What does this mean? I means that my life as a person who stays up till 2:00 am working on homework is over for now (except on the rare occasion when I have a paper due and even then I usually only get to 1:00 before I'm dead). It means that unless I get at least 9 hours of sleep, I'm dead. It means I take lots of naps. It also means that there are times when I have to skip school or church or work because I just can't get out of bed .But what is adrenal fatigue? I think I've written about it before, but here is a nice handy definition :
"Adrenal fatigue is a collection of signs and symptoms, known as a syndrome that results when the adrenal glands function below the necessary level. Most commonly associated with intense or prolonged stress, it can also arise during or after acute or chronic infections, especially respiratory infections such as influenza, bronchitis or pneumonia" (http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/what-is-adrenal-fatigue).Some time my senior year, I managed to over tax my adrenal glands and they decided to go on strike. So, now, they don't work properly. They don't give me energy like normal people's do. When they aren't working it's not just normal tiredness. Although, most of the time it isn't so bad, last summer I basically had no energy at all and I lay in bed most of the day watching youtube videos. I've gotten better since then and I am able to function normally most of the time, when I get a good nights sleep. But when it's at its worst it feels like I'm trapped in my body. It takes every strength of will to keep moving and not collapse. The only thing that have way keeps me functional is lots of caffeine. I went from drinking at most 24 oz of Pepsi a week and the occasional cup of coffee or tea to drinking one of the bottles every day I can't manage to get a couple hours nap, along with coffee and sometimes several cups of tea. Even then, I still feel tired.
Unfortunately, things like staying up to late, having lots of stress, waking up too early, taking part in lots of physical exertion, all deplete your adrenals. So basically, as a college student, I'm screwed. And because of this, here I sit, at 4:30 in the morning, unable to get to sleep for some unknown reason even though I am exhausted. I'm worried about how I am going to make it through tomorrow and the last few days of school when my body was barely functioning already and now I have gone almost an entire night without sleep. Wondering what I'm going to have to miss, or what homework I'm going to have to let slip through the cracks just so I can get enough sleep to be able to function.
So yup. That is my life right now. I've been struggling with trying to go to bed early when I am naturally disposed to staying up as late as possible, and trying to manage to work and go to school. It's been kinda hard. Especially when I've been so busy that I have to stay up late working on homework and studying for tests. But things are getting better. I just have to be careful about how much I do. Try not to over book myself. It can take up to two years to recover from adrenal fatigue if you get enough sleep, reduce your stress, take lost of vitamin C, drink salt water, and some other random things, but it does get better. I hope. I just have to be patient and trust God, because He knows what he's doing. Hopefully, it will get better soon.
~Nat
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