The adrenaline response can be reduced. The adrenaline response is a stress response from the release of the hormone adrenaline (epinephrine) from the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidneys. The adrenaline response is also known as the fight or flight response. The fight or flight response occurs in reaction to a danger in the environment, and it improves your chance of survival when presented with a life-threatening danger. The fight or flight response is automatic, and instantaneous, as it only takes a few seconds to kick in. When you sense a danger in the environment, the amygdala, a part of the brain, senses the danger and signals the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, which in turn signals the adrenal glands to release adrenaline. Adrenaline triggers the body to prepare to fight, or run from the danger. So you have an increase in heart rate, increased breathing rate, shunting of blood from the skin to the skeletal muscles, increased sweating, and you have a tensing of the skeletal muscles to prepare to fight or run. So the fight or flight response, the adrenaline response, is adaptive to help you increase your chance of survival should you encounter a life-threatening danger, like a mugger or a natural disaster.
Unfortunately, if you have anxiety, it also triggers the adrenaline response. The brain and body make no distinction between fear from real danger and fear of some future danger (anxiety). The adrenaline response was meant to be effective for short bursts of time to ward off a real danger, as so much energy and transformation is needed to prepare for battle. But anxiety is usually a long-lasting, chronic affair, so the anxiety triggers the adrenaline response on an extended state of hypervigilance and readiness for battle, a battle that may never come as it comes more from your thoughts than from a real danger in the environment. Chronic activation of the adrenaline response leads to fatigue, muscular tension, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems.
So how do you reduce your adrenaline response? The best way to reduce your adrenaline response is to reduce your anxiety symptoms. You can eradicate your anxiety symptoms by first figuring out what type of anxiety you have, then following a treatment plan based on your type of anxiety and based on an anxiety test.
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I gotta get out. It’s gotta stop. I can’t breath. I can’t breath!
Sorry to hear that. Hope some of the solutions on this site can help you.
I have been diagnosed with tumor on each of my adrenal glands. I took a 24 hour urine test to see how much cortisol, adrenaline, etc. they were producing. However, I was taking klonopin when I took the test. Could the klonopin suppressed the excretion of these anxiety hormones, thereby giving test results that are not accurate, but showing less of the hormones present due to taking the medication?
The fear response will lead to an increase in the release of the adrenal hormones cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline: https://anxietyboss.com/anxiety-forums/1213/the-flight-fight-response-is-associated-with-the-release-of. Benzodiazepines suppresses the fear response by dampening the hyperactive amygdala, hence reducing the release of adrenal hormones. However, in the case of an adrenal tumour, the effect of the fear response on the release of adrenal hormones may be insignificant compared to the release of adrenal hormones from the tumour.