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Stage 2 Adrenal Fatigue

• In the classic progression, Stage 2 is a period of above average energy.

In Stage 3, people usually feel Wired and Tired.

But in Stage 2, people often feel Wired .... but still have lots of energy, at least until the end of Stage 2.

Not everyone progresses the same. Some people have had low energy their entire lives.

However, this article covers the classic pattern, or stages. i.e...You were healthy ..... high energy ... and then crashed later in life.

The stages of Adrenal Fatigue come from the work of Dr. Hans Selye. In the 1930s, he exposed rats to different sources of stress.

Regardless of the source of stress, the pattern was the same. After an initial dip in capacity to handle stress, the animals adapted to the high level of stress².

Stage 2 is a period of above average ability to handle stress.

Stage 2 is called Resistance or Adaptation, since your body adapts to continuous stress.

It is when you crash into Stage 3 adrenal fatigue that you feel like you are falling apart.

The following article is a nice summary of the work of Dr. Hans Selye, published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry :
Hans Selye and the Field of Stress Research (pdf)

Dr. Selye called it the General Adaptation Syndrome. The term Adrenal Fatigue is simply another name for the syndrome.

Enlarged Adrenal Glands

• Your Adrenal Glands grow during Stage 2

Organs and glands tend to grow (hypertropy) when they are being used a lot. And they shrink (atrophy) when they are not being used very much.

In the 1930's Dr Selye noted that adrenal glands become enlarged during Stage 2 of the General Adaptation Syndrome².

Chronic stress results in a lot of stress hormones be produced .... so your adrenal glands grow to deal with the stress. That is how the rats adapted to the continued stress.

It does not matter what the source of stress is. Even exercise will do it.

In a 2007 study, rats voluntarily ran about 4 to 7 kilometers per night on a wheel in their cage. After 4 weeks, the rats showed increased adrenal gland weight³.

Your Thymus Gland Shrinks

• Your immune system weakens from chronic stress

Your thymus gland is important for immune system function. Unfortunately, chronic stress depresses function of the thymus gland ... to the point that it actually shrinks.

Dr Hans Selye noted in his tests on animals, regardless of the source of stress, their thymus gland would atrophy².

In the 2007 study noted above, the thymus gland of the rats shrunk from exercise³, duplicating the work of Dr Selye from the 1930's.

So it is clear that your immune system is suppressed by chronic stress ... which is why your thymus becomes smaller.

And it happen to humans as well. An article published in 2014 noted the effect of intense exercise on elite athletes:

  Athletes undergoing intensive training schedules have chronic exposure to stress-induced hormones such as cortisol that can depress immune function⁴

Signs Stage 2 Adrenal Fatigue

• Wired .... but NOT tired

Since stress boosts adrenal hormones, you likely felt great during Stage 2. I know I sure did.

With all the surplus hormones being generated, I felt super human during this period.

During Stage 2, I could handle more stress than others. I was an exercise maniac.

I seemed to have unlimited energy. I certainly wasn't searching for answers on the internet.

However in Stage 2, you might have been wired .... but with lots of energy.

Some symptoms of being stuck in a state of stress, but still able to pump out an above average level of hormones are:

1. Not able to relax. Always feel like you need to be doing something. Constantly working on something
2. Have a reputation of being a hard worker
3. Have an exaggerated startle response (you are wired .... but not yet tired)
4. Hard-driving in many aspects of your life. Excessive exercise, always working on something around the house

All in all, you probably felt pretty good during Stage 2.

You might have had a lot of allergies, or caught colds and the flu quite a bit. But it is likely that most people around could not keep up with you.

Summary

Since Stage 2 is a period of higher than normal adrenal output, you are probably no longer in Stage 2.

It is only when people start to slip into Stage 3 Adrenal Fatigue that they have low energy. Many other strange symptoms start to show up as well.

References

1. General Adaptation Syndrome
2. Hans Selye and the Field of Stress Research (pdf)
3. Voluntary exercise impacts on the rat hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis mainly at the adrenal level.
4. Reduced thymic output in elite athletes