Adrenal Fatigue: 3 Tips to Make Your Weekend Count

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Adrenal fatigue is estimated to affect 80% of women at some point in their lives.  That’s 4 out of 5 women who’ll experience exhaustion of a key gland pair – the adrenals.

You’re not alone if you feel frazzled and exhausted by the end of the work week.  While our fast paced age of technology has done wonders for keeping us connected like never before, it comes with a price.

Used to be you only got your adrenals fired up when tigers and lions were chasing you.  As soon as the threat was handled, your adrenals would settle down and you’d return to a calmer and more steady pace.

When you’re at work, managing the tigers of deadlines, unhappy customers, unruly students and the abundance of stressors that frequent your day to day life, your nervous system operates from a state called sympathetic dominance. When you meditate, rest, do yoga and take time to “smell the roses”  you operate from parasympathetic dominance.

Who cares?

You need to if you desire to be focused instead of foggy, energetic instead of exhausted and  fit instead of fat.

You see, in sympathetic dominant mode, your digestion slows down, the valves between the various parts of your digestive tract tighten (leading to constipation and abdominal discomfort), and the high level thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, is inhibited, your hippocampus, gate keeper of your short term memory,  gets damaged and DHEA, sometimes called the anti-aging hormone, decreases.  The end result is you feel bloated, foggy headed and worn down.

In parasympethic dominant mode, the opposite happens.  Your digestion becomes more efficient,  your prefrontal cortex is enhanced, your hippocampus repairs and DHEA increases. As a result you feel calm, clear headed and focused and young.

By you may be wondering how to lengthen your stay in parasympathetic dominance.

Start by using my 3 tips to make your weekend count.  They will put you into parasympathetic dominance and enable you to rejuvenate before starting the hectic pace all over again on Monday.

Make the weekend count by using it to regroup and give yourself the gift of self care.

1- Set aside 30 minutes for you! Go ahead and look at your calendar and schedule it in.  And KEEP the appointment with yourself.  Do something you love to do.  Take a bath, lay in the sun, read a book…just do something that’s strictly for you.  You’ll feel rejuvenated as a result.

2- Take time several times a day to express appreciation to someone, to yourself or to the universe for the blessings in your life.  Studies have shown that 30 seconds of appreciation is the most effective means of restoring balance to your system.  The Institute of Heartmath has performed dozens of studies on the benefits of appreciation.

3- Take some extra time to sweat. Yes, sweat.  When researchers analyzed the sweat of participants after exercise,  they found it loaded with toxins.  Exerting to the point of a good sweat has many benefits with regards to cardiovascular health, hormone balance and detoxification.  And surprisingly they found that the sweat after running for 30 minutes was more full of toxins than the sweat produced in a sauna. If you use your weekend to sweat away toxins, you’ll feel more focused and peaceful when you start the week again.

If you find yourself thinking, “I already know that”  in response to the simplicity of these tips, ask yourself this:  “Am I taking action?”

Many of the people I work with in group programs and individually are looking for the more glamorous solutions to their health challenges and fail to handle the underlying sympathetic dominance.

Sympathetic dominance is a real problem. No matter what herbs, supplements and foods you eat to support your tired adrenals, if you just keep forcing them to work hard, you won’t be able to restore them.  And burned out adrenals can lead to thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, insulin resistance –which contributes to excess belly fat— and chronic fatigue.

I urge you to slow down and use the weekend to restore balance.  Once you get that piece wired, we can talk about how to increase your parasympathetic dominance during the week.

To find out the impact of sympathetic dominance on your health, you can answer a set of questions, check physical signs, look at a few markers in routine blood work and even order specialized hormone tests.

In my new course, Assess Your Own Body Chemistry I teach how to evaluate for signs of nutritional deficiency and hormonal imbalance.

Love, Health and Gratitude,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, appreciation, chronic fatigue, detox, detoxification, digestion, digestive tract, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, health challenges, heart math, HeartMath, hormonal imbalance, nutrition, self care, supplements, thyroid, tired
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Detox Program, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment

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The Power of Digestion: Chronic Fatigue Links to Your Stomach

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Poor digestion is beyond bloating and gas.  Chronic fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, depression and challenges with focus, can all originate  from poor digestion.   According to Hippocrates, ‘the father of medicine’, “All disease begins in the gut.”

You may have been lead to believe that shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, eating whole foods, breathing deeply and moving is all it takes to have get up and go and maintain perfect health.

Yet more and more health practitioners are beginning to realize that even if you take the time to eat better and to shop, prepare and consume more consciously, you are not what you eat. While what you eat is vital to your overall health, it would be more accurate to say “You are what you digest and assimilate.”  You may be eating great yet your cells may be starving. How can that be?

According to the NIH, each year digestive problems account for  about 105 million doctor visits, more than 13 million hospitalizations and over 230,000 deaths in the U.S alone, and the cost of digestive disorders is staggering. These diseases cost the United States $100 billion annually in direct medical costs and $44 billion in indirect costs such as disability and mortality.

Digestive disorders are more than just a nuisance. They are downright dangerous. Chronic gut issues can contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, suicide and a host of other serious conditions.

Most of us don’t think about our guts unless they hurt us. Yet your gut can be hurting you by letting you down on the
digestive job, even if you don’t have specific gut complaints. Maybe you experience fatigue, the inability to lose that last 5 pounds, or a brain that doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tack in the box anymore.

While you can’t build a healthy body without good food to nourish your cells and organs, even if your food is perfect, you can’t flourish unless your digestive tract is able to break the food down, absorb the nutrients and eliminate the waste.

So how do you know if you have digestive issues that need attention?  If you’re bloated, gassy or have gut pain, it’s obvious.  It’s the more subtle signs that are less frequently associated with gut problems.  For example, difficulty sleeping, referred to as circadian dysrhythmia, can start because your cells are not well fed and your organs, like your adrenal glands and brain, are not receiving what they need to keep you energized during the day and horizontal and refreshed during the night.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if your gut is contributing to disease.

• Do you have a chronic fatigue that doesn’t go away with any intervention you have tried?
• Do you carry an extra 5 to 50 pounds regardless of how you eat or how much you exercise?
• Do you have trouble concentrating, remembering things, or making decisions??
• Are you frequently cold for no reason?
• Are you frequently stressed out, worn out or depressed for no apparent reason?
• Do you have a chronically coated tongue?
• Does your pulse increase 20-25 beats within 15 minutes of eating?
• Do you feel worse after you eat?
• Do you usually have less two bowel movements daily? (Hippocrates told the Athenians that is was essential that they pass large bulky motions after every meal!)
• Do your stools regularly smell ‘bad’?
• Do you have chronic  heart burn, burping, bloating, gas and pain immediately or within hours of eating?
• Do you just not feel well no matter how vigilant you are with eating well, taking supplements, working out, trying to have a positive attitude?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you likely have a gut issue that needs to be addressed to protect your
health.  If you answered yes to 3 or more of these, it’s possible that your gut problem is already adversely affecting the rest of your body and you need to take action right away.

Getting nutrition from your mouth to deep down into your cells where it counts takes a lot of intestinal fortitude and multiple steps with many organs and nutrients working in harmony.  Many of our modern “advances” interfere with your gut’s ability to do its job – things like environmental chemicals, antibiotics, alcohol, some prescription and over the counter medications and chronic stress.  This can leave you with chronic fatigue and adrenal exhaustion.

In restoring optimal gut function, it’s important to evaluate and target all the working parts of your digestive tract.

If you have chronic problems or are experiencing the effects of gut imbalance in parts of your body outside your digestive tract, it’s important that you take time out to do a gut healing protocol as soon as possible and repeat the process a couple of times a year to maintain your gut health.

Here’s a short list of actions you can take to get the process started:

1. Chew your food well.  The only part of your digestive tract that has teeth is your mouth.  Un-chewed food particles can’t be digested and can contribute to inefficient digestion.  You’d be surprised by how many digestive problems are solved by this simple step.
2. Start to eat gut healing foods on a daily basis.  Three that are easy to incorporate are:  chia seeds, which soothe the gut lining and contribute essential fats to calm the fire of inflammation, green drinks, which provide an abundance of healing chlorophyll and minerals, and turmeric, a potent anti-inflammatory and cancer protective herb.
3. Eat daily servings of probiotic containing foods like sauerkraut, homemade nut and seed yogurt and coconut kefir or take a high quality probiotic supplement to keep your gut critters in harmony.
4. Relax and breath before you start to eat.

Having the discipline to do a gut support protocol on your own can be challenging.  There are always excuses that prevent you from starting.  That’s why I teamed up with my good friend, colleague and mentor Dr. Lindsey Berkson,
author of “Healthy Digestion the Natural Way” to create a unique program called “Get Your Gut in Gear”.  This program is for you if:

• You’re fed up with chronic indigestion, gas and bloating and you’re ready for a flat and comfortable belly.
• You’re frustrated with not having the energy to fully engage in the activities you love.
• You’re concerned about the risks of an out of balance digestive tract.
• You’re tired of that extra 5 to 50 pounds you just can’t shed.
• You answered yes to 3 or more of the questions above and you’re not sure where to begin to restore your gut to health.
• You’ve tried various gut herbs and cleanses before and just can’t seem to complete them or get the promised results on your own.

Get Your Gut In Gear is lead by  two digestive health experts and includes membership in a supportive community to guide you to detox, rebuild and reboot your gut so you can sleep better, feel better, think better and shed those last frustrating pounds.
Just eating a colorful healthy diet may not be enough. Digesting it adequately is what counts.

As Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” To take it a step further…

“Good health begins in the gut.”
“Great health begins in the gut.”
“All health begins in the gut.”

Love, Health and Joyful Digestion,

Dr. Ritamarie

www.GetYourGutInGear.com

Tags: adrenal exhaustion, chronic fatigue, comfort foods, detox, digestive disorders, digestive problems, digestive tract, doctor visits, dr lindsey berkson, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, father of medicine, good food, health practitioners, poor digestion, whole foods
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Exhaustion, Leaky Gut

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Stress Management for Adrenal Fatigue and Hormone Imbalance

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Do you have techniques in place for management of chronic stress, or does your stress manage you?

Are you like I used to be…a stress bunny…always feeling overwhelmed and worrying about this or that?

I have an active mind and I’m always juggling many projects along with my own health rituals.  I learned over 2 decades ago how food adds to the stress burden and I healed myself from chronic fatigue, digestive disorders, chronic sinusitis and debilitating headaches by conquering my stress demons.  My personal demons were related to food and attitude.  Do you know what yours are?

Adopting a plant based mostly raw high green diet, regular detoxification and learning the the attitude of gratitude allowed me to escape the grip of my stress demons and become the healthy, vibrant, energetic and happy person I am today.

Just last week, I was interviewed for the telesummit, “20 Fun, Easy & Effective Ways to Reduce & Manage Stress” and I shared my strategies for transforming stress using cleansing, detoxification and the art of appreciation.  It will be aired on Sunday July 25,  I’m sharing the stage with 19 other top self help professionals, including Dr. Bernie Siegel, best selling author of “Love, Medicine and Miracles”.

I’m really excited about it because all of the life changing talks are at NO COST to you.  Take a look at the lineup and I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s worth the time investment.  You can pick and choose the events you’d like to hear.  Each day between today and next Monday, there will be 3 talks aired and you’ll have 24 hours to listen for free.

There are 3 fabulous meditation digital audios  given away as free bonuses when you signup for the free Stress Reduction Summit. You can play these  in the background while you work to reduce stress.  It’s a great way to reduce adrenal fatigue.

http://www.drritamarie.com/go/StressSummit

It’s amazzing how quickly you can restore your energy by addressing your own stress demons.  I am so excited to be part of the Premier Stress Summit and the gifted authors and healers who are donating their time to sharing their strategies.My interview was filled with valuable tips and I know the others will be too. Conquering the stress demons is a critical part of getting your hormones and neurotransmitters balanced so you can live your life joyfully, youthfully and full of energy.

Love, Health and Joy to you,

Dr. Ritamarie
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/StressSummit

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, chronic fatigue, dr Bernie siegel, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, fatigue, fatigue symptoms, love medicine and miracles, premier stress summit, relaxation cds, Vibrant Health
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Hormone Imbalance

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Adrenal Fatigue: Tips to Restoring Your Energy and Your Health

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Do you ever wake in in the morning, even after a long night of sleep, only to feel sluggish and wishing you had another few hours to rest?

This is one of many signs of adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue is a common condition in our fast paced, stressed out society.

Your adrenal glands are your body’s mechanism for responding to stressful situations.  In the olden days, this meant getting chased by a tiger or dealing with severe cold without shelter or proper clothing.

Fortunately for us, tigers and lack of clothing are not problems we deal with on a regular basis.

Unfortunately we have our own modern day tigers, and they chase some of us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Modern Day Tigers that Stress Your Adrenals

• Deadlines at work?
• Juggling kids schedules with your own?
• Worry about the economy?
• A sick parent or child?
• An unreasonable boss?

Whatever it is, the response is similar to a real tiger chasing you.  Your adrenal glands step into action and do what they do best…shift you into what is often called “fight/flight mode”, and in scientific terms, “sympathetic nervous system dominance”.

In hyper vigilant adrenal state, your heart rate increases, your respiration quickens and the blood supply to your brain and vital organs decreases and is sent to your extremities…so you can run away or fight.

In addition, your digestive track activity decreases and the sphincters– the valves between sections of the digestive tract– tighten.  This is to protect you from needing to use the bathroom in the middle of running away from or fighting a tiger.

Translate this into modern life.  If you find yourself stressed out and worried quite a bit of the time, you increase your risk of indigestion, constipation, gas and bloating as well as heart and circulation problems due to prolonged increased heart rate.

Oh, and I forgot to mention.  In fight flight mode, your sex drive goes away, too.

Doesn’t help to be having lustful thoughts when you’re trying to get away from that tiger.  On a biochemical level, the same chemical molecules that make the adrenal hormone cortisol, which gets elevated under stress, are also needed to make estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, all needed for libido and reproductive function.

Another problem with cortisol is that in excess it can cause damage to your mitochondria, the energy producing mechanisms in each of your cells.  Cortisol also damages your hippocampus, the part of your brain that helps with short term memory.  Ever walk into a room, only to forget what you went there for?  That’s likely because your hippocampus has been impeded by the cortisol you produced when you were stressed out.

Yikes!  SO if this is you, what can you do to fix things?

In my over two decades of clinical practice, I’ve seem many cases of adrenal burnout and the damages caused by chronic stress.

Fortunately there are actions you can take reverse the damage and repair your adrenal glands.  But if you keep getting stressed out, you’ll be a lot like a hamster on a wheel….working hard but never getting anywhere. Repairing your adrenals and transforming your response to stress take some time and retraining, and the transformations you experience when you do can be miraculous.

3 Tips for Combating Adrenal Fatigue

1- Learn stress management and stress transformation techniques. One of my favorites is called Heart Math, and uses a combination of deep breathing, focusing on your heart and feeling appreciation.  It completely changed my life.  I did a 90 minute stress transformation teleseminar a couple of years ago that guided the participants through the process and the response was dramatic.

2- Nourish your adrenals. Did you know that 80% of the vitamin C used in your body is used by your adrenal glands?  Excessive stress depletes your vitamin C stores and can lead to allergies, poor wound healing, easy bruising and increased susceptibility for colds, flu and other infectious disease?  Your adrenals also use lots of B vitamins, especially pantothenic acid and B6.  That’s why a lot of B complex formulas are called Stress formulas.  Eating a whole foods, high raw, high green diet will ensure you have adequate intake of nutrients to maintain your adrenals when they are brought back to normal;however, when you’re in the mode of recovery, supplementation is often needed.

3- Support your body’s detoxification systems by periodic cleansing. Face it, eating on the run, making even occasional poor food choices and being stressed out impair your liver’s ability to do it’s job of cleansing.  One of my favorite ways to cleanse my body is with green  smoothies. Even though I eat really healthfully, exercise on a regular basis, and do my Heart Math exercises daily, I’m not perfect.  I still get stressed out sometimes, I’m exposed to toxins and I eat on the run more often than I’d like.

I personally do a Green Cleanse at least quarterly by taking a week off eating and just drinking green smoothies or juices for 7 days.  I am always amazed at how much more energy I have when I do this.  That’s why every 3 months, I lead a group green smoothie cleanse.  I have hundreds of success stories from people who feel they got their life back after a green cleanse.  This time around I’ve added a new component – daily interactive journals.  The details about the cleanse, go to my Green Smoothie Cleanse Website.

If you’ve already done a green cleanse or a short cleanse and are ready to take it to the next level, I suggest you do a deep tissue detox like my Six Week Deep Tissue Detox or something similar.

Bedtime and Wake-up Rituals for Adrenal Fatigue Support

One last tip for rebuilding your adrenals – create supportive bedtime and morning rituals that re-establishes
your circadian rhythm. Here’s a starting set that I recommend to my adrenal fatigue patients:

1. Shut off all electronics within an hour of bedtime.
2. Eat your last meal within 3 hours of bedtime.
3. Fill a 16 ounce glass with pure water and the juice of 1 lemon and put it by your bedside.
4. Find 3 things to appreciate before you fall asleep.
5. Find 3 things to appreciate before you get out of bed.
6. Drink the water as soon as you get up.
7. As soon as you get up, go outside and get 5 – 15 minutes of sun, even if the sun is not out.  Face in the direction of the sun and sip your water.

Get going on these habits, cleanse regularly and master the Heart Math techniques and you’ll soon be bouncing out of
bed in the morning with vim, vigor and enthusiasm for life.

I hope to meet you soon on a green smoothie cleanse.

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, chronic fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, green smoothie. detoxification programs, Living Foods, Raw Foods, raw foods diet, raw foods recipes, Vibrant Health
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Detox Program, Green Smoothies

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A Quick And Easy Raw Food Living Green Meal- A Great Boost for Adrenal Fatigue

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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I’m often asked, “How do I eat more greens? ” and told  ” Raw foods recipes are so time consuming to prepare.”   Take a look at my latest video and see just how easy it is to get a nutrient dense green raw living food recipe made in under 3 minutes…and with no cleanup!

What’s your favorite healthy fast food?  comment below.

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, chronic fatigue, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, fatigue, fatigue symptoms, Gluten Free Diet, Living Foods, livingfoods, raw food recipes, Raw Foods, Raw Foods classes, raw foods diet, raw foods recipes, Vibrant Health, video, whole foods
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Gluten Free Diet, Raw and Living Foods

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