You are here>> Home >> Treatment >> Life Style >> Exercise & Adrenal Fatigue

Exercise & Adrenal Fatigue

• Exercise boosts adrenal hormones
• It uses up energy you need to recover
• Moderate exercise is fine

People with early stage adrenal fatigue usually love to exercise. This is because it makes them feel good.

I was like this for years. I was always in a good mood after exercising. Why? ...... Because exercise boosts hormones that I was deficient in.

If aggressive exercise boosts adrenal hormones .... it also means it is a source of stress.

If you are in stage 2 adrenal fatigue, you can get away with using exercise to boost hormones for many years.

But if your adrenal fatigue has advanced to stage 3, you can no longer waste energy on aggressive exercise.

Exercise is basically a stimulant (except for gentle exercise). Like any other stimulant, it will slow down your recovery.

Aggressive exercise asks your adrenal glands to do more than they are capable of right now.

In a nut shell .... gentle exercise is fine. Aggressive exercise causes your adrenals to work harder, which slows your recovery.

Exercise Boosts Adrenal Hormones

Aggressive exercise causes your adrenal glands to release more hormones. One study on 304 human endurance athletes found that they had elevated cortisol levels ⁴ compared to the control group (non athletes). They measured cortisol levels in hair, since hair averages out short term spikes in cortisol.

  These data suggest that repeated physical stress of intensive training and competitive races among endurance athletes is associated with elevated cortisol exposure over prolonged periods of time. ⁴

The adrenal hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline (epinephrine and nor-epinephrine) have been shown to increase up to 20 times during exercise ⁶.

It is this adrenaline rush that makes people in stage 2 adrenal fatigue feel better .... at least for a while.

When you get to stage 3, aggressive exercise should not be part of your adrenal fatigue treatment plan. It is

If you are not familiar with the stages of adrenal fatigue (General Adaptation Synrome), considering the article Stages of Adrenal Fatigue.

Adrenal Glands Grow from Exercise

• Adrenal glands become larger from exercise.

Generally, organs grow when they are being used a lot. And they shrink (atrophy) when they are not being used very much.

A 2007 study provided rats with a running wheel. They voluntarily ran about 4 to 7 kilometers (2.5 to 4.2 miles) per night. After 4 weeks, the rats showed increased adrenal gland weight⁷.

Rats also showed a decrease in the size of their thymus ^{7, 9} from exercise. The thymus is very important to your immune system function. So chronic, excessive exercise suppresses your immune system.

This 2007 study is very similar to the 1930s work of Dr Hans Selye, who essentially discovered adrenal fatigue. He called it the General Adaptation Syndrome, which is still in medical texts today.

Dr Selye exposed rats to various types of stress until they collapsed from exhaustion. As the rats went through the stages of adrenal fatigue, they also showed enlarged adrenal glands and a reduced thymus size ⁸.

Exercise Stops Detox

This is more personal observation. I have been on the Nutritional Balancing program for a while. A major goal of the program is to eliminate toxins that have accumulated from years of stress. ( your body does not detoxify well under stress ).

Eliminating toxins is not easy, and takes a lot of energy. During the detox process, symptoms such a psoriasis, eczema, headaches and insomnia can get worse.

There have been several occasions where strong detox symptoms have stopped from over-exerting myself. For example, once I played tennis for a few hours in the heat, and my detox symptoms stopped the next day. I was also exhausted! But it was clear that the aggressive exercise used up a lot of energy, and my body didn't regain the energy to restart eliminating toxins for about 2 weeks.

If you are not familiar with how copper toxicity and adrenal fatigue are connected, The book Why am I always to Tired is a great place to start.

Summary

If you are searching the internet for help on adrenal fatigue you are likely far enough long that you should avoid any strenuous exercise that elevates your heart rate.

I resisted this for a few years, even though I would crash every time. It was only when my Nutritional Balancing coach made it very clear that adrenal fatigue recovery was not possible if you are wasting energy on exercising.

I wish you all the best. I hope this site helps you in your healing journey. Good luck