*Editor’s Note: No website is designed to, and can not be construed to, provide actual medical advice, professional diagnosis or treatment to you or anyone. Elephant is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional advice, care and treatment.

Do you consider yourself Type A?

I sure did, until I realized what that meant.

So what does the “A” in Type A stand for? In my book, it stands for adrenal fatigue.

Just about every single client I have worked with who has had adrenal fatigue—including myself—would be considered Type A.

We are extremely driven, motivated and highly successful people.

Most of us have easily climbed the career ladder but at what cost? Our health.

We may exercise and eat healthy, but what we don’t realize is how the long hours, over-scheduled life and endless to-do lists have made us sick on the inside. The never-ending lists of things to do and hyper-productivity are common causes of chronic stress—the number one cause of adrenal fatigue.

Some of the frequently asked questions when it comes to adrenal fatigue are:

What causes adrenal fatigue and how can it be identified?
What are the best testing options and how you can get your hands on them?
Is it possible to reverse adrenal fatigue using diet, rest, exercise and stress reduction?

When it comes to adrenal fatigue, stress is a broad term. It’s more than the typical mental and emotional stress that we think of from work and relationships.

Stress can come from:

>> The processed, non-organic, inappropriate foods that we consume
>> Invisible toxins in our water, air and personal care products
>> Lack of adequate or quality sleep
>> Over-training or exercise that is too intense when our body is already tired
>> Misalignment in the spine and tight muscles
>> Unknown parasites, bacteria or yeast in our gut
>> Emotions that we push aside or conflicts that we avoid
>> Constant stimulation from phones, computers and tablets
>> Long hours at work, an over-scheduled life and not taking time for ourselves

These are all seemingly normal things that we do, but we don’t realize the long-term side effects. Just because they are socially acceptable habits doesn’t make them the right choices for our bodies.

If we were to take a moment to look back along the timeline of our life, when was the last time we didn’t have any of these stressors?

When I found I was in a state of adrenal fatigue, a similar question was posed to me—when did I think the chronic stress started? When I really looked back, I think it truly started when my parents split while I was in second grade. From there stress began to compile. I started eating frozen food with friends after school, drinking alcohol, working part-time while doing an internship and going to college full-time. Then I landed my first job in a high-stress sales company and climbed the corporate ladder. Throughout all of those experiences, I was overtraining, cutting calories and eating foods that weren’t right for my body. Oh yeah, and my mom had a near death experience.

Adrenal fatigue creeps up over time, unbeknownst to us as we go about our usual routines and as life happens to us.

Then one day we wake up realizing just how exhausted we are, noticing that our motivation has declined, we have random health issues we didn’t have before with a little extra weight around our midsection.

I didn’t know any better until I knew what adrenal fatigue was. It was only then that I could make a conscious decision to be different, to appreciate my body instead of running it into the ground.

When I found out I was in adrenal fatigue, I started choosing me.

I tell my clients that life happens. We can stop it, but what makes all the difference is managing the things we can to support our bodies and to try and strike a balance.

Reversing adrenal fatigue is theoretically simple—minimizing the impact of stress by eating food that is right for our body, getting good sleep, exercising just enough but not too much, having a daily outlet for stress and supporting our bodies with proper supplements to restore balance.

Having hardcore proof that my body was fatigued changed my life, and it could change yours, too. Getting the right tests done to provide that proof could be just the motivation that you need to make the necessary changes to improve your health, lose weight and get your energy back.

Remember, knowledge is power. Once you know the state of your health, you can start making more conscious decisions to maintain or improve it.

~

Author: Jenn Malecha

Image: Megan Leetz/Flickr

Editor: Molly Murphy