Episode 23 of the Living Life Well Show: Adrenal Health
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Living Life Well Show, the intersection of God's Word, today's science, and healthy living with common sense application, all based on the truth of the Word of God. I'm your host, Dr. Jon Skelton. Now let's get straight to the truth. Welcome to this episode of the living life. Well show today, I want to talk about adrenal health. What are the adrenals? What does it do? Why is it important? So what I wanna start talking about first is. Y the adrenals are so important. Well, But the two biggest ions that we have in our body are sodium and potassium. Sodium and potassium are critical. For function of every [00:01:00] cell in the body, they're kind of the gatekeepers.
They open the doors and let things into cells and into our bloodstream and body. If you will. And they also help escort things out of the cell as well. And so there are the constant gatekeepers and door openers to our cellular health. So sodium and potassium are critical. Components of our makeup.
Why the adrenals are important is because they are primarily responsible for helping regulate. Those sodium and potassium levels. And so when we have issues with the adrenal glands, we can see changes in sodium and potassium. When we see changes in sodium and potassium. It can cause things like chronic thirst or issues, urinating too much lots of different things that, that we can see. [00:02:00] General overall fatigue and just in general, not feeling well, it can affect our sleep.
It can affect all sorts of things. And when. Sodium and potassium get really out of balance. They can cause cognitive issues. They can even cause seizures cause heart attacks. So. Sodium and potassium, needless to say are extremely important. And this little tiny Oregon called the adrenal that sits on top of our kidneys.
It looks kinda like a Hershey's kiss. If you will. Is very important. It's a big powerhouse. So a lot of people may know a little bit about the adrenal glands and understand about the. Fight or flight hormones, the adrenaline, if you will, the nor epinephrin. If you will, that, that are made there. And those absolutely are true and absolutely critical.
But what we're going to focus on more is the outer edges of the adrenal gland called the adrenal cortex. Where [00:03:00] we're making cortisol and aldosterone and even DHEA. And so these are going to be critically important for helping you to regulate your sodium, your potassium, your blood sugar, and also affecting your sex hormones to a large degree. So the sodium and potassium are critical for blood pressure management and muscle function. Really just everything in your body.
And so aldosterone really plays a role in regulating that sodium and potassium. Making sure that we're not excreting too much, making sure that we're reabsorbing properly. And so it also is tightly controlled with glucose. Now cortisol. Is also involved and sodium and potassium exchange as well as glucose regulation, sodium and potassium are effected less so by cortisol than aldosterone, but still affected somewhat.
But the glucose is [00:04:00] more impacted by the cortisol. The cortisol, when it surges is telling our body, we need energy. This can surge in response to stress in response to stress that middle part of the adrenal gland can then start secreting that adrenaline and. Nor epinephrin. The cortisol acts in concert with that to say, Hey, we're in trouble.
Something's going on? We've got to really shoot up our blood sugar so that we have plenty of energy. And so it gives us a surge in cortisol that increases our blood sugar that decreases the ability of the insulin to really. Effect moving that blood sugar into the cell and it gives us this extra boost of energy.
You may notice it by a little bit of increased heart rate. You may notice it by now your mouth is a little bit dryer. You might notice [00:05:00] it. And especially if it happens at night with changes in sleep. So. It can happen. Really just with anything. The adrenal glands are that kind of fight or flight hormone.
So to speak when you're specifically talking about the adrenaline and nor epinephrin. Now what has happened in society today? Is we have typically overactive adrenal glands. We have lots of anxiety. Anxiety is a firing up of either a combination of cortisol and adrenaline and norepinephrine,
being excreted. Or it is just a little bit of increased cortisol. Typically when you're going to notice a more of that Medula or affects of the middle of the adrenal gland hormones, that adrenaline and nor epinephrin. You're going to see that more with things like increased heart rate. Somebody made talk about a [00:06:00] panic attack. Things like that is going to be more synonymous with the effects of adrenaline and norepinephrine. Maybe some irritability and just increased awareness, maybe a slight increased heart rate can occur and blood pressure. As that cortisol goes up. Now we hear a lot about adrenal fatigue.
We hear a lot about you know, my, my adrenals just aren't working properly. They're stressed out. What traditional medicine will tell you is that, oh, that's not the case. Your adrenals are functioning. Fine. They're you know, within the normal range. Now they categorize disease like Addison's disease and things like that with a dysfunction of those levels. So what happens with cortisol?
Cortisol is very important. It is needed. Every single day, we are going to use cortisol to [00:07:00] help us regulate our blood sugars as we sleep to allow us to give energy throughout the day. It works with our metabolism. And so cortisol is very important. If you didn't have cortisol, you'd be in a whole lot of trouble.
So one of the tests that I like to do to really look at the adrenal health is do something called the Dutch test. The reason I like the Dutch test is because it tells us about DHEA levels. It tells us about how you're utilizing those. And then it gives us several measurements of your cortisol throughout the day.
Cortisol changes throughout the day.
The Dutch test also tells us exactly how the cortisol is being metabolized and utilized within your body. As well. And so that's important. And the reason is because the typical cortisol curve should look something like this. As you start out down here. When you first wake up quickly within a couple of hours, you've kind of peaked [00:08:00] by after noon.
You're kind of coming down and then by bedtime, you've started to come up a little bit. So that should be a typical curve. Now when somebody is under chronic stress, we may not see things go outside of the normal range. We may not see that the cortisol goes too high or goes too low. So. They have upper and lower limits on the graph with the Dutch test.
But what we'll see is we'll see a change in slope. We'll see a change in where that peak is or how high that peak is or how quickly somebody falls off of that peak. And how slowly or quickly it comes back up in the evening times. And so. Many people have afternoon. Fatigue. Many people will start out with higher cortisol in the morning.
The peak isn't quite as high or dramatic as a slope as we would expect. And so [00:09:00] they may have some morning fatigue and then that may continue on through the afternoon and get a little bit better as the day goes on. Well, what could be going on here that's causing this issue? Well, things that are going to cause problems with cortisol that are going to cause problems. And give you potentially anxiety symptoms are going to be things like sleep apnea. Sleep disturbance, irregular sleep is going to affect your cortisol levels.
It's going to affect your body's ability to really rest and digest when that is affected. Your cortisol is affected when you are not able to get the amount of sleep that you need each night, your cortisol levels and your cortisol. Graph is going to be different. It is not going to be this nice, smooth transition up and down, and then a slight increase in the evening. You're [00:10:00] going to have either a smaller peak or a larger valley. Depending upon where it is that you're having issues and what it is that could be causing the underlying stress.
So. We see this a lot. With sleep apnea patients, their cortisol. Is going to be off there. They may not have necessarily too high or too low levels, but they are going to have changes in those peaks and valleys, which are going to contribute to. Fatigue throughout the day maybe brain fog and these things.
And so you want to look at sleep. Sleep is the number one thing outside of diet, you really need to look at sleep is going to be important for helping to make those D and B vitamins and be utilized. Appropriately. When you don't get sleep, it affects your gut health. It affects everything else.
And as we've talked about in other episodes there's always a negative feedback loop and there can be a [00:11:00] positive feedback loop as well. And so sleep is going to be huge. And then of course things that are causing insulin resistance in general, that is going to be an issue. And so when we are overeating and become obese, that's one of the main factors with sleep apnea.
As I just described, essentially cortisol, induces a little bit of insulin resistance. It allows you to blunt the effect of the insulin at the cellular level, because when your cortisol levels are high and your catecholomines that adrenaline and nor epinephrin are high, that's indicating that you need more glucose and your body. So ways to help to decrease your cortisol level and get more of a normal curve so that it's not peaking at the wrong time, too early or too late in the day, causing issues [00:12:00] with your ability to sleep. And or lose weight. And those things. Is going to be to number one, get on a very regular sleep schedule a yeah, on a sleep schedule, preferably that's anywhere from six hours to nine hours.
What you really want to do is you want to back in. To your bedtime. Well, what I mean by this is we don't want you having to constantly be a woken by your alarm. So if you need. Seven and a half hours of sleep because we work on a 90 minute sleep cycle. I want you to back up into that timeframe. So for example, if you're going to bed at say 11:00 PM then you need to plan on, you're probably going to be waking up about six 30.
So. What you can do with this as kind of a backup your bedtime to see when it is that you [00:13:00] naturally awake. When you naturally awake, that's going to help you to then heal those cortisol levels to a degree. So when you're getting woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle, that is going to disrupt your normal cortisol. Excretion and utilization and therefore kind of mess up that curve if you will. So getting regular sleep with a regular bedtime, regular waking time, preferably without needing to use an alarm is going to be important. And then of course, like we said, diet diets going to be huge.
Eliminating the processed foods, eliminating the sugars. That is all going to help too. Decrease that insulin resistance when we eliminate the sugars and the grains, we're going to help out those sodium and potassium levels so that our aldosterone and cortisol can then regulate things more naturally.
So, you know, table salt is fine. That has sodium and chloride in it. It is, um, it is [00:14:00] iodized. So if you do have a bit of an issue. With your thyroid, then it can help in that regard. But then fruits and vegetables are really going to be where we're looking to get a lot of that potassium. Potassium again is going to be a very important in that regard.
You do get some potassium from animal products as well, but fruits and vegetables are going to be a really good supply potentially of potassium. And so one of the other electrolytes we want to look at too is magnesium. Magnesium is going to be very important. For cellular health and help supporting all of those electrolyte levels that really your muscles in your body are needing.
And so. Making sure that you're getting plenty of electrolytes are going to be important and will be helpful in helping you to get a more normal profile of your cortisol. So. Other things that we want to look at [00:15:00] that are going to be important besides diet and besides sleep in general. Well, you want to look at the stress in your life. Whether it be relational, whether it be work-related, whether it's environmental whether it is financial, whatever it is, you want to minimize stress as much as possible. Why is that?
Because when we have stress, whether we physically feel it like a panic attack symptom or not it will cause increased upregulation of cortisol the adrenaline and the nor epinephrin. When that happens and that is repeatedly happening. Day in and day out that is going to cause alteration of those sodium and potassium levels and that exchange, which then is going to translate to every cell in our body and create other [00:16:00] issues with fatigue and just irritability and again, Just cause difficulty with our ability to heal and utilize the nutrients that we are giving appropriately.
So. I like to tell people if you get mad, Really easily. At just about anything. That is. Stress that is causing your adrenaline and your nor epinephrin to increased also that cortisol to increase. And so that is going to be very. Important to, to regulate. If you are noticing that every time you watch a certain show or something like that, you can feel your heart rate increasing. Then, you know, you probably ought to not watch that is going to cause those cortisol levels to increase.
It's going to cause disturbance in your sleep, whether you actually fully wake up or not. But if you're watching that at night, before you go to [00:17:00] bed and you're noticing a little bit of that going on, then your sleep isn't going to be as deep or as restful. And so really developing a keen sense of. What it is that is causing any kind of increased heart rate. Any kind of increased feeling of anxiety. Is going to be very important and you want to minimize that exposure. So for a lot of people where they need to start is they just need to pause. They need to pause and let their mind calm down. You've got to shut off all the noise.
Stop doing all the things. Stop. Watching what you're watching, whether it be you know, looking at your phone, watching TV, movies, whatever the case is. Minimizing of screens is going to be important. Getting daylight as early as possible after you wake up is going to be important in helping to regulate those [00:18:00] cortisol levels.
First thing in the morning is going to be important and that's going to be helpful. Get , as much of your skin exposed to the sun as possible, you're going to be helping your vitamin D levels as well.
Which again is in turn. Going to help . And so, making sure that you are on a regular schedule and being gentle with yourself is going to be important.
So one of the other things that is going to be very important with being gentle with yourself is exercise. Exercise is of course very important and very beneficial with regards to somebody that maybe does have overactive catecholamine response but. It has to be the right I exercise.
So typically doing a hit workout or really heavy. Intensive a weight workout. Um, something like trying to do like an iron man. Really long, intense cardio. I really fast and, and difficult and hard [00:19:00] Peloton ride. These are going to be things that are going to exacerbate the problem. If you have a increased catecholamine response in general, you are going to have some catecholamine release during exercise.
You're going to have more of that when you go at higher intensity. This is one of the reasons why we offer yoga and encourage people to you know, try yoga. It, it has a lot of benefits for helping to decrease that catecholamine response to. lengthen muscles we specifically offer hot yoga. Now, there are some people that, that the heat in and of itself is going to trigger. The catecholamine response and that will actually stress them out more.
So you want to be gentle with yourself when you are having issues. With your adrenals when you are having a, an over [00:20:00] excited response to a stimulus, a of any type. And so making sure that you're moving early in the day is going to be good. Now, some people may get a little bit better response when they do things in the evening. It is really individualized to a large degree. But typically moving more in the earlier part of the day and less at the evening hours is going to help and just moving a little bit throughout the day.
It doesn't have to be for a sustained 15 or 20 minutes. You can move five minutes here or there throughout the day and get that same 15 or 20 minutes. There is no reason to push yourself, especially when you are in a stressed out. State. In general. So. Again, you want to be very gentle with yourself when it comes to exercise, you want to start slow and go [00:21:00] slow. And just know that it's about getting out there and doing something, not necessarily the result for that individual day or that individual workout. Getting in there and, and doing it is going to be important.
Now for a lot of us, we have different relationships say it's at work . That could be potentially causing a stress .
And so if those are chronic ongoing things that you can't say physically change. You need to change the way you are thinking about them. Start practicing, gratitude, start practicing you know, gratitude for that situation for that person. Because you know that you're going to learn something and grow through that situation. So. If you can be gentle with yourself. Eat healthy, get good sleep and awake without the alarm. You are going [00:22:00] to help heal your cortisol levels.
You're going to help. Your body utilize that sodium and potassium that you are getting in. And now listen, all fatigue is not adrenal stress, all, um, irritability and brain fog is not related to the adrenals. Most of the time it's multifaceted, but the adrenals can play a big role when this is a chronic issue.
That's recurring over a period of weeks and or months, even potentially just days that you will start to see alterations in that excretion and response that God gave us.
So a great way to get out of this cycle of potential adrenal fatigue and even just heal from anything is really just to rest to take that Sabbath rest. You know, when we look to scripture for this this is biblical Sabbath [00:23:00] rest was to give glory to God and also to rest from all that you've been doing.
I think now in our time that is more needed than ever because our minds are so cluttered and so bombarded on every day, not just with the beauty that we see in God's creation. From all the digital technology and those things, all the alerts and everything else that creates some additional stress that we don't necessarily realize.
And so. We really need that rest. And so when we look in the Bible, we see examples of people being stressed out and not Being able to deal with what is going on then. So, so even in Exodus 33 in verse 12, it says, Moses said to the Lord, you have been telling me, lead these people, but you have not.
Let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, I know you by name and ha. And you have found favor with me. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways. [00:24:00] So I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people, and this is the key verse. The Lord replied.
My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. So we see this in the old Testament. We also see this. Again, in the. New Testament. I really love it. And Matthew. 11, the last few verses of that chapter. Jesus is speaking here and says, come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for, I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You know, when we follow the tenants of a Sabbath rest, we allow that mind of ours to declutter to download and to just relax from everything that we've been bombarded with in this world. Over the course [00:25:00] of the week. And so whether that is simply doing a digital rest or digital fast, if you will. That is going to be beneficial, even if you're not a Christ follower, minimizing those distractions and interruptions that come in your day, those alerts and literally setting either a side a time each day. And, or a particular day of the week in which you just put your phone now, put the alerts away, um, and then learning to. Rest maybe in a different way for, you know, for many of us rest is, you know, watching a movie or doing something like that. And while that is that may be restful depending upon what you're watching, that may be increasing. Some anxiety in the moment and those things.
So really taking captive those thoughts, those things that you are allowing to enter your eyes and your ears and that is going to be very important. For allowing your [00:26:00] body to come down from this heightened state of constant fight or flight, if you will and then really heal and really having that calm and that peace that. That the Lord told Moses about, and that Jesus is telling us about.
So, I hope this has been informative. I hope this has been beneficial and thanks. And God bless.
That's it for this episode of the Living Life Well Show. If you like what you've heard and want to learn more, or want to know how to put this into practice for yourself, go to livelifewellclinic.com. Until next time, this is Dr. Jon Skelton saying, go out and live the truth so you can live life well. The preceding is for entertainment and educational purposes only. It is not meant to be used to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. The information contained in this show does not substitute the need for a qualified medical [00:27:00] professional, nor is it meant to provide medical advice or services.
If you feel information presented in this show may apply to you, we recommend you seek out the help of a qualified medical professional who can evaluate and treat your specific concerns.
