What do you mean when you say enervation?
Enervation is word that describes long term adrenal fatigue resulting in endocrine dysfunction and a wide array of manifestations of symptoms. Some subtle some not so subtle.

How does one become enervated?
Enervation is the result of too much adrenaline and too little serotonin. One falls into this condition as a result of being out of touch with the body and what the body needs.

How does that happen?
Adrenaline is stimulating. It's job is to give you the extra umph to get going when an emergency calls for it. It makes it possible for you to ignore injuries and fear in order to survive an event. That's a good thing. But, when your life situation, circumstances or lifestyle choices puts you into constant fight or flight response with adrenaline pumping continuously over time you become anaesthetized. You are unable to discern what your body needs.  Basic things like resting, breathing, eating...you are literally out of touch with what you need.

What is fight or flight?
The fight or flight response in a cascade effects of neurotransmitters that gets your body ready for action putting the body in a state of hyperarousal. This is an acute response for a limited time. Healthy people and wild animals are predominantly in the "alpha state" This describes a brain wave pattern that allows you to be calm and alert at the same time. This is a fluid state of being that allows you to respond and when the situation resolves you are able to return to a state of calm peacefulness.

How did I get stuck in the fight or flight response?
There are a lot of varied factors that lead to chronic fight or flight.

• Abusive situations whether it's a job, a marriage, partnership, family life, sexual abuse, living in a country that is at war or in conflict, serving in a war or conflict.
• Financial stressors or self imposed financial standards or relentless materialism.
• Messages from parents as children can lead to deep fears about being inadequate, feelings of shame or guilt. Pressure to achieve a certain station in life or rise to parents expectations.
• Experiencing situations that are frightening to you, even if it's just a chronic low level fear you may not be completely aware that you have.
• Working in a job you don't like, hate or do not feel fulfilled. Unable to find the right vocation.
• Being a work'aholic.

All of the above can be factors. The difficulty arise when a person is out of touch with themselves because of the high adrenaline levels. You don't feel any of this adversely, or so you think you're okay....but, over time the damaging effects of too much adrenal will take it's toll.

What does that mean?
It means that symptoms will begin to arise. A symptom is your body's way of getting your attention. Symptoms manifest so you can feel that something is not right and make a course correction. Failure to pay attention to the symptom at a lower level means you'll go along like everything is okay. The body will continue to produce symptoms until it gets your attention.

It is possible to ignore symptoms until the body no longer has the energy to create them! We have all heard stories of people dropping dead of a heart attack, as though it came from nowhere! Of a person being diagnosed with cancer and dying shortly afterward, when all their friends would say they seemed like they were in perfect health. These life threatening illness don't come out of nowhere. They are the result of years of tuning out the body's messages. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the ultra-sensitive individual. Often ostracized for their sensitivity these individuals are overly sensitive from years of overstimulation of the adrenal complex and the endocrine system as a whole gets out of whack.

How can I recover?
Recovery takes a dedicated effort to support healing. It means slowing down so you can become more aware of how tired you really are. It requires a willingness to enter into the healing field. 

The healing field is an energetic reality that you create for yourself. Finding the right practitioner to support your healing process that you can trust. Learning how to be with what you feel, processing those feelings naturally in your dreamtime at night while your sleeping. Becoming more mindful of what you need and giving it to yourself...self love and acceptance. Letting go of control and surrendering to what is, rather that some notion of what you think should be!

It's my pleasure to welcome to this platform
Linda Lofaro Lac. Acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese Herbal Medicine, who graciously offers the following information to help clear up confusion and controversy regarding what has come to be known as adrenal fatigue or adrenal insufficiency.

Today we hear a lot about adrenal fatigue syndrome. What is it and why is it so prevalent?  According to the Mayo Clinic, adrenal fatigue is the name giving to a group of symptoms caused by an insufficiency of the hormones produced by the adrenal gland. These symptoms include body aches, fatigue, nervousness, sleep disturbances and digestive problems. There isn’t, however, an accepted medical diagnosis for this malady nor are there sufficiently good remedies in the biomedicine world. Why? Because they don’t understand the root cause of the problem.

In Chinese medicine adrenal fatigue is depletion of kidney energy and in some cases kidney essence. The cause of depletion is typically prolonged or chronic stress often combined with a constitutional weakness of the kidneys or adrenal system that may be congenital or developed earlier by mental or physical trauma. Stress or trauma causes cortisol to be released into your body which reduces inflammation and assists with bodily functions needed for flight or flight. Chronic stress or prolonged trauma continuously dumps cortisol into the body and overtime leads to many diseases, the most common of which is adrenal fatigue. This has become common in adults, young adults and even children, because of too much day-to-day stress or the result of physical or emotional trauma and in many cases both.

The solution then is not to pump up patients with hormones, or thyroid medications but to tonify the kidney energy, essence and function. Herbal supplements, like Ashwagandha, Rhodiola Root, Holy Basil are good at helping the body regulate cortisol to decrease the effects of ongoing stress, but they don’t tonify the kidney.  They rely on decreasing further depletion (a good idea for those with chronically stressful lives) but they don’t build. That is why these supplements either don’t often help people to feel better or take long to produce noticeable results.

This is where acupuncture and Chinese herbals come in.  You must treat the root of the problem -- kidney energy, essence and function -- in order to feel noticeably better. And treat any other issues that often hamper restoring kidney function, such as deep sleep and nutrient absorption. Most important, you need to neutralize the stress response that has become patterned in the body. In other words, people need to manage stress differently to end the chronic stress cycle.
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Kidney energy is derived in two ways. First, we derive kidney energy congenitally, called constitutional or prenatal qi, which is often reflective of the mother’s energy during pregnancy. It’s finite and naturally wanes with age. Secondly, we derive kidney energy through food (primarily) and also lifestyle (i.e. exercise, yoga, tai chi, etc.). This is called postnatal qi. If we are not absorbing energy from food because of digestive issues or poor diet, we cannot supplement our use of day-to-day kidney energy and then start to go into the constitutional energy reserves.  Once in a while, this is not a problem. But everyday dependency on reserves depletes constitutional energy can’t be replenished.  Same is true for sleep.  If sleep is poor, the body is not able to consolidate and revitalize kidney energy or repair and generate cells and tissues. We wake up unrestored and rely on constitutional energy to keep going. If we don’t exercise to generate and move energy, we don’t recharge our kidney battery and again have to rely on constitutional energy.  Eventually we burn out our adrenals.
Acupuncture and herbs treat all aspects of adrenal fatigue to RESTORE the body’s natural adrenal function. And in doing so, all related symptoms (digestion, sleep, stress-response) are remedied so you not only feel better, but your body is working as it should. Most important, acupuncture neutralizes the stress response by altering brain chemistry and helping people manage stress better and reduces the amount of cortisol in the body. ​