A while back I wrote here about an appointment I had with a new physician, where he told me that I needed to get my stress level down and start doing it by regularly breathing deeply. I’ll be honest with you — I’ve failed miserably to do this regularly. He said I should do it for a few minutes every hour; I do it for a few minutes a day (for which I am still proud since getting myself to slow down is a bigger deal than it should be.)

At that same appointment he sent me for a ridiculous amount of tests, including one (slight TMI here) where you spit in a tube at certain times during the day. Before he sent me for the tests he said he knew what would come back and he was right. Turns out I have what is called adrenal insufficiency. When you’re stressed, your body releases adrenaline (it’s actually cortisol and some other hormones, but who needs to get technical.) In very simple terms, I’ve worn out my adrenal glands with stress so much over the past however many years that they no longer produce normal levels of adrenaline. (Some adrenal insufficiency is caused by an underlying condition, like Addison’s disease, which is luckily not my case.)

And it turns out that adrenaline is important for pretty much everything from your energy level, to your immune system, to your body’s ability to process nutrients. In other words, not having enough adrenaline is not a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »