Corporate

CHRYSALIS HEALTH has now translated its success in the personal health field into the corporate world. Our approach to wellbeing helps your business to value and care for your most important assets: the workforce. Whatever the focus of your business this fundamental truth applies: the individuals that make up each rung of the ladder are the key to your company's success.

Chrysalis offers a unique series of services with measurable results that tackle problems within the workforce and promotes the health, well-being and performance of your people. Put simply, it can transform the culture of your organisation.

Our highly experienced and well-known nutritionists Amanda Hamilton (click through to profiles) and Karen Devine will work with you and your business in tailoring a nutrition package to your needs. From a deluxe retreat at one of our detox venues (or a venue of your choice) to a motivational talk for your workforce, we work with you to develop a strategy to suit your goals.

The following are some examples of how Chrysalis might help your business as a whole in achieving its goals:

• Seminars, workshops and/or talks by our nutritionists at your workplace
• One-to-one nutrition consultations by phone, at our Harley St clinic or at our Edinburgh clinic
• Nutritionists to facilitate a detox at a suitable venue

If you ask most people what they would most like to change about their lives, the underlying answer always boils down to one thing - to reduce stress. Unlike many other 'solution-based' offerings, the team at Chrysalis can make genuine, life enhancing change by improving the ability of the body to deal with stress. After all, what is stress but our internal response to the external environment. Through our work we also teach people how to 're-frame' their attitudes toward stress so that it can be reduced or even eliminated! An individual who is free of the day-to-day stress struggle with be healthier, happier and more productive.

The effect of stress on the body

Every challenge to the mind and body creates a demand on the adrenal glands. And the challenges are endless: lack of sleep, a demanding boss, the threat of losing your job, financial pressures, personality conflicts, yo-yo dieting, relationship turmoil, death or illness of a loved one, skipping meals, reliance on stimulants like caffeine and refined carbohydrates, digestive problems, over-exercise, illness or infection, unresolved emotional issues from our past or present and more. These types of strains result in adrenal glands that are constantly on high alert.

Chronic stress and adrenal fatigue

Adrenals play a vital role in stress management, blood sugar control, thyroid output and weight control. If you have been under 'fight or flight' mode or had repeated stress in your life then your adrenals may need extra support through diet and certain nutritional supplements. Inappropriate levels of cortisol affect our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing and can also lead indirectly to weight problems.

Symptoms of adrenal overload include waking up in the middle of the night / not able to sleep, fatigue in mornings, afternoon slumps, cravings for carbs and sugars, need for stimulants such as coffee and chocolate, irritability, not able to finish jobs, not able to shake off a cold and many more.

The good news is that adrenal fatigue can almost always be relieved. However, understanding the role of adrenals and how stress impacts them is a vital part to developing strategies maintaining adrenal health. To understand how adrenal fatigue develops, it is important to understand the original, evolutionary function of these glands. The adrenals are walnut-sized glands located on top of each kidney, and are important control centres for many of the body's hormones. The outer layer of the gland, called the adrenal cortex, produces hormones including cortisol, DHEA, estrogen and testosterone. The centres of the glands produce adrenaline, the hormone named after them. The basic task of your adrenal glands is to rush all your body's resources into "fight or flight" mode by increasing production of adrenaline and other hormones. When healthy, your adrenals can instantly increase your heart rate and blood pressure, release your energy stores for immediate use, slow your digestion and other secondary functions, and sharpen your senses. The problem lay, not in the function of the adrenals, but rather in their over-stimulation.

Stress and the adrenal glands

Unlike our ancestors, we live with constant stress. Instead of occasional, acute demands followed by rest, we're constantly over-worked, under-nourished, exposed to environmental toxins, and worrying about aspects of life's demands (like the well-being of our families, for example) - all with no respite.

Every challenge to the mind and body creates a demand on the adrenal glands and the result is adrenal glands that are constantly on high alert. This creates high cortisol levels in the body that lead to a huge number of health problems, including an inability to shift weight. Sustained high levels of cortisol (triggered by stress) will gradually wear your body down and when the adrenals are chronically overworked and straining to maintain high cortisol levels, they lose the capacity to produce DHEA in sufficient amounts. DHEA (the full name is dehydroepiandrosterone) is a precursor hormone to estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, and is necessary to moderate the balance of hormones in your body. Insufficient DHEA contributes to fatigue, bone loss, loss of muscle mass, depression, aching joints, decreased sex drive, and impaired immune function as well as weight gain and thyroid problems.

Testing for adrenal fatigue

In conventional care, adrenal testing will be on the look out for extremes of activity when damage to the adrenals has already occurred. A nutritionist's role, however, is to respond to early-stage symptoms of adrenal fatigue when problems can be easily reversed.

Chrysalis clinics use a test that measures cortisol levels at several points in the day to track the adrenals' day-night pattern (called the "diurnal rhythm") using a panel of simple saliva tests. We hope to see cortisol elevated in the morning to help you get going, lower but steady throughout the day to sustain energy, then fall in the evening to support restful sleep.

In the early stages of adrenal dysfunction, cortisol levels are too high during the day and continue rising in the evening. This is called "hyperadrenia." In the middle stages, cortisol may rise and fall unevenly as the body struggles to balance itself despite the disruptions of caffeine, carbs and other factors, but levels are not normal and are typically too high at night. In advanced stages, when the adrenals are exhausted from overwork, cortisol will never reach normal levels ("hypoadrenia").

If your energy lags during the day, you feel emotionally unbalanced much of the time, you sleep poorly or less than seven hours a night, can't lose excess weight even while dieting, use caffeine or carbohydrates as "pick-me-ups" - these are all red flags indicating adrenal insufficiency. The first step is to have a full test to see where you are at on the adrenal scale. In mild to moderate cases of adrenal fatigue, significant improvement is made through diet and stress reduction alone. If your adrenals are truly exhausted you will need direct support through a nutritional therapy programme.

More information

To speak to one of our nutritionists about how we can tailor a solution that suits your needs and those of your organisation, please contact us here

Download the PDF profile here.