123: What is Adrenal Fatigue

If you are struggling with deliberating exhaustion, this episode is for you. I’m diving into adrenal fatigue 101.

What are the adrenals?

The adrenals are triangular shaped glands located at the top of each kidney. The primary job of the adrenals is to release hormones directly into the bloodstream. They produce these 5 main hormones: cortisol, aldosterone, sex hormoens, and epinephrine.

What is adrenal fatigue?

The term adrenal fatigue is not super accurate in terms of describing what is actually happening inside of the body. Adrenal fatigue is essentially a dysregulation of cortisol, the stress hormone. The cause is not “tired” or “fatigued” adrenals.

The root cause of adrenal fatigue is HPA axis dysfunction. You can think of your HPA axis as your internal stress response system. When you’ve been chronically stressed for a prolonged period of time, adrenal fatigue can occur.