People often assume that because I’m a physiotherapist, I’ve got my own training completely sorted. After all, I know how to build strength, rehab injuries, and prescribe exercise. But knowing and doing are two very different things, especially when life gets busy…
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If you are suffering with lower back pain which has not been caused from injury or accident, one of the first things we would recommend is to release the hamstrings.
When these muscles at the back of your thighs are tight, they can limit motion in the pelvis. The muscles of the lower back, particularly the erector spinae, must then take on greater responsibility for pelvic motion and become stressed and tight. The result can be low-back pain and decreased range of motion. We are designed to be on our feet and moving! And that means our hips, where are legs attach to our pelvis/torso, are meant to be flexible and fluid so we can take strides, moving ourselves from one place to another. But what we typically are doing these days is sitting on our butt, not moving. So our hips (where all of the hamstring muscles connect to the pelvis) get really, really tight.
So first and foremost, stretch out the hamstrings, ideally with a band so that you can relax your head and neck on the floor and gently pull the band.
Your adrenal glands are two tiny pyramid-shaped pieces of tissue situated right above each kidney. Their job is to produce and release, when appropriate, certain regulatory hormones and chemical messengers.
Adrenaline is manufactured in the interior of the adrenal gland, called the adrenal medulla. Cortisol, the other chemical from the adrenal gland, is made in the exterior portion of the gland, called the adrenal cortex. The cortex also secretes androgens, estrogens, and progestins. Cortisol, commonly called hydrocortisone, is the most abundant — and one of the most important — of many adrenal cortex hormones. Cortisol helps you handle longer-term stress situations.
In addition to helping you handle stress, these two primary adrenal hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, along with others similarly produced, help control body fluid balance, blood pressure, blood sugar, and other central metabolic functions.
In the heightened nervous state of adrenal burnout, the body overproduces adrenaline, cortisol and other stress hormones. Constant stress and poor nutrition can weaken the adrenal glands. Eventually, this causes the adrenal glands, the front line in the stress reaction, to show wear and tear and become depleted. This frequently leads to impairment in the thyroid gland, which can cause a further decline in energy level and mood and is one of the reasons why many people have thyroid glands that donít work well.
When stress continues over prolonged periods of time, the adrenal glands can deplete the body’s hormonal and energy reserves, and the glands may either shrink in size or hypertrophy (enlarge). The overproduction of adrenal hormones caused by prolonged stress can weaken the immune system and inhibit the production of white blood cells that protect the body against foreign invaders (in particular lymphocytes and lymph node function).
Adrenal dysfunction can disrupt the body’s blood sugar metabolism, causing weakness, fatigue, and a feeling of being run down. It can also interfere with normal sleep rhythms and produce a wakeful, unrelaxing sleep state, making a person feel worn out even after a full night’s sleep.
Common Causes of Adrenal Stress:
Testing for Adrenal Health:
In order to determine the health of your adrenal glands you need to have a simple blood, urine, or saliva test such as the Adrenal Stress Index performed through your practitioner. Cortisol levels can be checked by blood in the morning or throughout the day by a saliva test. DHEA, and Epinephrine, are some other indicators of adrenal function.The information provided by testing can help to determine the most appropriate type of treatment.
Associated Symptoms and Consequences of Impaired Adrenal Functioning:
Treatment
Lifestyle changes such as:
Eating steadily, all day long. Skipping meals is one of the worst things you can do for your body. When you’re hungry, your blood sugar drops, stressing your adrenal glands and triggering your sympathetic nervous system. That causes light-headedness, cravings, anxiety and fatigue. Another drawback to skipping meals: The resulting low blood sugar can affect your ability to think clearly and shorten your attention span.
Skipping breakfast is particularly bad, as it is a sure fire way to gain, not lose, weight. If you start each morning with a good breakfast and “graze” healthfully every two to four hours, your blood sugar will remain steady throughout the day. You’ll feel more rested and energetic.
Helpful Supplements:
Sleep has to be one of the most underrated essential components to our own wellbeing! Stressed people often have sleep issues and a lack of sleep is a stressor in itself, talk about a catch 22! When we first fall asleep our brain waves go through various stages effectively slowing down.
The effects of sleep are very far reaching! Interestingly both too much and too little can have a detrimental effect on your health – primarily premature death! The amount of sleep that correlates with the longest lifespan is between 5-9 hours a night. As we age there is a higher correlation between less than five and more than nine hours sleep a night and increased mortality.
However, you may be getting the right amount of sleep but if the quality of that sleep is poor then you are still going to damage your health. As we age our sleep often gets lighter and more fragmented. We may not get enough slow wave or REM sleep. During these phases the brain produces higher levels of the growth hormone somatrophin. This hormone helps with the repair and replacement of tissue and bone. During the daytime these levels are lower.
If you are also stressed, the subsequently high levels of cortisol further suppress somatrophin which then diverts energy away from repairing the body and focuses it on dealing with the high energy demands of dealing with a stressful situation. Normally, cortisol levels would be low when you are asleep. However if you are suffering chronic and/or prolonged stress then that cortisol level is not going to drop sufficiently when you are asleep. As this then suppresses tissue repair it effectively speeds up the ageing process.
“Although I can find no research to prove this, the dynamics of sleep and stress suggest that it is best to go to sleep unstressed.” (Patrick Holford)
People often concentrate so hard on good sleep quality that they forget the importance of how they wake up too.
So, we know that cortisol and adrenaline levels are lower during the night – as long as we are not stressed! Pulse and BP will be lower and will increase on waking up. If you wake up with an increased pulse or high BP then this would indicate raised cortisol levels through the night. This is very common with people suffering SAD and depression. Another cause is sleep apnoea which affects between 3-8% or men. Interesting stress is a causal factor and can cause fewer REM stages resulting in less restorative sleep. REM sleep is the most critical phase for the mind. REM phases tend to last around 30 minutes and occur around 5-7 times throughout the night. If an individual is deprived of REM sleep then they will not feel fully rested on waking and are more susceptible to depression. When they do get REM sleep, their phases tend to last longer than the average 30 minutes and this suggests that our minds need to have this time to process what has been happening in our lives. REM sleep is often noted as the only time the brain really unwinds. We dream through REM sleep to allow the brain to fully relax (this is all conjecture by the way but thought of by many sleep specialists!) and these dreams are essential for mental and emotional health.
High levels of cortisol will result in less REM sleep which will lead to potential emotional instability and this may have a knock on effect with food and exercise choices if people are using that avenue to feel better.
Interestingly some anti-depressants suppress REM sleep – can someone please explain how that is supposed to help!?
Written with help from a friend,
Jane x
