We are a society of sleepiness, running on fumes and caffeine, craving sugary foods, and suffering from debilitating exhaustion. Today, chronic fatigue affects more than 1 million people in the United States—and that's not even counting all the mildly to moderately fatigued.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is multifaceted, but one common aspect of the condition is something called adrenal fatigue.
The adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys like little kidney baseball caps, release several important hormones, one of which is cortisol. You've probably heard about cortisol before since it's your major stress hormone. Cortisol is supposed to be higher in the morning when you wake up and slowly go down throughout the day so that you can sleep well. It's not necessarily a bad guy—it actually helps regulate your blood sugar and pressure—but you want cortisol to be in balance. Not too high and not too low.
Adrenal fatigue is not really an adrenal problem but a brain problem. Typically, adrenal fatigue is when the brain-adrenal (HPA) axis isn't working so well. This HPA axis dysfunction can cause low cortisol when it should be high and high cortisol when it should be low, and everything in between. That is not fun.
If you have adrenal fatigue, here's what you might experience: