Antidote for Adrenal Fatigue: The Overwhelm Spectrum

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1 Antidote for Adrenal Fatigue: The Overwhelm Spectrum LifeWork Summary Quick Points: Webinar Overview Adrenal Hormone Health 101 Hyper- and Hypo- Responses to Stress Essential Oils Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 1

2 Antidote for Adrenal Fatigue: The Overwhelm Spectrum Your Replenishing Toolkit Track Your Stressful Thoughts: As you pay more attention to your stressful thoughts, become aware if you are shifting into hyper-activity and hypo-activity. Then consider how you may be able to counteract that extreme and help bring yourself back to center. If hyper-activity is setting in, how can you slow down and loosen the grip? If hypo-activity is setting in, how can you reconnect and plug in to your self, life, goodness? Essential Oils: Explore working with essential oils to tap into limbic calm and add in bringing your system back in balance. Adaptogenic Herbs: Consider adding an adaptogenic herbal supplement to your wellness routine to support adrenal health. Setting Your Intention My intention this week is to deeply care for myself in these ways: To help me, I can seek out support or prioritize my time in these ways: Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 2

3 Quick Points: Webinar Overview I. Your mind and body are deeply connected - your adrenal system mimics the exhausting ride of stressful thoughts when in a chronic stress state. II. III. IV. Your body has wisdom. Tapping into that wisdom can shift you into calm. Your adrenal system controls and monitors your stress response. It s responsible for the production of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenal imbalance can range from the initial signs of improper stress management to adrenal fatigue to adrenal burnout. V. Our adrenal glands were designed to respond to short bouts of stress and function with plenty of healthy reserves for the normal hormonal requirements of our day. When adrenals have been in overdrive too long (adrenal fatigue), they stop functioning altogether. VI. High levels of cortisol impact every other major hormonal system in your body. VII. Depending where you are on the spectrum of adrenal fatigue, your body and your mind will either respond hyperactively or hypo-actively, going into overdrive or escape. VIII. When you begin to recognize this pattern you can choose your self care tool wisely. If hyper-activity is setting in, how can you slow down and loosen the grip? If hypo-activity is setting in, how can you reconnect and plug in to your self, life, goodness? Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 3

4 Adrenal Hormone Health 101 We were designed for stress in acute amounts, but we are living in a society where stress is in abundant amounts and our bodies (hormonally, physiologically and biochemically) simply were not designed in this way. contributes to inflammation on a cellular level. To eat a diet that supports hormonal balance is really to eat foods that prevent inflammation and for better or worse, high cortisol levels promote inflammation. Our adrenal glands release two major stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. When our adrenals produce elevated levels of cortisol over a long period of time, our body is extremely weakened and fatigued. The adrenal glands were designed to respond to short bouts of stress and to function with plenty of healthy reserve for the normal hormonal requirements of our day. When the adrenals have been in overdrive for too long - as is what happens with adrenal fatigue - they begin to stop functioning altogether. This is associated with deep fatigue, difficulty responding appropriately to things in your life, depression and more. High levels of cortisol impact every other major hormonal system in your body. Let s look at a few so you can start to see how interconnected cortisol is with every other major body function. Elevated levels of cortisol interfere with our progesterone receptors causing estrogen and progesterone to become out of balance. When progesterone is blocked, your body gets flung into estrogen dominance. This presents itself with the Tired/Wired Paradox where our adrenals are fatigued and we experience deep exhaustion, yet at the same time, estrogen is coming into dominance and we have a wired-overdrive kind of experience. We re exhausted yet totally unable to calm or soothe ourselves through the progesterone being produced. High cortisol also raises insulin levels and lowers thyroid function. In addition, high cortisol When our adrenals are pumping out high levels of cortisol all day long, they begin to lose their capacity to do other kinds of work like producing DHEA, adrenaline, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and other hormones that are essential for the optimal functioning of our body. When we enter peri-menopause and menopause, our ovaries naturally begin to decline. This means our adrenal glands need to take over and start to produce the estrogen and progesterone our bodies need to simply function. This becomes a bigger feat if our adrenals are already taxed by chronic stress. Cortisol and DHEA have a see-saw balancing relationship. DHEA balances and prevents many of the problematic issues that happen when cortisol is too excessive in our system. It is similar to the way progesterone balances estrogen dominance in that DHEA balances excess cortisol dominance. Among other things, DHEA also improves our energy, our vitality, our sleep, and our mental clarity. DHEA reduces PMS symptoms and helps the body recover from acute stresses of modern life. DHEA is the hormone that helps us ride through those rises in cortisol when they are acute, but when cortisol stays elevated, DHEA starts to lower over time and cortisol dominance occurs. We ll explore our hormonal bodies in more detail later in this course, but for now it is good to know that when our ovaries begin to decline in function during peri-menopause and menopause, it is our adrenal glands that primarily take over producing our estrogen and progesterone. This means issues around adrenal fatigue and chronic stress become intensified as we enter peri-menopause and menopause. Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 4

5 Hyper- and Hypo- Responses to Stress What happens in your body when your thoughts deliver a stressful order to the limbic part of your brain? Depending where you are on the spectrum of adrenal fatigue, your body and you mind will either respond hyperactively or hypoactively. I call this way we manifest and express our overwhelm through our thoughts the Overwhelm Spectrum. We are all effected differently depending on our season of life, our different triggers, and where we are on the continuum of adrenal fatigue to adrenal burnout. If you have had chronic low-grade stress impacting your life for any stretch of time, your adrenals are probably fatigued to some degree. Your adrenals are likely not responding properly to stress they may be hitting the gas when you need to rest, or flatlining all together. Our thoughts reflect these two scenarios in either hyperactive or hypo-active ways. The hyperactive response is overdrive. This ends up manifesting through becoming manic, getting overly obsessed with getting things done, keeping to a strict schedule, getting very rigid and inflexible, getting amped up, and having intense, deep, fiery emotions (that can border on anger and rage). You are spinning. Overwhelm can also express itself as escape in a hypo-active response. This is where you just flat line - you check out. You disengage. This is where depression can express itself - where you feel disconnected, blah and no longer have a sense you re engaging in the world anymore. You can end up with an overwhelming, hopeless, giving-up experience with your moods. Sometimes your moods can just feel numb. You ve numbed out. Many of us, as we go deeper and deeper into chronic depletion, start to experience ping-ponging between these two extremes - hyperactivity and hypo-activity, overdrive and escape. We can t get back to a center, homeostasis, vitality, or a sense of being able to manage our emotions. Terms and information about hyper-active and hypo-active responses to stress drawn from the work of McClellan and Hamilton from their book, So Stressed. Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 5

6 Essential Oils 101 Essential oils feel and work differently on the body than vegetable oils (like olive oil or sunflower oil). Vegetable oils are pressed from the seeds of plants. They have long straight chains and feel greasy and slippery to the touch. Essential oils, on the other hand, are distilled which means all the parts of the plant are mashed and a low temperature steam is passed through it. This steam carries with it small fat-soluble molecules. Many are structured like a ring which is why they are called aromatic compounds. These molecules are then separated from the water and you are left with highly concentrated extracts from all the parts of a plant called essential oils! We can consider essential oils to be like the blood of a plant because they act to a plant like our blood acts for us. They exhibit significant and immediate anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and hormone balancing effects. In clinical studies, these powerful plant extracts have been shown to have a profound calming influence on the central nervous system, aiding the reduction or elimination of pain, the release of muscle tension and providing a strong emotional uplift. Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 6

7 An essential oil can be 100 to 10,000 times more potent than the dried herb of the same plant. So even a couple of drops can go a long way. The chemicals that are responsible for scent are very small and often come in a ring shape. (In chemistry terms, they re called aromatic structures.) These small airborne molecules travel into our noses when we breathe in and can pass through the olfactory nerve into the center part of our brain. This place in our brain is called the limbic seat and controls our moods, emotions, memory and learning. It s no wonder that smell is strongly related to all those experiences. Scientists have found scents like lavender increase our alpha brain waves (which is associated with relaxation), and scents like jasmine increase our beta brain waves (causing a more alert state). Nature is chock full of thousands upon thousands of scents, each composed of many different molecules that can impact our well-being simply by breathing them in. Simply getting out in nature and turning our attention to the variety of smells is a calming and balancing act. As you walk around your backyard, try taking some leaves and crushing them in your fingers to release their odor. Begin to sharpen this underused sense. Beginner s Mood-Scent Menu Relaxing and Calming :: Lavender, Roman Chamomile, Sandalwood Invigorating :: Peppermint, Sandalwood, Lemon, Orange Balancing :: Cinnamon, Basil, Parsley Uplifting :: Rose, Bergamot, Geranium Focus :: Cedarwood, Frankincense Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 7

8 Ideas to Get Started with Essential Oils There are many ways to engage your sense of smell and benefit from the healing powers of specific scents in nature. Here are just a handful to get you started. 1. If you are using an essential oil, start with just a drop or two in your palms, cup your hands over your nose and breathe in for a few seconds. 2. Dab some essential oils on your neck or wrist as a natural perfume. Sometimes I even run a bit through my hair there is something romantic about perfumed hair. 3. Freshen a whole room by using a diffuser or add a drop or two of an essential oil on a tissue and place in a vent of the room. The forced air will circulate the smell throughout the room. 4. Start an aromatherapy garden. Growing these plants and herbs, even in a window sill, can bring their natural scents into your home all day long, a natural way to infuse your home with nature s healing smells. You will also have them on hand to crush a few leaves in your fingers for a deep breath. 5. Add scents to your daily routine with children. Before nap or bedtime, bring out a calming or relaxing aroma. Before homework time, bring out a scent that helps with focus. Children tend to respond well to natural scents used in moderation, but always be sure not to overwhelm them with aromas that are too strong. 6. Use essential oils in your nighttime routine - put a few drops in a warm bath, use them while you do a hot towel scrub or foot massage, or dab a drop on your sheets or pillow. Lisa Byrne 2015 Replenish 365, page 8