Being able to adapt to situations is essential for "survival among the fittest." Everyone encounters or lives with stress. It might be emotional, physical, or mental. Our bodies are designed naturally to cope with stress. The adrenal system does just that. This system is regulated by a gland on the top of each kidney and is accompanied by the sympathetic nervous system. These glands produce hormones that control bodily functions like stress regulation, growth, aging, blood-sugar control, just to name a few.

Cortisol is a hormone associated with stress. Cortisol is elevated when your body is stressed. Cortisol has a very important relationship with blood-sugar regulations and fat-burning. These two functions may be highly affected if cortisol is not regular. Too much cortisol suppresses the immune system and can impair memory and contribute to Alzheimer's disease.

When someone is subjected to stress your adrenal attempt to battle the stress. If successful, the adrenals return to normal and during this stage your might get mild symptoms of tiredness, mild allergies, or some kind of nagging back, foot or knee pain. However, if adrenals fail to combat the stress the adrenal glands get larger and while combating the stress you might get even worse symptoms like fatigue, insomnia, or serious pain in your back, foot or knee. The last stage is extreme tiredness and in this stage the person usually becomes seriously ill either physically, chemically, or emotionally.

Your body is equipped to handle bouts of stress, but under long periods of time the body cannot. This has much to do with health and fitness because a healthy body that can fight off stress with have an easier time becoming fit. If your body is busy fighting stress it will not be able to function properly during exercise. Exercise might make you feel even worse! It will be like trying to win a battle on two fronts.

Common symptoms are low energy, dizziness, sensitivi

ty to light, allergies, exercise "burnout", diminished sexual drive and blood-sugar-handling stress (low blood sugar).

Diet can often help adrenal stress. The most important thing involving diet to help adrenal stress is cutting out refined sugar. There are tons of hidden sugar in many foods (ketchup, bread, crackers, etc.). If you have adrenal stress or think you do, cut out the sugar (including those sugared drinks). Eating sugar raises blood-sugar levels too quickly causing insulin to be released, which in turns lowers the blood sugar. These two actions together are chemical stresses, which your adrenals have to deal with. Even consumption of refines carbohydrates and caffeine create this same action and creates or adds to adrenal stress.

I had adrenal gland dysfunction for many years and it lead to my "chronic fatigue". It was like having the flu everyday of your life. I slept 14 to 15 hours without any relief. I did not know about adrenal dysfunction and later found out it affected many millions of people. If you are having symptoms you have to start doing something about it now, because it only gets worse. It is often a major hurdle to overcome for most people trying to get healthy and fit.

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