Low Energy?

Three Ways To Erase Your Fatigue, Tiredness and Exhaustion Forever

We all work too hard every once in a while or maybe go a few nights without getting good, quality sleep.

That’s just life.

Perhaps you have a big test you’re cramming for or maybe a make-it-or-break-it presentation at the office and you’re feeling exhausted.  It could be there’s a new baby or puppy in the house or you’ve just hosted a big celebration for friends and extended family that has sapped all of your energy.

If we’re healthy this isn’t such a big deal.  In these acute experiences, we know what has caused our fatigue or low energy and generally how to remedy it: take a vacation, catch up on sleep during the weekend, take some time off, or get a hand from some friends or family to help relieve your stress.

These instances in our lives that everyone experiences from time to time are exactly why maintaining a good base level of health and performing preventative maintenance on your mind and body is vitally important.  We must remain healthy and robust so that in times of heightened stress or fatigue we don’t fall victim to debilitating and life altering disease.  It all points back to prevention.

However, there are many of you that experience exhaustion, low energy and fatigue that is more profound and oftentimes relentless.  You’re constantly tired and it’s impacted your energy, concentration and motivation.  It’s affected your mental and emotional well-being and relationships.

The good news is that acute and chronic low energy, fatigue and exhaustion can be handled in exactly the same way from both a prevention and treatment perspective.

Keep reading and we’ll discuss the three ways you can erase your exhaustion and increase your energy so you can live life to the fullest, all the time. 

#1 – Optimize Your Lifestyle

It goes without saying that your lifestyle has a tremendous impact on your energy levels.  By lifestyle, I mean what you actually subject your body and mind to in the form of stressors, activities and sleep.

I don’t have to tell you that staying up until dawn partying every weekend and sleeping all day is a much different lifestyle than getting a good night’s rest, waking early to exercise and spending time doing social, productive activities with your family and friends.  These different lifestyles will have vastly different impacts on your energy levels.

Having said that, let’s dig a little deeper and give you some easy to implement tips on how to optimize your lifestyle.

Stress

Don’t fall into the stress trap.  Here are some ideas to avoid it:

• Prioritize Your Life. Then Learn To Say No!

I know it’s hard for nice folks like you to say no to people and things you care about.  You need to be realistic and realize you can’t possibly be everything to everyone.

Get out a pen and paper, write down the people, things, pets, and whatever else that exists in your life that requires your energy.  The next step is difficult but necessary: order these in terms of priority to YOU and YOUR long-term happiness.

Next, write “MY HEALTH” at the top and put “NUMBER ONE” next to it.

Done.

Now that you have your list, the next time someone asks you to commit your time to something that isn’t a top priority for your health and happiness, just say no.  It’s harder than it seems but the good news is that it gets easier every time you do it.

• Cultivate YOUR Happiness

Plan times in your day and week to cultivate happiness and execute them!  This is where you get to indulge yourself in healthful activities.  Whoever said good health is all about avoidance and reduction?

Do those healthy activities that YOU enjoy, that make your brain and/or body happy and that cultivate and strengthen the relationships that are important to you.   The possibilities are endless and totally subjective on what you value.  Just plan ahead, make the time and DO IT. This is non-negotiable if you’re currently experiencing fatigue or low energy. Literally take out your calendar or smartphone and pencil in “me time”.

Sleep

I cannot stress enough how important sleep is to combatting low energy.  It’s really the lynchpin here.  You can do everything else right but if your sleep is off you’ll stay exhausted and tired.

I go into this in great detail in my last article (link to sleep article) so be sure to go back and review.  Here are some key tips for a good night’s rest:

• Keep your room pitch black and ditch all the electronics and light sources.
• Don’t ever stay up past 10:30 PM
• Wake up as close to sunrise as possible and go to bed as close to sunset as possible.
• Get outside and move.

Exercise

How many times do I have to say it?  Find physical activities that YOU enjoy and make them a habit.  Bonus points if you can get your heart rate up for at least 75 minutes a day and put your musculoskeletal system under load from time to time.  Run. Jog. Lift weights. Garden. Rock out in your living room to some dance music.  Chase your kids around the house.  Take your dog for a hike every morning. I don’t care but please just move every day.

Other Lifestyle Related Causes And Fixes for Low Energy

There are a few other underlying causes of low energy and fatigue beyond stress, sleep and exercise.

Low oxygen. Oxygen may seem like too obvious of a cause of your low energy, but I’ve seen it many times.  Much of the time it’s related to practicing proper breathing and posture.  If you’re body isn’t getting the oxygen it needs, over time you can develop low blood oxygen levels or hypoxemia.  This causes you to feel tired and fatigue comes much more quickly.

Blood Chemistry Problems. Blood issues may be another specific issue causing you to feel fatigued.  This includes:

• Anemia can develop when you don’t have enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin.  The most common type is due to an iron or vitamin B12 deficiency and can very easily be treated with dietary changes and iron supplementation.  Add in some red meat, seafood and leafy greens or use vitamin B12 supplements to start. 
• Blocked arteries. Blocked arteries are another potential cause of extreme fatigue or malaise.  This isn’t something to mess around with, because time is of the essence when it comes to dealing with blocked arteries and potential heart disease.  If you’ve implemented all of the other advice in this article, and still have extreme fatigue, I urge you to contact myself or another medical professional as soon as possible. 

• Nutrient depletion. Like joint pain or nutrient deficiencies which can also cause low energy.   If you’re not sure where you may be depleted, consider a test like the SpectraCell Micronutrient 

• Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, can be another specific cause of low energy.  In most people, hypoglycemia is associated with diabetes.   Along with low energy, look for shakiness, anxiety, irritability, confusion, dizziness and hunger. Long term fixes include weight loss and dietary changes while ingestion of foods high in carbohydrate are a short term fix.  If you’re concerned about hypoglycemia, contact me for a consultation today. 

Hydration. When you use or lose more water than you take in, your body doesn’t have enough to carry out its normal functions.  This can result in low energy but in severe cases you’ll experience extreme thirst, dry mouth, dark-colored urine and dizziness.  Make sure you’re drinking several glasses of high-quality, filtered water and avoid drinking out of plastic bottles – especially those containing BPAs.   

Electronic Toxicity! EMFs or electromagnetic fields are constantly bombarding our bodies.  They’re emitted from powerlines, underground utilities, wiring in buildings and the electronic devices in our homes and offices.  They have also been linked to fatigue.  Unfortunately, unless you move to an extremely remote location, you can’t completely avoid them but you can take steps to minimize your exposure.  A simple start is to shut off any electronic devices in your home when they’re not in use. 

#2 – Optimize Your Diet

Diet, like lifestyle, needs to be optimized if you wish to maintain a high level of energy.  Clean it up as much as you can.  You can try some of the following methods:

• Paleo Diet. The first step to cure low energy with diet is to give the Paleo diet a solid effort.  The premise here is to remove all the foods from your diet that your body did not evolve to consume – anything that was developed after the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago.  That means no grains like wheat and corn, bread, sugar or legumes.  At first also try to avoid alcohol.  What this does is remove all the anti-nutrients, like lectin and gluten, found in foods like wheat and beans that wreak havoc on your gut health.  This gives your body a chance to heal and produce clean energy.

• Ketogenic Diet. Employing a ketogenic diet can also work to stabilize your energy, enhance your mood and make you feel like a superhero.  It’s tough to get started, but once you switch your body from burning glucose to ketones, it’s all downhill and you’ll never have a sugar craving again.  To get started, consume only high quality, fatty animal proteins like meat, fish and eggs.  Some dairy can be used sparingly but aim for about 60% of your calories from fat, 30% from protein and 10% from carbohydrates.

• Intermittent Fasting. Once you’ve switched over to and had success with the Paleo or Ketogenic Diet you might want to try intermittent fasting to increase your energy levels even further.  There are many ways to employ this.  Examples included eating only every other day, or for a four hour window every day (and fasting for twenty hours).  Besides increase your energy, intermittent fasting helps regulate insulin levels, release human growth hormone, repair your cells and promote beneficial gene expression.  Once you’re fat adapted on either the Paleo or Ketogenic diet you may just fall into an intermittent fasting routine on your own. 

#3 – Clean Your Filters

We live in toxic world.  Toxins are everywhere: in the air we breath, the food we eat and the water we drink.  While we can do our best to avoid them, there’s no way to completely escape them.  Excessive body toxicity (or toxic burden) can cause you all kinds of problems, including low energy and fatigue.  Some of the mechanisms behind a toxic body and low energy include:

• Cellular Inflammation – All of the cells in your body are housed by a membrane that contains receptors. These receptors allow vitamins and nutrients in so your cell can create energy.  These receptors also let toxic by-products created during the energy production process out.  Your cell membranes can become inflamed by environmental toxins which then blunts this entire process.  Result? A sluggish cellular energy production system and a sluggish body.

• Mitochondrial Disease – Think of the mitochondria in your cells as little power plants within your body. They are responsible for creating 90% of the energy needed to sustain life and support organ function.  Expose them to too many toxins and they can start to shut down and make you feel tired, weak and downright exhausted.

Talk to us to assess your body’s toxic burden We can look for the heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, volatile solvents and plasticizers you may have an excess of in your body that are making you tired.  We can help you detoxify and teach you how to avoid toxins as much as possible.

To Recap

In order to bump up your energy levels for good, you need to optimize your 1) lifestyle, 2) diet and 3) detoxify your body.  I’ve given you a good start in this article on how to go about this but if you have any questions or want more detailed information, get in touch with me today.

Did this information help you in any way in your understanding of Low Energy?
What have you tried in the past to work on increasing energy in a sustainable way?
Share your opinion in the comments or email me!

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