Adrenal Stress Syndrome: A Major Cause of Insomnia

Dr Richard Hagmeyer D.C.

Many people have sleeping problems in our active society. If you are not convinced of this, just pay attention to late night television and count how many commercials are being pushed for the latest insomnia medication. Unfortunately these medications do not address the actual dysfunction, the underlying cause. Many well intentioned doctors and health care practitioners simply put their patients on an adrenal protocol without asking the most important question…….WHY?why are the adrenals shutting down or why are they overactive? Is their an infection? a food sensitivity? a male or female Hormone imbalance? is the person anemic? a thyroid condition? medication causing and adverse effect?

Many times insomnia is directly related to blood sugar imbalances, in particular to adrenal function. The adrenal glands are two small glands located above the kidney, which secrete hormones that help the body stabilize blood sugar.

A common pattern we see clinically with patients that have adrenal hyper-function (overactive) is an inability to fall asleep. With adrenal hypo-function (under-active), the symptom is exactly opposite, they can fall asleep, but not stay asleep. Therefore both hyper and hypo adrenal function can impact insomnia. This picture below represents a previous patients test. As you can see they have a total cortisol load of 68 and their pattern (blue line) does not follow the rhythm of a normal cortisol output.

There are Two Main Patterns We See with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Adrenal Burnout and Adrenal Stress

With the first pattern, the adrenal Hypo-function patient, the body does not have enough cortisol to maintain blood sugar levels throughout the evening fasting period (we all go through a typical 8-10 hour fast when we sleep). As blood sugar levels drop during the night, the body goes into a stress response, and without adequate cortisol to bring blood sugar levels up, the body releases norepinephrine and epinephrine to try to stabilize blood sugar. These are stimulatory hormones that will wake the person up during the night. This is the person who seems to wake up, wide awake, at the same time every night.

The second scenario, the adrenal Hyper-function patient,(the one in the graph above)will cause the person to have higher than normal cortisol levels at bed time. This will cause the person to not be able to fall asleep due to the excitatory nature of cortisol on the nervous system.

In either case it is important to look at all the factors that contribute to adrenal dysfunction. A sleeping pill will never fix the problem in this scenario, and this scenario is common. The brain’s ability to regulate the circadian rythym of cortisol, food sensitivities, lifestyle factors, mental stress, emotional stress, and many other things can contribute to the problem.

There is no one size fits all treatment for this syndrome but we have been very successful helping those with adrenal stress syndrome andinsomniausing our Comprehensive, All Natural, Functional Approach, to this modern day plague called adrenal stress syndrome.

There are many outdated approaches to treating this syndrome. If the treatment you are considering includes only cortisol or DHEA replacement…turn and run. This is not going to fix the problem. Remember; always ask what is the mechanism? The replacement approach throws that question in the trash, and doesn’t try to restore proper function and feedback loops.

Learn more about Brain Based Therapyand How it can help Adrenal Fatigue

Learn more about Oxygen Therapyand How it can Help Adrenal Fatigue

Learn about Testing For Adrenal Fatigue

If you suffer with insomnia and would like to see if it is caused from Adrenal Stress Syndrome, call the Naperville Institute For Neuro Metabolic Solutions,at 630.718.0555.

Some simple tests will allow us to determine the source of the problem, and then we can create a custom plan to get you sleeping again.

Take a few minutes and fill out our Adrenal Profile. One of our New patient coordinators will contact you for a free Phone Consultation.