Naturopathic physicians and other holistic providers offer ways to test the adrenal glands to get a better idea of how well they are responding. Assuming your fatigue is not caused by an underlying condition mentioned above, a variety of lifestyle techniques exist that you can employ to naturally increase your energy.
Before you consider these remedies, however, it’s important to check to make sure your fatigue is not caused by a major underlying condition like anemia, infection, endocrine or hormone imbalance, or vitamin deficiency. See your physician for a simple blood test to rule out any of these conditions.
Also, a different type of testing can look at the health of the adrenal glands, the glands partially responsible for stress reactions. In a fight-or-flight situation, the adrenal glands secrete cortisol, which helps the body respond to stress. In modern life, the daily, chronic stressors we all experience—lack of sleep, commuting traffic, poor diet, time pressures, deadlines and illness—can keep the adrenal glands working overtime. It’s thought that over time, this response to chronic stress causes the body to lose the ability to respond to stress in the appropriate way.
A common symptom of this so-called adrenal burnout is fatigue. Naturopathic physicians and other holistic providers offer ways to test the adrenal glands to get a better idea of how well they are responding.
