In this episode of the Progress Your Health Podcast, we continue talking about the main types of Adrenal Fatigue that we see. We are certainly not trying to minimize Adrenal Dysfunction but to make it more interesting and easy to understand, we call these main types:
Adrenal Fatigue or Adrenal Dysfunction (which is what we like to call it) is a real condition that affects millions of people in our country. And the effects can seriously impact a person’s health and quality of life. We have seen different types of Adrenal Dysfunction. These three main types are important to know because a person with a Vampire type of Adrenal Fatigue will have a completely different treatment plan than someone that is a Zombie type.
In this episode, we are to talk about the Ghost type of Adrenal Dysfunction. There are actually two subtypes of the Ghost. We call them, the Ghoul and the Poltergeist.
But first, just to jog your memory. In the last episode, we talked about the Vampire. The Vampire has very low cortisol levels in the morning and elevated levels at night. This causes a lot of morning tiredness, to the point that Vampires are chronically late to anything in the morning. Vampire types also feel more awake at night and cannot fall asleep.
On the other hand, the Ghost type has a different dysfunctional secretion of cortisol from the adrenal glands than the Vampire.
The Ghost will have very low levels of cortisol in the early afternoon that continues until the evening. So you will see the Ghost very tired in the afternoon and evening. These are the people that can fall asleep easily at 8-9 pm. But in the middle of the night, the cortisol levels will rise so they will wake up. It is common for Ghost types to fall asleep hard for four hours and then wake up like it is morning when it is only 2 am.
There are two subtypes of the Ghost:
While both the Ghoul and the Poltergeist have a poor night’s sleep, they still wake up in the morning on time. Ghosts easily wake up in the morning. And once they get up and moving, they have pretty good energy. But come afternoon, they crash hard. These are the morning people that get everything done before noon. Because after 12:00 noon, their energy drops, and you can find them drinking coffee or taking a nap.
The difference between a Vampire and a Ghost is the secretion of cortisol in the 24 hours. While both are dysfunctional, they are still different from each other.
Vampire: high nighttime cortisol and low morning. But the cortisol does reduce around 2 am so that the Vampire eventually falls asleep.
Ghost:
I am sure you are asking: How Do I Correct the Cortisol Levels? I have Adrenal Dysfunction Ghost type, what can I do about it?
Before we answer this, we have to put out the disclaimer: All content found in this blog, including text, images, audio, video, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. The purpose of this website and blog is to promote consumer/public understanding and general knowledge of various health topics. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult your healthcare provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your condition and before undertaking a new health care regimen. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. If your healthcare provider is not interested in discussing your health concern regarding this topic, then it is time to find a new doctor.
Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way let’s get on with helping the Adrenal Fatigue Ghost type. We are going to break it up into Nutritional, Lifestyle, Supplementation and prescription medication
Nutritional: The best way nutritionally is to balance your blood sugar and insulin. Cortisol can really disrupt your blood sugar and insulin levels. One of the best ways to do this is to implement a lower carbohydrate diet. That is easier said than done. Trying to restrict your carbs but having intense craving at the same time do not go hand in hand. One helpful trick is to do a ketogenic diet while cycling in carbs in and out on a schedule. We have a manual written that will explain hormones and weight gain/loss. It will also help guide you on a program to balance your blood sugar and insulin levels. If you are interested in downloading our free guide called Keto-Carb-Cycling-Program’ (which abbreviate KCCP), go to progressyourhealth.com/KCCP.
Lifestyle: There lots of options for good sleep hygiene. More than you will read here. But one of the main points we want to get across is to reduce light as much as you can in the evening. I know that can be difficult because we want to relax and watch a TV show, movie or work on the computer at night. One thing you can do to reduce the blue light burden is to get blue light blocking glasses. And you can get a blue light blocking screen for your computer.
In fact, use the blue light blocking screen for your computer during the day. It will help you sleep better at night. These are easily found online.
Supplementation: Supplementation can really help the Ghost type of Adrenal Fatigue/Dysfunction. But this is where it gets specific. Because the supplements for the Ghost are different for the other types of Adrenal Dysfunction. With the Ghost, the goal is to reduce cortisol during the night and raise cortisol
Cortisol Manager: This is a supplement that has a blend of herbs, nutrients, and vitamins that reduce cortisol levels. Helpful to take at night to reduce cortisol levels while sleeping. Usually, one to two tablets helps.
PharmaGABA: PharmaGABA can actually be digested. While you run of the mill, GABA supplements are very hard to digest. Raising GABA is a great way to drop the cortisol levels. GABA is very relaxing and helpful for reducing angst. By taking this at night can help the Ghost sleep through the night.
PYHP 069 Full Transcript:
Dr. Maki: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the progressional podcast. I’m Dr. Mackey.
Dr. Davidson: And I’m Dr. Davidson.
Dr. Maki: On this episode, we’re going to continue talking about adrenal fatigue or the types of adrenal fatigue. The last one we talked about the vampire, today we’re gonna talk about the ghost.
Dr. Davidson: So the three types of adrenal fatigue that we’ve mainly seen, so these are kind of where we put these names to it to just sort of be a little bit easier to remember, easier to understand, but we– definitely the three main types we’ve seen are the vampire, the ghost and the zombie. So the previous episode, we talked about the vampire and how the vampire can’t go to sleep at night because their cortisol is elevated, they’re awake, they really can’t go to bed before 2:00 AM, midnight to 2:00 AM. Then in the morning, they’re super tired and they can’t really get going, because their cortisol is so low in the morning. So that’s the vampire. Now, in this episode, we’re going to talk about the ghost and the reason we differentiate this is because the ghost we would treat completely different than we would treat the vampire than treating the zombie. So, with the ghost, they have a little bit of a different diurnal curve or cortisol secretion from the adrenal glands.
Dr. Maki: Yeah. So, the ghost typically doesn’t really have that much trouble in the morning, actually, the early part of the day, they actually do really well. Most of the day, they do very well maybe till what– maybe around noon or so, but then come the evening is when they start having a lot of their problems.
Dr. Davidson: Yeah, the vampire has no trouble falling asleep. They will fall asleep on the couch watching TV. It’s 8:30 at night, they have no trouble falling asleep. The issue with the ghost is they have trouble staying asleep.
Dr. Maki: Yeah, right. Yeah. So, the vampires certainly has we talked with the last one, they get a definite second wind in the evening. They start to wake up, they start to have some energy. Like you said, the ghost can maybe have a little bit of that, a little bit of a second wind that they get maybe after dinner, but they are able to fall asleep maybe while– maybe on the couch or they’re watching a movie or something, they might doze off. Usually, maybe about seven, eight, nine o’clock, which is their– the time that their body’s telling them they should go to bed. If they do go to bed because they’re tired, but now in the next two to four hours they wake up and it’s almost like they go to bed at 10:00, they wake up at midnight and they’re like wide awake.
Dr. Maki: Yes, exactly. So, the ghost will fall asleep hard anywhere from two to four hours, but then they’re up, and then we kind of separated the ghost into two different subtypes. So, we call one the ghoul, and the other one the poltergeists. So the ghoul will fall asleep but nine o’clock easily, ten o’clock easily, but come two, four hours after sleeping really hard they’ll be wide awake, like at seven in the morning, but it’s really only two in the morning. So the ghoul will stay up for easily two hours, so I would say they’re not roaming the halls like a ghoul, they’re instead roaming their iPhones because they’re wide awake, and they can’t go back to sleep. So after about two hours, by the time their cortisol does come down, is then– because what happens is their cortisol is low when they go to sleep, and then it spikes around 2:00 AM or, two to four hours after they’ve fallen asleep, and then it’s up for a while. And by the time the cortisol comes back down, which is generally about an hour and a half to two hours, they’re able to fall back asleep, but by then, they have to wake up for the morning shortly thereafter.
Dr. Maki: Yeah, it’s a lot of them, sometimes the best sleep of the night is that between 4:00 to 6:00 AM. They’ve been awake for a long time. They’re just tossing and turning, like you say, some are looking at their phones, some are reading a book, some are getting up checking their email, some are watching TV trying to get tired again, and then they drift off to sleep right as almost like they just drift off and then their alarm goes off, and they got to get back up again. That usually is the best sleep they get of the entire night and it really maybe only a couple of hours.
Dr. Davidson: Yes, exactly, and then the other one is the poltergeists. So, they’re similar to the ghoul where they fall asleep fairly easily in the evening, nine o’clock easily, fall asleep on the couch watching TV, watching a movie, but then they will also wake up about two to four hours later. So, go to sleep at 10:00, wake up at midnight, but instead of staying up for a couple of hours, their cortisol spikes up and down all night long. So, that’s why we kind of call it like that mischievous poltergeists, because you wake up easily four to six, even more times that at night, you wake up for no reason, then you fall back asleep. Then 40 minutes later, you wake up and then you fall back asleep. They can’t even understand why do I keep getting up all night long for no reason, and then they might get– then by the time the cortisol does drift down, like Dr. Mackey said, it might be five in the morning, and then they’re sleeping hard until 6:30, but then you got to get up, you got to get up for the day.
Dr. Maki: Yeah, right. Yeah. So it can be kind of exhausting. But once they’re awake, the d
