Adrenal Deficiency

Insufficient levels of cortisol may lead to increased insulin sensitivity and thus may disturb your conversion mechanism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. This is a very important point to remember.

Cortisol production in a healthy individual reaches its low around midnight and its peak in the early morning hours. In the diabetic individual this natural cortisol-high frequently is not present.

Diabetics frequently experience a condition called the "dawn syndrome," a reaction of the liver's need to produce increased amounts of glycogen. Such an increased glycogen output usually follows a nightly period of hypoglycemia. Insulin sensitivity is an inevitable result.

While these processes affect much of your neuromuscular function, cortisol deficiency also reduces your ability to cope with stress and your resistance to infections.

Frequently disregarded by mainstream medicine practitioners, adrenal deficiency is one of the conditions opening the door to many serious diseases. Aside from illnesses, real or perceived stress of physical or mental origin is one of the major inducers of adrenal deficiency.

Let us recap the most common Signs Related to Adrenal Deficiency:
- Unmotivated to exercise or exhausted after moderate exercise.
- Unable to get out of bed early morning.
- Cannot get going but improving towards lunchtime.
- Energy trough around two o'clock in the afternoon followed by a short energy-high early evening.
- Easily tired but too exhausted to sleep, and waking up every couple of hours.
- Reduced immune system function leading to frequent allergy attacks or colds.

There are other indicators too that may alert us to a possible battle with adrenal deficiency. These include repeat cravings for:
- sugar
- salt
- caffeine, or
- codeine-containing colas.

If you make it a habit of repeating, "I just need that cup of coffee to get going," you need to strengthen your adrenals to get you going!
The coffee, coke, or extra sugar, or salt do nothing but give you a short-lived pick-up followed by an even greater crash.

These substances, in fact, will increase the stress on your adrenals by causing inflammatory responses throughout your body and depressing your cortisol levels even more. When it comes to your adrenals light initial stimulation over time turns into full-fledged burnout. Surely, this is not the way to go; yet, this is exactly how coffee, cola, sugar, and salt affect your body's energy exchange system.
Time to look at the real cause and get off these band-aid solutions!

Think of it this way: You experience the warmth of a nice campfire. When you walk away from it your body perceives the surrounding cold as even colder. So, you return to the fire and add another log or two to warm up your body. At some point it gets too hot for you to sit close to the fire. You again move away a little ways only to get shivering even worse. In fact, you may end up turning up that heat even more until your entire surroundings catch fire.

Most importantly, cortisol imbalances are instrumental in the early development of diabetes and hypoglycemia. You, therefore, don't want to wait until you are diagnosed as a diabetic before you start working on your stress-induced adrenal deficiency.

There are several different approaches towards balancing and strengthening your adrenals. They largely depend on your body's essential mineral and electrolyte balance. Only your knowledgeable natural health practitioner can help you avoid mistakes and find the most effective route.