bikram hot yoga and adrenal fatigue???? HELP????

thank you so much for your response.
I am NOT taking an electrolyte supplement. I have interstitial cystitis, so I have to be very careful of what I eat. Not sure if you are familiar with IC but it is inflammation of the bladder (NOT a bladder infection), it is a disease that I live with everyday, and everything I eat is effected by it, so I have a very restricted diet)

So as far as sea salt goes, I do have sea salt on my salads, and foods. So I would assume i am taking enough…..am i?

I am not sure if I am taking pure SEA SALT, but it does have sea salt on the container so i am assuming it is pure sea salt. I will make a point of buying some today. WILL this alleviate my problem ?

the studio i attend is a hot bikram studio, and it appears clean. as far as general temperature it is arond 105 i believe, it can range in heat/dryness/humidity.. There are some days i go in and it seems very hot, other days with very hot heat is dry, other times it can be a bit wet. This does not happen all the time, but can.

a clean diet, NO sugar in my diet at all, I eat whole grains like steel cut oats, millet, quinoa, lots of nuts (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds), lots of nut butters, almond butter, peanut butter, pumpkin butter, chia seeds, dates, raisins, pears, apples, grain fed chicken, (no red meat), fish. No condiments like ketchup, mustard in my diet…etc…(no soya sauce….nadda!!) I also have greek plain yogurt. That is a clean diet. No additives, and crap. I do not drink orange juice, nor caffiene drinks. I drink only water and some herbal teas. (that I am able to tolerate with my interstitial cystits)

I have actually STOPPEd going to hot yoga for a few days to see if I can help my adrenals. My heart has been racing during points of my day, especially first thing in the morning (5 am)….i know my cortisol levels must be high. I am trying to do calm meditation these past few days and trying to avoid anything that raises my cortisol levels. (trying not to get stressed…etc). But I can feel my adrenals are still struggling. I assume it is going to take a few months?????? to get them back to normal??

oh yes i have just recently started taking coconut water, no additives, pure coconut water, will this help? i have not gone to yoga since Friday morning, and only started the coconut water saturday. i have taken a few days of hot yoga, hoping this will help…i will not go to hot yoga today…but probably tomorrow….so this gives me three days off and i am hoping this will help my body taking this little break, should i take a longer break??

Thanks so much for responding and looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks so much for your response, sorry for not promptly replying, i only just noticed i had this post.

As far as my diet goes, i did not list all the foods i eat….i eat a ton of fruits and vegtables. My diet is a very clean eating diet filled with lots of variaties of good clean food.

Well….i guess I should also point out I have interstitical cystitis, so I try to drink and replenish, but not overdrink, as this will set my interstitial cystitis into a flare.

I think what may have happened, is i was so pleased with the fact that bikram yoga was actually dehydrating me and making my interstitial cystitis feel good…because i did not have to go to the washroom all the time….but at the same time, i beleive i was creating an electrylite imbalance in my body.

the last class i went to was Monday, and I have decided to take a few weeks off, just to get my body in order. I do love the hot yoga…..and actually crave it. BUT i have to lay off it i believe to get my body back in balance. i do believe i must have set my adrenals in a bit of stress mode due to the electrilyte imbalance. So I think taking a break from the hot room is in order.

So once I return, are you stating I should be taking sea salt -and is this all i need to keep my electrilytes in balance? along with drinking more water?? I have to be careful with supplements due to my interstitial cystitis (and creating a flare). So any advice you provide to help me return to the hot room, and not have this happen again, is much apprecated.

thank you 🙂
namaste

Hello Blue,

Thanks for your detailed response!

In my opinion you need to drink more water and take more (celtic,sea,himalayan) salt to replenish your electrolytes! Even though you mentioned that you have ‘some’ in your diet I am getting the sense that your body needs more of it. Can you tell me what exactly you mean when you say: you don’t over drink? Practising in extreme heat is a really big challenge for the body and if it is not properly hydrated, it goes into an ‘alarm mode’. One of the body’s way of dealing with dehydration and lack of electrolytes is bloating.

I understand that you didn’t state everything (or I hope you didn’t) on that list when explaining what your diet consists of. Though it seems to me that you don’t eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables but you do eat a lot of grains, nuts and oat which are a bit more difficult to dygest. Out all the food we eat, fruits and vegetables have the highest water content! Especially if you find it difficult to drink a lot of water, eating more raw fruits and veggies could greatly benefit you and help you to get more water into your system!

I think it’s great that you are so conscious of what you eat, however I noticed that when talking about a clean diet you stressed out that you eat no sugar. Are you trying to avoid fat too (apart from what you get from eating grains and nuts)? As far as I understand, fat, sugar ad carbs are essential parts of a healthy diet, for as long as you know ‘where to get them from’. It may very well be that if you follow such a strict diet, that has an effect on how you feel in your yoga class.

I love to drink coconut water!! 🙂 I am a coconut addict in fact. However, I must point out that as beneficial and healthy as it is, it does not replenish electrolytes you lose by sweating! Hey, if you enjoy coconut water, I think you should try coconut oil! Try taking it in little amounts (less than a tea spoon per day), every day. You can put it on your salad, in your smoothie or just take it as it is. I’d do that, as I said, I have an addiction… 🙂

I do think you should give your body a break from practising in the heat. My suggestion is to experiment with drinking more water, taking more salt (1 tea spoon a day for 4 weeks, as I mentioned in the prev. post) and eating more raw fruits and veggies too. See how you feel after a few days!

I honestly hope you will you’ll find the above useful and that it may be something that can help you!

Share your thoughts with me. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Namaste,

Andrea