of an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone.

Healthy adrenals produce hormones that are converted to some of the sex hormones, both male and female. When the adrenals start to weaken, they go into compensation for not being able to do all that is demanded of them. The first compensation is to stop producing sex hormone precursors. Sex hormones get out of balance, and symptoms ensue.

The adrenals take over production of female sex hormones when the ovaries stop. The transition is natural, and the body is designed to do this without complications. However, with adrenal fatigue the adrenals don’t do their job and the common menopause symptoms appear due to the hormone imbalance.

Depression, Anxiety Attacks and Irritability
Depression and anxiety are major problems in the US and other countries. The primary cause starts with low adrenal function which progresses to an imbalance in brain chemicals.

The endocrine system is intricately interconnected. The glands in the body all communicate with each other directly, indirectly or both. One important area of direct communication is between the hypothalamus, pituitary and the adrenal glands called the HPA axis. The hypothalamus receives emotional impute, and it tells the adrenals to produce stress hormones.

Stress, whether it is from processed foods, emotions, toxicity or some other factor, causes the adrenals to put out stress hormones. The same stress factors as well as the excess stress hormones cause the hypothalamus to tell the adrenals to put out more stress hormones. This is a major imbalance that is hard to correct without supplements and/or herbs.

The HPA imbalance will eventually affect brain chemistry because of its connection with the brain through the hypothalamus. Brain chemistry imbalances are what cause mood issues like depression, anxiety and irritability. The main imbalance involves serotonin and dopamine. This is why antidepressants are designed to increase the availability of serotonin.

Low Libido
Libido relates to sex drive and a lust for life. One of the groups of hormones that the adrenals produce are sex hormone precursors. As mentioned above, the adrenals go into compensation when they have too much demand put on them.

The first stage of adrenal compensation is normal: they produce sex and stress hormones in response to stress. If this happens often enough and long enough they will go into phase two compensation. That is, to keep up with the demand for stress hormones they skimp on the production of the sex hormone precursors. Without sex hormones there is little or no interest in sex.

Conclusion
As you can see from the above examples, adrenal stress and adrenal fatigue can be a vicious cycle. Stress causes the adrenals to put out stress hormones which creates a stress situation and even more stress hormones…It can just keep going. Avoiding the stress of processed foods, toxins and strong emotions is the first step in getting past these issues. In the next week or two I will tell you about some herbs and supplements that can help heal the situation.

This won’t tell you everything by any means, but a good gage of general health is to examine the health of the adrenal glands. The adrenals weaken when the body is under stress. This manifests as being in the instinctual state of fight or flight. Long term fight/flight leads to many health complications, and adrenal fatigue is a very common condition. Stress, toxicity and especially the modern diet of refined foods are the main factors that adversely affect the adrenals though there are others. You can read the article “30 Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue” to learn more about adrenal health. Today I want to give you a definitive test of adrenal strength.

How the Test Works
The postural blood pressure or BP test is a test where the blood pressure is checked while lying down in a relaxed state, and again after standing up from the relaxed position. When we stand up, there is less blood flow to the brain caused by gravity. When healthy, the adrenals respond to this change by releasing hormones that keep the pressure steady. If the adrenals are too weak to release the needed hormones, then the blood pressure will drop when you stand up. You can then determine if the adrenals are in recovery or not by taking the BP a third time three minutes later. If the pressure doesn’t come up within three minutes, then the adrenals are not recovering. If the BP comes up to the level it was when reclining then the adrenals are in recovery mode and getting better, probably because of lifestyle changes.

Of course, you need to be able to take your BP to do the test. It would be best if you had a friend who had the equipment and knowledge to take it for you. Or, you may be able to get your doctor or their nurse to check it. As awkward as it may be, you can also use the automatic testing equipment found in many drugstores. The automatic BP equipment isn’t as accurate, but it should be accurate enough for this test. Be sure to lie down for the first test. I have had people tell me they tested fine but when I checked they were obviously weak. Turns out they only relaxed while sitting in the provided chair.

The Test
The first thing you do is to lie down for ten minutes or so and relax. Then take your BP noting the numbers. For this test, you want to pay attention to the lower number called the diastolic. Next, stand up and take the BP again right away. If the diastolic drops by five or ten points then your adrenals are fatigued. Take the pressure again after three minutes or so to see if the pressure recovers to the level it was at while reclining. If not, then the stress the adrenals have been living with is still present and they are not recovering.

Conclusion
Many conditions can be traced to weakened adrenals. It is a high health priority to help them heal and keep them strong. In future articles I will trace the chemistry for why this happens as well as give supplement suggestions.

The 30 symptoms include, but are not limited to:
1. Excessive fatigue and exhaustion, chronic fatigue
2. Non-refreshing sleep
3. Sleep disturbance, insomnia
4. Feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope
5. Craving salty and/or sweet foods
6. Sensitivity to light
7. Low stamina and slow to recover from exercise
8. Slow to recover from injury or illness
9. Difficulty concentrating, brain fog
10. Poor digestion
11. Irritable bowel syndrome, IBS
12. Low immune function
13. Premenstrual syndrome
14. Menopause symptoms
15. Low blood pressure
16. Sensitivity to cold
17. Fearfulness
18. Allergies,
19. Frequent influenza
20. Arthritis
21. Anxiety
22. Irritability
23. Depression
24. Reduced memory
25. Low libido, sexual drive or interest
26. Lack of lust for life and/or food
27. Excess hunger
28. Low appetite
29. Panic/anxiety attacks
30. Irritability, impatience, quick to anger.
If quick to anger, the person will often tend to back down quickly if confronted.

Many of these symptoms have other causes, so just because you have one or more symptom doesn’t necessarily mean that you have adrenal fatigue. On the other hand, adrenal fatigue is so prevalent that if you have even one of these symptoms, it is likely that your are at least a bit run down.

Almost every client I have ever seen has come to me because of one or more of these symptoms. Stress is a major contributor to adrenal fatigue. We live in a busy world that offers little relief from stresses of life. Toxicity contributes to adrenal fatigue as well. But by far, adrenal fatigue is caused by a diet high in sugar and processed foods. And, the same dietary factors that contribute to adrenal fatigue are at the root of most of our major health issues today. Most major diseases start with the same factors as adrenal fatigue, and adrenal fatigue can lead to many serious conditions.

What are the adrenals?
The adrenals are two walnut sized glands that sit on top of the kidneys. They produce three different classes of hormones at the rate of about a quart (liter) a day. One class is stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol also called hydrocortisone. Another class of adrenal hormones affect mineral metabolism especially the sodium/potassium balance. And, they produce sex hormones and their precursors. These hormones are some of the ones that make us feel good. They give us energy and a lust for life — and sex.

A simple test for adrenal fatigue
There are many tests for adrenal fatigue. Lab tests are expensive and take time for the results. However, there is a simple self-test that can be done with a flashlight and a mirror. Start in a darkened room so that your pupils dilate but have it light enough so that you can see your eyes in a mirror. Allow enough time in the dim room so that the pupils dilate fully, about ten minutes. Next, shine the flashlight into one of your eyes from the side so that the light causes the pupil to shrink down to a pin point. Do this in such a way that you can still watch the pupil as it reduces in size. If your adrenals are strong, the pupil will most likely shrink down immediately. If there is any hesitation before they react, then your adrenals are probably fatigued. I use the qualifier probably here because there are other reasons eyes may not react like this though they are not common.

Dietary causes of adrenal fatigue
As mentioned earlier, sugar and refined carbohydrates are the main cause of adrenal fatigue. Sugar includes honey, maple syrup, fructose, dried fruit, fruit juice and just about anything that is sweet. Refined carbohydrates are grains that have been ground up or have had the bran removed. This include products like bread even whole wheat bread, noodles, corn chips, white rice and pretty much anything that comes in a package. Refined foods are broken down by grinding and concentration. Refined grains have more surface area exposed to digestion, so they digest more quickly. They release their sugars quickly into the blood stream causing blood sugar to go up too high too fast.

The body responds to high blood sugar by releasing insulin. Insulin is a hormone that causes sugar to move into the liver, muscles and fat tissues. The problem is that the body evolutionarily isn’t designed to deal with the large amounts of sugar in the blood that are caused by sugar and refined foods. Evolution has designed us to eat animal protein, whole grains (not chopped up), vegetables and fruits. So, the body tends to overreact to this fast sugar by releasing too much insulin. This article is about the adrenals, but high blood sugar, high levels of insulin and constant exposure to stress hormones cause their own problems that will be covered in the future.

The release of too much insulin causes the blood sugar to go down too far. Most everyone has experienced getting sleepy after a large meal of pasta, rice or some other carbohydrate. Or, the drop in energy that follows a candy high. That’s what happens after the large release of insulin. The blood sugar goes down too far. The brain eats mostly sugar, so it gets sleepy from lack.

Now we get into the adrenal involvement. One of the stress hormones they release is cortisol. In ancient times stress meant that we had to fight or run away, the fight/flight response. The muscles that move quickly use sugar, and cortisol causes blood sugar to increase. There is also a cortisol release anytime there is low blood sugar. You know how you can be really hungry, then after awhile you aren’t so hungry anymore? That’s cortisol doing it’s job. The same thing happens when low blood sugar happens because of an over-release of insulin.

The adrenals are constantly being assailed by the above reactions. Processed foods and snacks are available all the time, and they are hard to resist. Our ancestors survived because they had a sweet tooth. They craved the sweet fruits that were available at the end of winter. Insulin caused that extra sugar to be stored as fat for the lean times of winter. The ones that didn’t desire sweet fruits didn’t survive, so we inherited that craving for sweets and other foods that turn into sugar. The problem is that we eat as though it is the end of summer all the time!

The adrenals are constantly being called on to produce more and more cortisol in response to the stress caused by sugar and processed food. Eventually they become exhausted. And, so does the indulger.

What you can do
The obvious thing to do is to stop eating sugar and refined foods. A lot of people will do great just by modifying their diet alone. There are lots of products on the market for treating the adrenals, but which ones really work? This is very individual, but I will give you some suggestions in part two.

Be well, and remember: the body wants to heal, all it needs is the opportunity.