What Are the Adrenal Glands?

These are glands that sit on top of the kidneys that produce a plethora of hormones. The outer layer of the adrenals make hormones that regulate blood glucose, the second layer makes hormones that regulate electrolytes, and the third layer makes hormones that regulate reproduction.

What Is the HPA Axis?

The HPA (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal) axis is designed to regulate the stress response.

Different Types Of Adrenal Disease

Addison’s disease-

This is when the adrenals stop producing cortisol entirely, and is autoimmune in nature.

Adrenal insufficiency-

Some people also call this adrenal fatigue, but it’s kind of a misnomer. Adrenal insufficiency is when the adrenals don’t produce enough cortisol to meet the bodies demands do to environmental factors.

How To Improve the Health Of the Adrenals

Carb cycling-

This refers to giving the body the amount of carbohydrates in needs in a certain time frame. This will look different for everyone depending on your goals. The ketogenic diet is great, and has a lot of benefits, but it is not designed for the long term. Doing a carb re feed at least multiple times a week with 100-200 grams of carbs in the evening is a good idea. This will help lower cortisol. Also, it will help increase serotonin, which is a precursor to melatonin. High quality carbs like vegetables, sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, and beats are all great.

Sun light-

Getting outside in the sun is very important. Keep in mind, no matter how many lights, or windows you have open inside, it will always be magnitudes lighter outside. The benefits of sunlight are enormous. It’s responsible for the synthesis of vitamin D, lowers blood pressure, increases nitric oxide, efficiency of the heart, regulates cholesterol, generates ATP, and influences countless other hormones and neurotransmitters. Also, you can use photobiomodulation (light therapy) devices if you don’t get much light where you live. I recommend full body light panels, something like the Joovv light for these benefits.

Resistant starch-

The more you stabilize blood glucose, the better, and resistant starch is a great way to do that. This is because it offers a long stable release of blood glucose, as opposed to short and quick. Resistant starch is starch that is resistant to digestion and serves as food for microbes. Some great sources are tiger nuts, green bananas, and heated and cooled potatoes.