I’m happy it’s a rest day. I am sore from yesterday’s Ouch workout and have been really busy at work — lots of stress makes for a worn out Steph. It seems like things in my life are moving at such a fast pace, and mostly good stuff, that I have no down time! Down time, quiet time –time to just let your mind and body rest is really important. Lack of quiet moments really seem to effect me.  I haven’t been sleeping well the past two days either –which is unusual for me.

Have you heard of Adrenal Fatigue? Adrenal fatigue is a term applied to a collection of nonspecific symptoms, such as body aches, fatigue, nervousness, sleep disturbances and digestive problems.  The theory behind adrenal fatigue is that your adrenal glands are unable to keep pace with the demands of perpetual fight-or-flight arousal. As a result, they can’t produce quite enough of the hormones you need to feel good. According to Dianne from Balanced Bites: Sleep is the cornerstone of being able to eat well, train well and to allow the body to re-set stress levels and lose body fat.

We all have stress, especially now a days but when you have stress day after day, multiple factors causing it, over and over again, all day long — your body can’t keep up. Add to that the poor diet habits many have, poor lifestyle choices many make — that’s all gets processed as stress internally too – you can quickly see how it can wreak havoc on you.

The problem of stress might not be such an issue if we weren’t compounding many stressors over the course of days, weeks, months and years without much downtime for our systems. So, while the condition of adrenal fatigue can come on suddenly as triggered by a traumatic or severe life event, most commonly it is experienced after a gradual, cumulative effect of multiple stressors.

What can we all do then?

There are many things we can all do to reduce stress in our lives –Balanced Bites Dianne shares a bunch of ideas including SLEEP, Avoiding draining people and situations, doing restorative exercising like YOGA, adding in play time, adjusting your diet and adding in supplements like FISH OIL –the list goes on and on. The point is, you have to do something or your body will  begin to ‘fail’ you in all sorts of situations!