No doubt about it. Movement is essential for mental and physical health.
Exercise strengthens your heart and improves your circulation. The increased blood flow raises the oxygen levels in your body. This helps lower your risk of heart diseases such as high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, and heart attack. Regular exercise can also lower your blood pressure and triglyceride levels.
But if you persistently have any of the following symptoms, you may be doing the WRONG exercise and actually sabotaging your weight loss results.
- Tiredness & Sluggishness, lethargic
- Sleep More Than Usual
- Weaker Muscles
- Constant Feeling of cold (fingers / hands/ feet)
- Frequent Muscle Cramps
- Constipation
- Muscle / Joint Pain
- Rapid heart beat
- I’m stressed out
- Easily confused
- Digestive problems
- Have eczema, psoriasis, skin allergies, rashes
- Wake up tired
- 2-4 pm feel tired, seek snack salty/sweet, tea, coffee, soda
- Intolerant to noise
Exhaustion Phase
If you are in an exhaustion phase all your stress hormones are probably low. The adrenals are tired of working so hard, you could say they are on strike. If in this state, you may feel overwhelmed, teary, can drop to sleep when you sit down, and sleep for more than 9 hours a night but wake unrefreshed.
Exercise will easily deplete the body, hinder recovery, and damage the glands further.
Instead, opt for restorative and nourishing forms of exercise, such as gentle walks, tai chi, restorative yoga and gentle movement.
Adaptive Stage
The majority of people we see fall into this category. Despite popular belief, it can be detrimental for you to do high intensity cardio exercise like running, if you’re in a state of adrenal adaption or exhaustion. It is important to know where your adrenal health currently is and apply the right form of movement to support your health and weight loss/ wellbeing journey.
In the adaptive phase, the adrenals are aiming to regulate stress hormones from long term stress. This is common with suboptimal thyroid function, as the adrenals are the back up plan for energy when thyroid is low. This is also why so many people don’t realise they have a thyroid problem! The body has its checks and measures to keep you going, until things start to wear out and symptoms appear.
This phase of adrenal stress requires lower intensity movement and naturopathic support to correct nutritional imbalances, support toxin build up clearance, and balance the system back to its natural state of wellness.
How can I find out which stage I am in?
Signs and symptoms are indicators, but to truly understand the depth of damage to the glands, and understand the length of time it needs to correct this, we recommend a 3-point salivary cortisol test to assess adrenal hormone output. This is to be done as a part of a complete testing profile in order to give a functional diagnosis and support healing with a targeted treatment plan.
We can help you understand what testing is needed, book in a chat with one of my Lucy Rose Naturopaths!