The pattern goes something like this: You feel exhausted and unwell, so you open a search engine and type. Your symptoms are common enough that every condition seems possible, and you go down one rabbit hole after another in search of what’s wrong.
You easily dismiss certain possibilities, but your symptoms persist. With repeated searching, you might read “feeling tired” (yes), which “doesn’t get better with sleep” (yes again) and where you’re “craving salty snacks” (oh man, that’s me). And then you happen upon a term that covers all of the above: “adrenal fatigue.”
You feel a little hope, until you discover that “adrenal fatigue” isn’t a medical term yet. It is becoming more recognized by physicians, according to Rael Cahn, an assistant professor of psychiatry at University of Southern California who’s researched how yoga and meditation can affect the brain and cortisol levels. For now, the label is “still on the periphery,” says Cahn. That’s not to say that your adrenal health doesn’t affect your level of fatigue.
Keys to the Stress ResponseThe adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys. When the amygdala in the brain perceives a threat, the adrenals release hormones:…
