Adrenal Fatigue: Diagnosing the Burnout Epidemic

Adrenal fatigue is a metaphor for overwhelm, an epidemic that is largely treatable through awareness, diet and lifestyle choices

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Adrenal fatigue. Everyone’s talking about it. Alternative practitioners are diagnosing it. Yet the medical establishment dismisses it. The truth: While Adrenal Fatigue isn’t a recognized medical diagnosis, it is “code” for a much bigger, more widespread problem: pervasive, chronic, mental and physical overwhelm.

Metaphor for Overwhelm

So many of us are living our lives constantly teetering on the brink of imbalance, overwhelmed by trying to keep up with to-do lists and inboxes, struggling to stay afloat in a sea of competing financial and social demands. In our achievement-oriented culture, we may feel ashamed if we can’t “handle” the amounts of pressure we’re experiencing, since it seems like everyone else is handling it just fine, or so it appears on their Facebook pages. Living with the resulting chronic underlying sense of inadequacy drives anxiety and depression. At the end of the day, many of us cave into overriding cravings for sugar, alcohol, or distractions like TV or the Internet, because we’re so spent and it’s the easiest way we can think of to hit the pause button on the pressure that consumes us.