For the past 2 – 3 years, I’ve been suffering from adrenal fatigue. This is a commonly misdiagnosed or undiagnosed problem that affects tons of people due to the EXTREME and laregly unnatural amounts of stress placed on our minds and bodies each day. Whether it’s from diet, work, social isolation, or any form of trauma, chronic stress can lead to a plethora of issues that strongly diminish your quality of life.

As a former NFL linebacker, I was trained to ignore my body’s signals to slow down. If I was tired, I was trained to figure out a way to mentally push through the BS story I was telling myself about why I wasn’t keeping up with the rest of the team. If I was sore, I would take painkillers or spend time in the training room trying to expedite the healing process. This could be another story on the state of collegiate athletics and professional sports, but I’ll save that for another day. This mindset kept me pushing when I desperately needed to relax. It’s like running the tires while you’re stuck in the snow. We are trained to think we need more gas to help us get out of the rut, when really we need to slow down, let the tires cool, and gently move out later. (But there’s no money in that).

Our bodies are highly intelligent and know when it’s time to step it up or slow it down. We can’t ignore those signals. I did and it wrecked me. I would drink 4-5 coffees every morning. I would work out after practice, after our team work out before practice so that I knew I wasn’t leaving anything on the field. Then, I would spend time in the sauna to get the added benefit of BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factor). Then, I suffered a concussion that greatly exacerbated the issue.

For the next days, weeks, months, and years, I would be in a constant state of overstimulation. It was all go all the time, and our bodies are not built for that. You need to be able to sleep, to relax, to digest, to calm down so that your body can repair and recover to be able to do it again the next day.

What is Adrenal Fatigue?

In a non-scientific fashion, it’s when the adrenal glands, the glands right above your kidneys, are over producing or depleted of the hormones cortisol (stress, blood sugar management) and adrenaline (fight or flight response, superman hormone). This gland is a part of the system called the HPA Axis (Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal Axis) which coordinates mood, sleep, energy, circadian rhythms, and much more. You can imagine that if that becomes out of balance, it causes a plethora of issues.

This is solely a modern issue due to factors such as: poor sleep, high stress at work, poor coping mechanisms, loneliness and weak daily social bonds, poor diet (such as processed carbs or industrial seed oils), chronic over-exercising, chronic exposure to toxins (plastics, chemicals in foods, sensitivities to foods), and high exposure to EMF’s (cell phone radiation, WiFi). When our body is chronically stressed, our body is always in “fight or flight” mode which causes all kinds of hormonal and metabolic issues.

Especially for athletes who are trained to push through their pain and soreness and ignore their body’s signals, this can become a big issue that destroys our performance on the field, at work, or overall life satisfaction and wellness. If you struggle with feeling constantly stressed out, trouble falling or staying asleep, high blood sugar levels, waking up tired no matter what, strong afternoon fatigue, dizziness when standing up too quickly, then this may very well be the issue. It’s not an easy fix, but it is definitely fixable by adapting lifestyle habits that allowed our ancestors to thrive.

These problems include:

• Trouble falling or staying asleep

• Irritability or anxiety

• High blood sugar or blood sugar issues

• Dizziness when standing up too quickly

• Inability to deal with or handle stress

• Fatigue

• Low sex drive

• Always feeling stressed

• Memory, Concentration, and Focus problems

• Heart Palpitations

• Trouble losing weight or maintaining muscle despite sufficient exercise

• And more.

Obviously, when you experience these things, it’s hard to think about much else, or even think for that matter. This controlled my life for numerous years because I didn’t know how to slow down. The body will tell you when it needs food, exercise, to breath, to sleep. These are all signals that cannot be ignored, but for some reason the addiction of stimulation from work or exercise overrides our signal to take a break. If you’re experiencing some of these symptoms, and can relate to over-work or over-exercise, let’s talk.

This is what I’ll be covering in my course coming soon. Be sure to sign up here for updates on the release.

How to fix it:

For now, the biggest thing is to take a deep breath and know that there is solution. However, it will take time and it will force you to change the way you operate today. You are going to have to take a step back to move forward. Here are some tips to help now:

BREATH

• For 5 minutes, focus on very slow, controlled, and quiet inhales and exhales, and make sure that the EXHALES are slightly longer than the inhales. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system (which is your rest and digest side of the nervous system).

EAT FAT

• Feast on high quality grass fed grass finished animal fat (beef tallow, ghee, fat trimmings from a butcher). Get your high quality vegetables. Eat moderate protein (.8g/kg body weight). Limit or eliminate carb intake and eat until you are full! The body needs nutrients and when it gets fat, it gets the signal that it can relax.

SLEEP

• 8 hours per night. If this isn’t a number 1 priority, then it should be. If you’re not sleeping, then stop all exercise and take a nap during the day. Eat, breath, rest, until you start sleeping again. To do this, shut off all devices 2 hours prior to bedtime and relax. The phone will be there in the morning.

MOVE

• Low intensity exercise, such as long walks, or gentle yoga can do WONDERS for adrenal fatigue. Per Joan Vernikos in Moving Heals, Sitting Kills, consistent movement throughout the day is more valuable to your health than getting a big workout in and then not moving at all. Shoot for 10,000 steps or see how slowly you can move around the house (this one is time consuming but could be fun if you’re trying to annoy someone waiting on you).

It makes you no less of a person to decide what is best for is to take a step back. Honestly, it makes you more respectable because you’re able to stop the constant effort to strive and succeed in order to take care of your most prized possession, your mind and body!

Listen to your body and it will take care of you!

Let me know what you think in the comments below.