Your adrenal glands are essential in keeping your energy up so you can keep up with life.
The demands of modern life puts constant stress on our adrenals; eventually, they can't keep up with the demand any more and we experience burnout.
Did you know that these two little glands are important to our overall health in many other ways? Constant stress not only weakens our adrenal function, but often affects our digestion and our gastrointestinal health as well.
Your ongoing daily stresses put you in a constant "fight or flight" mode, in which your adrenal glands pump out extra cortisol, a stress hormone.
Part of what that surge of cortisol does is to increase blood flow to your muscles (so you can fight, flee, or lift a car off a child).
This means decreased blood flow to your digestive processes, since in a real emergency, saving your hide takes priority over digesting your lunch.
With less blood flow to your stomach, your stomach stops making digestive acid for a while, leading to indigestion and poor absorption of your food, especially minerals and B vitamins (vitamin B-12 in particular).
Your intestines move less as a result, too.
The normal intestinal movement, called peristalsis, also slows down when we're stressed out.
Undigested bits of food passed on from the not-acidic-enough stomach continue down into the small intestine, where enzymes that weren't designed to break down proteins try to do some good.
Your large intestine slows too, and you start to feel sluggish - not just from constipation, but because toxins from the stool start to get re-absorbed from your intestines back into the blood.
So what can you do today to reduce your stress levels? I know you can't quit your job, and that lotto ticket in your wallet probably isn't the winner.
Try these simple stress reducers:
The demands of modern life puts constant stress on our adrenals; eventually, they can't keep up with the demand any more and we experience burnout.
Did you know that these two little glands are important to our overall health in many other ways? Constant stress not only weakens our adrenal function, but often affects our digestion and our gastrointestinal health as well.
Your ongoing daily stresses put you in a constant "fight or flight" mode, in which your adrenal glands pump out extra cortisol, a stress hormone.
Part of what that surge of cortisol does is to increase blood flow to your muscles (so you can fight, flee, or lift a car off a child).
This means decreased blood flow to your digestive processes, since in a real emergency, saving your hide takes priority over digesting your lunch.
With less blood flow to your stomach, your stomach stops making digestive acid for a while, leading to indigestion and poor absorption of your food, especially minerals and B vitamins (vitamin B-12 in particular).
Your intestines move less as a result, too.
The normal intestinal movement, called peristalsis, also slows down when we're stressed out.
Undigested bits of food passed on from the not-acidic-enough stomach continue down into the small intestine, where enzymes that weren't designed to break down proteins try to do some good.
Your large intestine slows too, and you start to feel sluggish - not just from constipation, but because toxins from the stool start to get re-absorbed from your intestines back into the blood.
So what can you do today to reduce your stress levels? I know you can't quit your job, and that lotto ticket in your wallet probably isn't the winner.
Try these simple stress reducers:
- Every hour, or at least a few times a day, stop and take 3 to 5 slow, deep breaths.
Let your belly fill up like a balloon on each inhale, and squeeze out every last bit of air from each exhale.
You can't breathe deeply like this and be stressed out at the same time! I dare you to try. - Drink a glass of water 30 minutes before each meal.
It will help your stomach to produce more acid, which believe it or not, you're probably not making enough of if you're constantly stressed and/or if you're an antacid junkie and/or over 40. - You may also need to take a hydrochloric acid supplement (you can find this labeled as betaine HCl from your healthcare practitioner or a health food store) to properly digest proteins.
Contrary to conventional medical belief, your heartburn may actually be caused by a lack of stomach acid, not excess acid! - Eat breakfast with protein every day! Preferably within ONE HOUR OF WAKING UP.
I know, it sounds crazy, right? You're not even hungry in the morning.
Do it for a few days, and see how your ability to handle stress improves.
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