How to Overcome Adrenal Fatigue | Dr. Josh Axe

In this video, I’m going to walk you through the steps to overcome adrenal fatigue.

Most fatigue problems and adrenal insufficiency come from issues with the adrenal glands. About 80% of the population deals with this common problem. There are several warning signs that indicate you may have adrenal fatigue. If you struggle with fatigue, are stressed, anxious, have trouble with concentration, poor memory, thyroid issues, or gained mysterious weight, you may have adrenal fatigue.

There are three steps you will want to take to get rid of adrenal fatigue for good. The first starts with your diet. Foods to get out of your diet are caffeine, sugar, and hydrogenated oils. Foods that are high in vitamin B12 and magnesium are going to support your adrenal glands and blood sugar levels so you will want to add these foods to your diet. Foods like coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut, olives, olive oil, raw dairy products, grass-fed butter, organic meats, loads of vegetables, and seaweed are all crucial to your diet as well.

Secondly, you will want to support your adrenals by taking supplements like adaptogenic herbs (such as ashwagandha, holy basil, and liquorice root), which will help your body adapt and deal with stress. Additionally, a vitamin B complex, magnesium, vitamin D, selenium will support the healing of your adrenals.

Lastly, you should focus on lowering your stress levels. Try getting 8-10 hours of sleep a night, reflect and address your stressors, add fun activities into your routine, and exercise. If you follow these three steps, you will be well on your way to naturally healing adrenal fatigue.
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Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS, is a doctor of chiropractic, certified doctor of natural medicine and clinical nutritionist with a passion to help people eat healthily and live a healthy lifestyle.
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This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.

[jennifercrews]

I feel like I need to watch this video once a month. 😂

[GetUnwoke]

I wish I had seen this video years ago. I would have quit caffeine at the first sign. My diet was in check, I was regularly exercising, consuming a bunch of vitamin supplements, but I still had all the signs of adrenal fatigue. Quitting caffeine helped tremendously. It was actually the sole cause of my issues.

[drjoshaxe]

If you struggle with fatigue, are stressed, anxious, have trouble with concentration, poor memory, thyroid issues, or gained mysterious weight, you may have adrenal fatigue. Take the follow steps to overcome it! #motivationmonday   #healthyliving   #nutrition  

[helen]

Feel too tired to even watch this video! However, Dr Axe is so wonderful I'm hanging on. He's got such great energy. Love him!

[JoyfulSeas]

Right after you said it, I knew it was the issue. Sugar and Caffeine. Time to quit baby!!! WOOO

[Starry_Night_Sky]

Sleep is probably the most overlooked element of wellness.

[ghayath]

I quit smoking and alcohol and dairy products. been working out 5 times a week
Now I have to quit caffeine and sugar.. this is going to be a tough one

[amateurmeteorologist]

Wonderful advice and also interesting to note that basically all of the important nutrients depleted during adrenal fatigue are massively depleted whenever alcohol is consumed. I firmly believe that I would never have gone into such a bad state of adrenal burnout had I not been "unwinding" with wine every night. Don't want to be preachy but just leaving this out there in case it helps someone

[paulharris]

Well in a nutshell, 'stress' is the trigger, any stress. Adrenal fatigue is when the body starts to not be able to produce enough cortisol. Cortisol is our major stress hormone, and so when we can’t produce enough of it you know, we get really tired because it keeps us awake, in the earlier stages, you might have trouble sleeping at night. Just having trouble getting to sleep and waking up multiple times throughout the night. A lot of people will experience blood sugar crashes, so they sort of get that “Hangry” feeling, where they are sort of hungry and angry at the same time. You know a lot of just mood and anxiety sort of symptoms because of the blood sugar crashes. Basically, these are going to be the main symptoms you are going to get from adrenal fatigue. So that is how you can sort of know if you have it, or if you should get checked out for it.

But adrenal fatigue is caused by too much stress, for the short answer. Because our body can handle short bouts of stress, it is sort of made to be able to handle that. Our ancestors had to catch food to eat, they would have had these shorts bursts of stress. Then they would have had time to sit and relax, you there are these two extremes where one is the “Fight of Flight Mode”, where the body is stressed out, you are producing lots of cortisol, you are having that stress reaction. And then other times you know, you are really relaxing and taking it easy so your body can digest food, and do all that kind of thing. So, I would really like to call, instead of referring to it as Adrenal Fatigue, I usually like to refer to it as HPA axis dysfunction. That sounds really complicated, so, a lot of people don’t use that term, because it’s not a very good search term. And if you are trying to figure out what the heck is going on with your adrenals, you probably to not know much about the HPA axis.

But, the HPA axis is basically the axis between the hypothalamus, pituitary, and the adrenal glands. All of them are connected. So what happens when we get stressed is, first: The HPA is the role center for the reaction to stress, and it regulates a lot of other body functions like digestion and immunity. So when we are in contact with a stressor, like being in traffic, the first thing that happens is something called CRH, which is Corticotrophin-Releasing Hormone, is released from the hypothalamus. CRH travels within the blood, to the interior pituitary gland, and stimulates the production of adrenal corticotrophin-hormone, also known as ACTH for a shorter way of saying it. ACTH goes through the blood to the adrenal cortex, which it ultimately stimulates the release of cortisol, which is the body’s main stress hormone (which we have already talked about), as well as some other hormones, like DHEA and others.

So that’s a brief biochemistry lesson as to how the body reacts when we get stressed out. That’s what’s going on behind the scenes in the body. Cortisol works to help keep blood glucose levels elevated, and to help the body retain sodium so that our blood pressure stays high, and so that our blood glucose can keep up with the fuel demands of the brain and other vital organs during times of stress. So you know how blood glucose and high blood pressure do not sound like a good, but when you are talking about being in a stressful situation, those are the things that the body actually wants to prioritize, you know, you want to have that energy to keep going. Because if you are running away from a bear of something, that’s what you want!

So be careful lets say if you are on an atkins or keto diet, as his comment about sugar, good carbs, might be just what you need and a simple back loading of carbs might throw you out of ketosis, but you will sleep like a baby and feel super the next day, so remember adrenal fatigue has various situations, you cannot 'generalize' it as caffeine, a specific deficiency in a vitamin (by the way, Vitamin D is really a hormone not a vitamin as he says). Hope this helps some on a more scientific or practical level. What he is abosolutely correct about is STRESS, find it, minimize or eliminate it and pay attention to your diet type and fitness level. What works for the normal 9-5 desk working eating a SAD diet will not apply to a keto adapted active person or athlete. This is VERY IMPORTANT to consider. good health.

PS: not bashing here I absolutely think Dr Ax is super, just adding some content that I hope helps some.

[pera]

Very comprehensive advice on adrenal fatigue. I am a big fan of aswagandha. One critical factor with ginseng is to make sure it comes from whole root. Ginseng root is made up of the the root and hair-like projections called tails. The tails are rich in stimulating compounds whilst the roots are rich in balancing compounds. Together these compounds give the adaptogenic properties of ginseng. Cheaper versions will have high tail content and can have a stimulating effect similar to caffeine therefore it is important to make sure the ginseng comes from whole root. Thank you for sharing knowledge to help heal the world. Bless your soul.

[lindiejansevanrensburg]

I have to tell my story since i had Adrenal Fatigue in a time you would least expected it. I started with a "getting my life and body back" transformation in Jan 2017, I had about 17 kg to shed so I started with Crossfit and like the person I am I studied nutrition and healthy ways of eating to the bone. So I was doing great and shedding the Kg's and limiting my sugar intake to 20 g p/d and was eating according to macros and also limited my sodium intake to the healthy daily recommended amount, I also cut my coffee drinking from 6 cups a day to just one. I started taking Omega 3's and magnesium and Vit D etc. So in general I was doing my body a favor and living the healthy lifestyle. But 3 months in it hit me, I was tired and drained to the point of feeling like crying. So I read up on adrenal infatuate and how to fix it which included sodium and then it hit me. I'm prone to very low blood pressure and I think because of that I think that my body tend to need a bit more sodium than the average daily limit and when I suddenly decreased it and put my body through intensive exercise sessions for a period of time must have made my adrenal gland say "that's it I'm out of here"!! So I did Thomas de Laur's adrenal mix each morning and lifted my sodium intake again and in day 2 I already started feeling better. So in my case even if you do the right things you might still be stressing your adrenals. So what have I learned ... LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!

[andreaf]

How can you get 8 hours sleep? Adrenal fatigue prevents you from

[darsheelrathore]

Aswagandha ROCKS!!!
Even in body building and many more things..

[growingbettervegetables]

Meditation, deep breathing exercises, focusing on nutritious vegetables and dark leafy greens, non-strenuous exercise (walking), teaching myself to let go of things I can't control, and definitely more sleep helped me. I also had some blood tests done to identify nutritional deficiencies, eliminated any foods that didn't add something beneficial to my body and added more foods that were beneficial. :)

[SmartPhotoVault]

This advice saved me. I had chronic back pain and a underactive thyroid. Your advice helped massively.
I have stuck by this advice for over 6 months. Anyone suffering, replay and listen carefully. + also cut out any booze!
Thank you DR axe.

[Zapp]

I'm just recently learning about adrenal fatigue and I basically have all the symptoms. Wow caffeine and sugar are the worst things for it yet those are the first 2 things I crave in the morning. Even after having both I still feel like crap and it literally takes me 3 to 4 hours every morning just to feel fully awake and get my day started.

[monoc]

Follow diet, remove the source of stress, and sleep. That's how you'll heal from adrenal fatigue

[christopherpacheco]

Raw Dairy, I know some people don't want to hear it but it fully healed my adrenal issues and got my sleep back to normal

[johngreystoke]

Light exercise that brings joy several times a week. Oh yeah! I like the sound of that :) 

[CocolimeFitness]

I agree about the caffeine Dr. Axe. in my particular case, however, I was able to just cut it out of my diet strictly for 6 months and supplemented like crazy with good quality vitamins and minerals as well as trying to exercise in a fun, balanced way, and after that time i noticed that I could drink coffee again with no issues. I do keep it to about 1-2 cups a day though and no more. So for all of you coffee lovers out there maybe you will find this encouraging! Thank you for a very helpful video and for sharing your knowledge with us.