Morning Salt for Adrenal Healing
When you wake up in the morning, your blood pressure naturally goes up. This post-sleep increase in blood pressure naturally jumpstarts all of your body's systems that were stagnant while you were asleep.
In order to raise your blood pressure, the brain calls on your adrenal glands to manufacture cortisol and pump out adrenaline. This can be a stress on your adrenals first thing in the morning if you're already stressed out and they're not functioning ideally. Why? Because if you have any kind of HPA axis disregulation (ie: adrenal fatigue), you have trouble retaining salt. This is because the adrenals won’t be producing enough aldosterone to maintain the sodium level in the body. The longer you’ve suffered from this, the less salt your body is retaining, and the more difficulty you need additional salt consumption.
SOLUTION? Eat more salt, and not just on and in your food. You might actually want to treat salt like a supplement and make a point of having a certain amount every day. I have done this myself for years and honestly credit it as one of the foundations that has helped me strengthen my constitution SO much.
Taking salt every day is a practice that is deeply nourishing. It’s really easy to start doing dailyy, and if you begin to do it on a regular basis, like me, you'll probably notice higher and more even energy levels throughout the rest of your day.
Morning Salt for the Win
When you wake up in the morning, your body naturally wants to raise your blood pressure so that when you get of bed, so you don't have a drop in blood pressure and get dizzy. Also, this increase in blood pressure naturally jump-starts all of your body's systems that have been relatively stagnant while you were asleep! To raise your blood pressure, the brain calls on your adrenal glands to manufacture cortisol and pump out adrenaline. This can be a big stress on your adrenals first thing in the morning, particularly if you have adrenal fatigue and they're not functioning ideally in the first place.
Drinking salt water or consuming salt first thing in the morning will slightly raise your blood pressure for a short period of time, which takes some of the stress off the adrenals, and saves their output for the rest of your day which naturally increases your energy stores for the day - yay!
In addition, consuming salt first thing in the morning is also a wonderful way to assure adequate minerals in your body. Salt is a substance that was once so valued that it was used as payment in exchange for labor (hence the root of the word salary), and despite what you might have heard to the contrary, we absolutely NEED good mineral-rich salt in our diets for optimum health. It's essential.
HOW TO:
It’s crucial to use really good salt for this practice. I personally prefer Himalayan salt which is from 200-million-year-old ocean beds, but some like to use Real Salt from Utah. These particular salts are in my opinion the very best, because they are not from the actual ocean and thus will not ever contain the toxins, heavy metals, and micro-plastics common in salts sourced from the ocean these days. Plus, Himalayan salt can supply your body with an astounding 83 unique trace minerals, including 21 different trace minerals that are widely agreed upon to be necessary for the body's metabolic processes.
Simply stir ¼ to ½ teaspoon of salt into a glass of water warm enough to dissolve the salt the night before and have it at the ready on your bedside table to drink upon waking.
LAZY METHOD: Keep a small container of Himalayan salt and a small spoon by your bed and simply spoon the salt into your mouth in the morning and wash it down with some water. This is what I do, but note that it’s best to already have some water in your mouth when you spoon the salt in! ;)
NOTE: Having the salt upon waking and before getting out of bed or immediately after getting out of bed is critical, since the longer you wait, the more your adrenals have to work.
Maybe you can try this tomorrow and see what the effects are for you! I know that I have been incorporating this into my daily routine for many years now, and I can tell when I forget for sure! I even take a small container or salt with me whenever I travel; I stash it in the same little pouch as my earplugs and sleep mask, that way it’s sure to be by my bed when I wake up.
PRO TIP: Don’t leave home without your salt stash!