Adrenal Fatigue and Ayurveda

By Dr. Ajit

Our current hectic, busy lifestyle, irregular eating habits and incompatible diet choices during the day and the mental stress of work and home has made everyone vulnerable. When it gets out of hand, one starts showing signs of constant fatigue, whatever you are walking, talking or during office work, difficult concentrating, mood swings, brain fog and sleep disturbances. When you put them together and go to your GP, they will say you are suffering adrenal fatigue syndrome. This disease has different graduation of manifestation and can lead to various auto-immune ailments once it reaches a chronic state.

Those who suffer from it will know that our mainstream medicine has no real solution for this problem, apart from taking multi vitamins or vegetables or some exercise regime, Various complementary medicines also follow the same path of various anabolic regimes/vitamins or can put some kind of special diet, either keto diet or plant-based diet. But unfortunately, while they will help the client for a short period of time, the problem keeps getting more and more severe.

In ayurvedic medicine this disease is described as Ojas Kashya, meaning depletion of your immune essence. Ayurveda teaches us that each individual has 7 layers of tissue (known as Dhatus in Sanskrit), and these seven tissues get nourishment from the physical, mental and emotional activities and food we eat. The physical aspect of our immune essence gets nourishment from a compatible diet and lifestyle, as well as the compatible environment in which we live and work, 

You may ask what this compatible means? This ancient science shares with all of us that even though we all look alike, with the same 2 legs, 2 ears or 2 nostrils, in fact, each individual’s body make up is unique. Our likings and disliking’s and reaction to different food and seasons is unique.  This unique principle is known as your body type. As long as one is able to feed themselves and follow more compatible activities, one can provide more nourishment to their 7 dhatus and, as a result, build more immune essence. In same way, compatible mental and emotional activities also build more immune essence and keep the individual in more stable state at a mental level.

But once we start getting into erratic and incompatible activities and diet, such as eating more processed and take away foods, coffee, junk foods, carbonated drinks, excessive alcohol, drugs and marijuana on a regular basis or mental incompatibility such as wrong deeds, wrong actions, jealousy, hate, anger frustration and relationship problems, we will start burning our immune essence and make ourselves more vulnerable and this will affect our immune system. Immune essence is what keeps our immune system stable and intact, so each bodily system functions at their optimum strength.

According to Ayurveda, adrenal fatigue syndrome is nothing but a depletion of one’s immune essence. Thus, an ayurvedic practitioner will help those suffering from this ailment to rebuild their immune essence by incorporating a compatible plan that will include daily and seasonal regimes which will immediately start flushing the build-up of toxins in the body and will stop their further production and provide a comprehensive plan of compatible and incompatible foods. At the same time an ayurvedic practitioner will guide the individual in how to make each meal as medicine, so one can get best out of their food to build their immune essence.

There will also be a programme that will help the client learn to deal with the mental and emotional issues without being harsh on themselves, and there will be the support of ayurvedic herbs and formulations that will revive the bodily intelligence, thus returning the hormonal balance. At the same time, these ayurvedic practitioners will advise specific ayurvedic bodywork therapies that help to bring balance at physical, mental and emotional level by dislodging deep seated toxins.

This comprehensive ayurvedic approach gives the opportunity to those who suffer from adrenal fatigue issue not to sit and live with the problem but be able to get rid of the causes and live a more balanced life at each physical, mental and emotional level.