Must Wear Sunglasses
Do you find yourself always needing to wear sunglasses when you are outside?
Even if it is a cloudy day?!
This post was inspired by observing all the parents at the playground, on a cloudy day, wearing sunglasses.
Look I get it, sometimes you have to want to hide the tired eyes and bags.
But I know some of you find that sun too bright!
And this is your unsolicited advice coming that your adrenals may need help!
Before we get into why adrenals and how they are related to sunglasses, I want to say look I get parenthood is difficult and exhausting.
Society has glorified the suffering and normalized it.
But what if I told you that despite the inconsistent sleep, not being able to have full control over your body and what you want to do, not being able to eat 3 meals relaxed, etc. you could still have energy and not feel like crap?!
This is the point in our lives that our adrenals should be able to step up to the plate and help us out.
The problem is that our adrenals were so overworked BEFORE this period in our life that they’re barely running on any gas and you are a car slowing down on the highway about to breakdown.
So how do I know your adrenals need help?!
In the presence of light your pupil needs to constrict to adjust to the amount of light in your environment.
The ability of the pupil to constrict is partially influenced by your adrenals.
But when the adrenals are exhausted, the pupil may struggle to constrict and often remains dilated, which is why you must wear sunglasses the moment you step outside.
This may be a test I use for your Functional Clinical Assessment – the Paradoxical Pupillary Response Test.
The test is an assessment of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) and your body’s ability to activate the sympathetic branch of your ANS / fight or flight response.
I use this as an assessment of adrenal exhaustion because your sympathetic branch is strongly influenced by the hormonal cascade that is supposed to be kicked off by your hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Your ANS releases adrenaline for immediate response to a stressor (stepping outside) and cortisol is released from the adrenals to sustain the response to the stressor as it remains present (staying outside).
When the adrenals are exhausted it struggles to produce and release hormones at the level at which they are required to maintain the needed response, in this case, constricted pupils so to reduce the amount of light being received through the eyes.
So if you must always wear sunglasses because you can’t see a damn thing outside without them, time to really dive into your stressors and figure out a way to support your adrenals.
Sick and tired of feeling like crap with no energy?!
Book a free Connection Call and find out more about working with me 1-on-1 in my 16-week program focusing on stress management to eliminate most of your complaints.
**disclaimers: (1) contact lenses can increase your light sensitivity and (2) there may be neurological reasons the pupils do not constrict