Get More Energy
It seems as though everyone is complaining about how tired they are these days, even asking their doctors how to get more energy during wellness visits. There’s always a reason they can cite in the short-term — they’ve been working a lot, or there’s something stressful going on — but when practitioners start asking more questions, it doesn’t take long to figure out that their patients have been tired for a long time. This isn’t just a recent, acute event.
There are many reasons for people to feel fatigued — especially in the U.S., where we work long hours, eat poorly, and never seem to get enough sleep. Let’s take a look at some of the most common reasons people feel tired and what changes they can make in their lives to have more energy.
Cellular Energy Production vs. Physical Energy
First, let’s talk about cellular energy versus physical energy. Cellular energy is the foundation of physical energy. Mitochondria are the power packs of our cells. They are the engines that provide the power and energy to keep us running. When your cells have all the energy they need, so do you.
Environmental toxins such as pollution, industrial chemicals, cigarette smoke, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation contribute to damaging delicate mitochondria and impairing cellular function. This can lead to mitochondrial dysfunction which has been known to lead to many common health concerns.
We can help our mitochondria stay strong and active by eating nutritious foods, exercising regularly, and keeping healthy sleeping patterns. Many supplements (except for those with caffeine or other stimulants) are designed to support cellular energy production.
It’s important to note that stimulants will not actually give you more energy. They will temporarily make you feel more energized, but this isn’t sustainable. In many cases, stimulants can have a reverse effect because they deplete your body of necessary nutrients, or cause you to crash an hour or two later.
Common Causes of Feeling Tired
There are many reasons that people might feel fatigued at any given time. Some are straightforward and can be diagnosed with a simple blood test, while others are a product of — and unfortunately, those are quite common, and far more difficult to fix.
An Underlying Medical Condition
First and foremost, it’s important to determine if the reason for has to do with an existing medical condition. “My first step is to order lab work to see if there is an underlying problem with thyroid condition, anemia, or some other medical condition. These sorts of issues must be ruled out first,” says Emerson Ecologics Medical Advisory Board Member .
“After we rule out medical problems, their lifestyle and diet are often contributing to their poor energy. But most importantly, I make sure they know that this is all fixable.”
Lack of Sleep
Bader says that, in her experience, more often than not, insufficient sleep is the problem. “So many people under-value and under-prioritize sleep. It needs to be a priority.” While no one actually wants to hear this answer (we all want to believe we can get less sleep and still function normally), this is a very common cause for low energy.
According to renowned sleep expert James Maas, the average adult needs anywhere from each night. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that adults get at least 7 hours of sleep per night, but that of adults get less than that.
It’s also possible to get a sufficient number of hours, but not feel rested in the morning because the was poor, due to waking up multiple times, not getting enough deep sleep (REM), or having restless dreams.
Inadequate Diet
Diet can affect people’s energy levels in a variety of ways. Not getting enough calories will leave you tired because the cells are unable to get the energy they need to fuel the body. Getting too many calories will overload them. And of course, eating a nutrient-poor diet filled with fried foods, white flour, or sugar will not supply the body with the vitamins and minerals it needs to fuel itself.
“The computer adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’ also applies with the diet,” says , ND, LAc, FABNO. “Certain food choices are universally challenging for energy levels, e.g. simple sugars and carbohydrates that cause blood sugar spikes that inevitably are followed by blood sugar crashes.”
Sedentary Lifestyle
People now are more sedentary than people in previous decades for a variety of reasons — people use computers at work, and are sitting for a significant amount of time, fewer people have active jobs, fewer people walk or ride bikes to work, and a good number of people aren’t getting the recommended amount of exercise.
If people aren’t getting the physical activity the body needs to exhaust itself, it might be more difficult to get quality sleep at night. Additionally, being sedentary all day doesn’t allow your body and mind to wake up enough.
Periods of Stress
Physically, can interfere with sleep, and therefore energy. But stress is also emotionally and mentally exhausting, which means that even if you’re getting sufficient sleep, you might still wake up exhausted.
Lara Krawchuck, MSW, LCSW, MPH is a psychotherapist, adjunct professor and an expert in loss and grief. She says that the role of mental health in fatigue cannot be understated, whether that is loss of a loved one or extraordinary stress from current events. “Grief can be extremely depleting — especially if there is no clear ending in sight,” Krawchuck says
“Any change — positive or negative — lands as stress in the body,” Boice concurs. “Over the years I’ve also learned that what the mind considers stressful is not the same as what the body considers stressful. In other words, some people are fine mentally with large amounts of change, but the body may be overwhelmed. I see this particularly in high level athletes who are trained to override body signals with their minds, to ‘power-through’ painful or stressful situations.”
Too Much Caffeine
As counter intuitive as it sounds, too much caffeine can actually have the reverse effect on the body. Caffeine blocks adenosine in the brain. Adenosine binds to receptors and causes drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity. However, caffeine also binds to these receptors, which blocks the brain from recognizing adenosine, thereby not allowing the brain to slow down.
Furthermore, caffeine can directly affect sleep. For example, the caffeine in your afternoon cup of coffee can linger in your system for hours (caffeine has a half-life of ), causing you to have trouble falling asleep at night. The following day, you might have more trouble waking up, and feel drowsy throughout the day.
Too Much Sugar
Sugar is processed through the body very quickly and has no nutritional value whatsoever. As Boice already stated, sugar causes the blood sugar to spike, which results in a crash afterward. While the sweet treat might make you feel more energized in the short term, people with diets high in sugar may experience lack of energy more often.
Sugar can sneak up on people’s diets because it’s in so many processed foods and can be named so many different things on ingredient labels. Be sure to read the labels on packaged foods carefully to determine if there are hidden sugars (corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, maltose, etc)
It’s also important to remember that fatigue may be caused by multiple different things on this list, which can make it more difficult to figure out what’s going on. “Most of the time fatigue is a simple problem, but caused by a number of factors all contributing at once,” says Bader. “For example, this could be due to frequent, constant stress and inflammation, poor diet and not enough sleep.”
Now that we’ve exhausted the ways in which we can become fatigued, let’s talk about how to get more energy and live a fuller life.
How to Get More Energy
Prioritize Sleep
Boice and Bader both believe one of the primary drivers of low energy is lack of sleep, or under prioritized sleep. Boice cautions that your internal clock waking you up is not a good indication that you got enough sleep. “The body clock is set by habit, not by optimal sleep,” she says.
In order to determine how much sleep is best for you, do a bit of experimentation. “Keep your same waking time every day and gradually move up your going to sleep time,” Boice advises. When you wake up feeling rested and don’t lag very much throughout the day, you know you’ve found your optimal sleep length. Once you’ve found it, do your best to stick to it.
Eat Well, with Plenty of Fruits and Vegetables
Bader says that diet is the second-most important factor in fatigue (next to sleep, of course). “Eat home cooked meals full of vegetables and minimize inflammatory foods such as sugar, alcohol, gluten, dairy, corn, nightshades, and caffeine.”
Boice also believes that no diet is a one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone needs individualized attention. “I work with patients to individualize their diet. People could unknowingly have food allergies or intolerances, which can contribute to fatigue. Discovering a patient’s specific food reactants often requires testing.”
Exercise
In a similar way that alcohol is a depressant, exercise is a stimulant. “Regular exercise will boost your baseline energy,” says , “and any given exercise session (especially a cardio workout) will give you a temporary boost in energy. Even if you’re already tired after a long day, exercise is still recommended and will still give you an energy boost.”
While there are many benefits of exercise, in this case its value stems from the fact that “oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and helps your cardiovascular system work more efficiently.” Heart and lung health are tied to energy because your cells, tissues, and muscles have the tools they need to function well.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation is touted as a way to calm people down when they’re feeling , but many experts recommend meditation before bed as a method of relaxing and slowing down their brains before falling asleep. In theory, this should help people get more restful sleep.
Dr. Herbert Benson is the director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. He has been studying relaxation techniques and responses for decades, and he recommends mindfulness meditation for about 20 minutes per day. “The idea is to create a reflex to more easily bring forth a sense of relaxation,” . The better a person is able to create this feeling during the day, the more easily they can utilize this practice at night if they’re having trouble sleeping.
Stay Hydrated
Another simple way to boost your energy is to “hydrate, hydrate, hydrate,” says best-selling author and physician . “Water is crucial to almost every function in the body. Without it, we can’t absorb nutrients or eliminate toxins. It energizes you because water is used to make energy on a cellular level in your body. If you’re even mildly dehydrated, your body will alert you with fatigue, and you’ll feel wiped out.”
Limit Caffeine
We’ve already covered why caffeine can make it more difficult for people to sleep at night. Bader says to limit caffeine to less than 60mg per day before noon, which is about a six-to-eight ounce cup of coffee, or an eight-to-ten ounce cup of tea. After that, either switch to decaf, or stick with water.
Try Energizing Supplements
Supplements like Ginseng, rhodiola and cordyceps support the , healthy blood sugar levels and normal cortisol activity. Ginseng has been extensively studied for its ability to support feelings of energy and well-being. But help get to the root cause. Here are some supplements you can try to see if they help give you an energy boost throughout the day.
- CoQ10
- American, Asian, or Korean Ginseng
- Nicotinamide Riboside
- B-complex vitamins
- L-carnitine
- Resveratrol
- Cordyceps
- Maca
Remember to check with your practitioner before trying any new supplements, as they may have adverse reactions with other medications you’re taking or underlying medical conditions.
Don’t Lose Hope
Someone who has been fatigued for many years may feel a bit hopeless in trying to find a remedy that works for them — particularly if the bloodwork has come back clear time after time. If that’s the case, the good news is that they don’t have an underlying medical condition that needs to be addressed. But the bad news is that the solution likely lies within habit changes — and that’s a bit more difficult.
If you keep up with these good habits — , getting consistent sleep, managing stress, and — you’re likely to see a difference in your overall energy levels.
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