Suggested Reading: Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome

I'm tired.  I'm exhausted.  I wake up and all I can think about is the next time I can lay down.  

Simply put, I'm fatigued.  

Which is why when someone asked me if I had heard about adrenal fatigue – a term that refers to the adrenal glands functioning improperly - I made a note to look it up.  I had heard of it before, even brought it up with my doctor, but she had dismissed it, and so I never looked any further than its definition.  Now though, since that same doctor has told me I need to give it more time before I start to feel more energized, I looked it up again. Which led me to buying the book, Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome by James L. Wilson. 

While there is a lot in the book that can be found on different medical sites online, no one should underestimate the time saved by not having to search in countless places for a comprehensive explanation.  And this book is certainly comprehensive. 

From going into how your adrenal glands work and what occurs when those glands are put under too much stress, to several ways of self-diagnosing and finally a step-by-step guide to treatment, Wilson gives the reader every answer that they could ask for, as well as a website to obtain the nutrients recommended for speeding up recovery. 

I was a bit skeptical at first of the occasional website referral, but the book was not a 361 page advertisement for the products available on the site.  In fact, the most valuable chapter is titled Dietary Supplements, and goes into a level of detail on vitamins, herbs, and minerals that I have not been able to find online.  So, while you can buy these supplements on his site, the information in this chapter allows you to form your own treatment with whatever means you wish. 

This is not a book for those suffering from Celiac Disease, so the suggested diet is not gluten-free, but the important message of decreasing adrenal stressors such as sugar and caffeine is easy to apply to any diet.  The rest of the treatment is a bit harder to make happen as it calls for a reorganization of the reader’s day. There are also some things that for me are impossible to implement, such as getting to bed by 10:00 PM every night, or sleeping in until 9:00 AM every morning.  Getting rid of what Wilson calls “energy robbers” in my life would not just be a change in my everyday routine but a new direction in my life.  So I’m limited in what I can do at the moment, but Wilson gives enough suggestions that even with some smaller changes someone suffering from adrenal fatigue should stand a strong chance of feeling better. 

Judgement Pitch

Writing is easy.

Talking is easy. 

Talking about writing is hard. 

I tried to recommend The Hunger Games to someone and I made it sound boring.  If you’ve read the trilogy, I’m sure you think it’s impossible to make dull, but any piece of work stripped of its details sounds uninspiring.  Try it.  Try to explain Harry Potter in a few sentences – you can’t touch on all the emotions, adventure and riveting fun in such a small space – if you could, book seven would have been a lot shorter.

So to pitch my own work, in sixty seconds, or worse 25 words, was so daunting a task I found myself putting it off for weeks.  When it couldn’t be avoided any longer, I spent so much energy on it I could have written another screenplay or gotten through half the edits on my next project.

Putting my work out there for others to judge, I hoped to be the proud mother of the valedictorian, and feared that I'd come across like a slightly unhinged mother from Toddlers and Tiaras.

All the advice I found online could be summed up in five words: just talk; have a conversation.  A conversation, though, suggests an equal footing.  When only one of you is being judged, that balance doesn't occur.  Pitching is more like an interview or a presentation in that it's all about making a good impression.  Unlike an interview or presentation, it doesn't come down to the preparation you did; knowing the sources and being as much of an expert as the time allowed.  For a fiction pitch, you're not being judged on your level of preparation, you're being judged on your ability to create a spark.

Like trying to pick up a guy, you can straighten your hair, you can put on mascara and your favorite perfume, but at the end of the day there has to be something intriguing about you that makes the person want to know more.  You need a spark that will result in the exchange of phone numbers, or in a pitch’s case email addresses.  As in dating, if you try to fabricate something, the chemistry will fizzle and you’ll be told that they already have a similar project from another client – the equivalent of being told that they have a girlfriend (but let’s face it, if they were that crazy about that project/girlfriend they wouldn’t be looking around, would they?)  So after all that energy that I used to come up with the best words to describe my work, I discovered that while the advice to have a conversation is sound, the most important thing is to just be yourself… 

But it doesn't hurt to have a really good opening line.