Feeling tired is a key symptom of chronic stress. Other indicators that you may be experiencing stress include:

• feel tired and drained in the evenings
• chronic tiredness began after a stressful event occurred
• you have a high-stress, on-the-go lifestyle. You work hard, party hard, stay up late, drink coffee and alcohol and sometimes 'burn the candle' at both ends
• physical symptoms of stress: heart palpitations, increased perspiration, clammy hands, headaches, poor concentration or insomnia
• feel weepy and over-sensitive
• feel over-whelmed, as if you can't cope

What is stress?

Regardless of whether it is a fun and exciting event (wedding, starting a new relationship, birth of a child, winning the lottery) or an emotionally distressing one (death of a loved one, loss of a job, financial worries), your body typically goes through three phases during a stress response. Remember, stress is a normal response to simulating events.

When we are healthy, these three stages are as follows:

1. Fight or flight

The body's initial response to stress is the alarm reaction, also known as the 'fight or flight' response. When you are faced with a stressful situation (someone yells at you; the kids play up; someone cuts you off in traffic; you have an argument), within seconds the adrenal glands release the hormones adrenalin and nor-adrenalin into the bloodstream preparing the body for immediate action. You may begin to perspire, feel your heart beat and breath quickening and your energy levels rise. Your body directs blood away from your digestive system to your muscles, heart and brain so that you are capable of dealing with the situation. The alarm stage usually only lasts a few minutes and if the stressful situation is quickly resolved our body soon returns to normal.

2. Maintenance

After the initial stage, your body releases different chemicals that allow you to stay in an active state to deal with the stressor. If the event is short-lived (cut off in traffic once), this stage wouldn't have time to kick in. However, in our busy lifestyles, these short events continuously follow each other until we have a whole day full of short stressful events. The second phase is designed to keep us going during a succession of events or one long stressful event. It is regulated by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis that secretes hormones in a chain reaction:

• The hypothalamus secretes corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)
• This stimulates the pituitary to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)
• This in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to secrete cortisol. Cortisol is an anti-stress hormone and its purpose is to calm us down after a stressful situation.

This length of this stage will vary according to how ongoing the stressful event is and how well your body copes with the event. If this stage continues for too long, the adrenal glands can become exhausted from releasing high levels of cortisol and the stress moves from being acute and manageable to being chronic and debilitating. This is usually when adrenal exhaustion and burnout occur.

3. Recovery

In a healthy person and with enough recovery time, the body's hormone levels return to normal. Also, blood supply and energy delivery return to the parts of the body that were neglected during the stressful period.

How does stress contribute to our tiredness?

For some people with a stressful lifestyle, they are actually quite alert and feel that they don't need much sleep. They seem to 'buzz' through the day and feel as if they are on high alert. A number of terms have been coined to describe these people - 'highly strung', 'type A personality' or 'adrenalin junkie'. The problem is however, the energy that these people burn up has to come from somewhere and it's usually the nervous system or adrenal glands that suffer. However before this happens, these people can still feel tired, because they often function on less sleep than they need and use stimulants (drugs, coffee, cigarettes) to keep them going. In addition they may have difficulty relaxing at the end of the day and falling asleep. Or they have trouble staying sleep because they are thinking about problems or issues that need attention the following day. So in actual fact, sleep deprivation is the immediate cause of their tiredness throughout the day, but its underlying cause is the stress of day-to-day life that they are experiencing.

While it isn't necessary to completely give up a hectic, on-the-go lifestyle, it's important to manage your stress before it develops into adrenal exhaustion and burn-out. These conditions are much harder to treat and take a much longer recovery time. Eventually they can also lead to chronic fatigue syndrome.

Now you know a bit more about stress and the role it may be playing in the tiredness that you are experiencing.

So what can you do about it?

• Did you know that herbal medicine, nutrients and certain lifestyle practices are the most effective way to manage stress on a day-to-day basis?

• Did you know that many of our common every day practices further contribute to your stress levels and rob you of energy?

• Did you know that there are many ways to improve your sleeping patterns so that sleep deprivation caused by stress doesn't add to your stress levels?
  
  

You can find out all about remedies as well as a full list of the symptoms linked to stress in our e-book Why Do I Feel Tired?

Written by naturopath/nutritionist Alison Cassar and professional health writer Michelle Fahy, this e-book examines over 16 conditions (including stress) that may be contributing to your tiredness. The book explores each topic in detail and helps you to discover the underlying causes of your tiredness so you can reclaim your energy and live the life you were meant to live.

Most people are unaware of how good they are capable of feeling. There's no need for you to be one of these people. Find out what may be behind your tiredness and get off the merry-go-round of chronic tiredness.

Click here to learn more about this comprehensive e-book and to order your copy.