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There’s a limit to what your adrenal stress response system can take. Eventually, chronic stress can start to wear out your adrenals and diminish their ability to produce all of their precious hormones, notably courageous Cortisol. When you begin to feel that you just can’t take it anymore, it’s a sure sign that your adrenals are no longer producing enough of their stress-fighting gladiators.

When your “A Team” gets too run-down, you no longer have the wherewithal (that is, the Cortisol) to deal with even the most pedestrian of stressors. You can be overwhelmed by the sound of the phone ringing or your child’s crying, thrown by a challenge, rattled by a crisis. Just when you should be mustering your resources, you get irritable and ineffectual. When your Cortisol levels sink so low that you can no longer rise to stressful occasions, you’ve literally “lost it.” The A Team has thrown in the towel—you are a victim of adrenal burnout.

After years of testing day-long Cortisol levels in hundreds of people, our clinic has found fewer than ten reports showing excessively high levels and even fewer showing normal levels. The vast majority of the test results we’ve seen have shown abnormally low Cortisol levels. Far from showing an ability to meet unusual stress with strength, these test results reflect what may be an epidemic inability to meet even a normal day with anything but anxiety, irritability, and exhaustion. They reveal stress-coping resources that have been broken by overload.

Many studies now confirm that low Cortisol is an increasingly common and potentially serious problem. Over 50 percent of those admitted to an intensive care unit in one recent study had below normal, rather than the expected abnormally high, levels of Cortisol.³ A study of 289 men found that low Cortisol was the overriding factor in the development of diabetes, stroke, and cardiovascular disease.⁴ A study of women with breast cancer found that those with low Cortisol had fewer natural immune system killer cells and died earlier.⁵ No reserves left to fight the really important stressors.

Adrenaline reserves, too, can eventually deflate, as stress-induced exhaustion sets in. More than 70 percent of Americans may be affected.⁶