How to Test for Adrenal Fatigue

author avatar Dr. Eric Berg 08/31/2023

How to Test for Adrenal Fatigue

This is not a diagnosis for adrenal diseases. I’m just teaching you this so that you will have clues on potential symptoms from your adrenals. You need to go to your doctor to confirm it.


 

Severe Symptoms That Go with Adrenal Function

The severe symptoms that go with adrenal functions are:

  • Inability to sleep: For example, you get exhausted at 9 o’clock and can’t fall asleep within an hour. You start feeling wide awake again and end up not being able to get some sleep at all.
    This symptom may also manifest when you get tired in the day, especially an hour after lunch, and you get the desire for a nap. 
  • Achy inflammation: This happens when your anti-inflammatory hormones are low and your entire body is achy.
  • Brain fog: Examples of brain fog are: When you find it hard to focus, when you enter a room and can’t remember why, or when you read a book, but can’t absorb it.
  • Low tolerance: When people get on your nerves easily and you’re edgy.
  • Breathing issues: You have breathing issues when you go up the stairs and your legs feel heavy or when you can’t get enough air at night. This happens when your PH is too alkaline.
  • Sinus: When your sinuses get congested and you get allergy problems.

The Ragland’s Test

Do you get dizzy when you stand up?
 

Having your blood pressure taken when you’re lying down for a few minutes and taking it again after you stand up is a test to measure adrenal function called the Ragland’s Test.

The normal blood pressure is 120 over 80. When you stand up, the systolic – or 120 which is the first number – should normally go up 6 to 10 points. With adrenal fatigue, it will either decrease or excessively increase.

The adrenal is a survival gland that helps you cope with stress. Because standing up is a little bit of gravity stress, your body adapts and raises the blood pressure to adapt to the changed position.

If you didn’t adapt to that gravity stress, there wouldn’t be enough blood flow to the brain and you will pass out. That’s why you feel dizzy when you stand up too fast.

Another way to check if you have an adrenal issue is by running up the stairs and seeing if you run out of breath or get heavy legs.

The adrenal gland has an outer, all-nerve tissue which produces hormone-like messages called neurotransmitters and inner all-gland soft tissue.

Adrenaline is there to alert the body in certain situations. For example, if you are being chased by a tiger, the artery in the heart and the lungs must open to help your body cope with the stress.

The adrenal tissue is a part of the adrenal system of a stress response. This is the flight or fight mode, which is a survival mode that we all have in our bodies.

We are being stressed out by:
 

  • the news

  • other people

  • financial disaster threats

  • losses

  • worrying which is equivalent to physical trauma

     

With Adrenal fatigue, you start overthinking and overanalyzing everything. I know it’s hard to turn it off, but really, you have to realize what is happening: you’re losing, or you have lost your SPACE.

The best thing you can do is to create space by going on a walk or a hike. Go outside and turn your attention to something else.
 

Do this for an hour or longer to chill out the adrenals and allow it to heal. This is better than going to the gym and working out on the treadmill. You must learn to balance your day’s activities.

Learn more adrenal issues and see more Adrenal advice from Dr. Berg Video Blog.

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