The other day I spoke about fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, over-training and checking your cortisol levels for possible adrenal fatigue and exhaustion.
I recommended that your first use the online health quizzes to see if your adrenal glands are overworked from too much stress.
A simple DIY Do-It-Yourself test you can do before you pay for a 24 Hour Saliva test to accurately measure how exhausted or overworked your adrenal glands are, is what is called Ragland’s Test.
What you need is a blood pressure cuff, preferably a digital one for simplicity. But what you want to do is…
- Take your blood pressure while you are lying down or sitting.
- Once you have the number…stand up and immediately take your blood pressure again.
A normal response would be for your systolic (the first number) number to go up about 6-10 points. If your BP is 120/80 – it should bump up to around 126/80.
If it stays the same or goes down – it is an obvious sign that your body (adrenal glands) is not responding quick enough to tell your arteries and veins to tighten up and not allow the blood to drain out of your head so quickly.
This is why lightheadedness or dizziness upon standing, are a good indicator that you could be dealing with an adrenal fatigue problem.
The big question is, are you listening to what your body is telling you?
This is important because your body is always giving your signals!
If you don’t do well on Ragland’s test, I would have your cortisol levels tested. Don’t forget over-worked and depleted adrenal glands could be disrupting your metabolism, hormones, energy, sleep, heart, thyroid, digestion and overall immune function.
Not to mention effect your ability to add lean muscle on an already exhausted body. Hope this little test is helpful, let me know what happens when you check it.