We all know the feeling; you wake up and you’re still feeling sluggish, struggle to get out of bed, you hit snooze and when it’s time to really really get up you are still tired. Throughout the day you feel tired..reaching for caffeine and watching the clock counting down the hours until it’s time to finish work and relax again. 

 

Then it’s time to go to sleep again and we struggle. Our minds are suddenly awake. We suddenly feel the most energized we have all day as we toss and turn in bed frustrated we can’t fall asleep. 

 

Whether you are having excessive feelings of tiredness during the day, struggling to fall asleep or always feeling tired even after a good nights sleep its time to understand the root cause of your fatigue. 

Constantly feeling tired/low in energy is not normal and one of the biggest signs our body can give us that something is going on inside that we need to address 

Our body needs energy to function. Our main body’s processes need energy to run optimally; our hormones, metabolism, digestion, cognitive health regulation, muscle health and so on 

Feeling constantly tired is a sign your body is energy deficient. Allowing your body to continue having less energy that it needs is when we can run into endless health issues

Lets look at some reasons why your potentially always tired.

Poor sleep – whether length of sleep but ,more commonly, quality of sleep. For our body to actually recover and regulate itself we need to be in a DEEP/REM sleep. Unfortunately many people struggle to fall into a deep sleep long enough for their body to recover hence they wake up feeling sluggish and/or experience energy crashes throughout the day 

Nutrient Deficiencies

For the vast majority of things (Gut issues, fatigue, hormonal health, metabolism, inflammation etc) they always circle back to your NUTRITION 

How we feel is directly linked to how we FUEL our body 

What we eat comes out in our energy, our skin, our guts, our mental well being and so much more 

So for clients who come to us with low energy/feelings of constant fatigue, one of the first things we look at is their NUTRITION 

For a few different reasons: 

Firstly – are they eating enough? Unfortunately because of the diet culture women believe they need to follow such restrictive diets in order to lose weight. We have been conditioned as women to believe the only thing that matters is WEIGHT and hence we unknowingly sacrifice HEALTH in the pursuit of it 

A lot of the women who come to us have been consuming very low calories for prolonged periods of time and hence they are struggling with energy, hormonal issues, slow metabolism and so much more 

Secondly – is their diet balanced? Again, because of the diet world many foods have been demonized. Wholegrain carbs and healthy fats for example. Our body requires a wide range of minerals and vitamins. Many many women are deficient in certain minerals because they restrict food groups from their diet and certain minerals are only found in these food groups. 

Thirdly – are they overconsuming highly processed foods? Our digestion finds these foods the hardest to break down inside our gut. When our body struggles to break down and digest foods it drains more energy from our body to help. Hence, you will feel tired as a result. 

Lack of physical activity – Frequent exercise leads our bodies to produce more mitochondria, the part of the cell responsible for energy production, which increases the amount of energy our body can produce. Hence when we are very sedentary in our day to day lives less mitochondria is produced leaving us feeling tired and sluggish. Exercise can also help us relieve day to day stress. Heightened stress impacts our central nervous system resulting in us feeling tired. So those people who manage stress from day to day life through exercise can feel more energized because they are not in constant “fight or flight” mode

Stress – As mentioned, stress can result in our body feeling tired. Stress also impacts our quality of sleep which as mentioned before leads to many issues, fatigue being one. Stress also inflames our gut which can cause bloating and problems with digestion. As already discussed, poor digestion results in using more energy from other cells in our body to help break down our food which leaves us feeling tired. So as you can see, stress has many knock on effects that leave us feeling tired and sluggish. 

Dehydration – Water plays vital roles in our bodies: It’s responsible for distributing nutrients around our cells, removing waste, regulating temperature and more. “When we’re dehydrated, these core functions can’t happen, and our bodies react to preserve energy, making us feel sleepy,” sleep expert Maddie Pasquariello advises

Being Deyhrated can also make the blood thicker, making it harder for the heart to pump blood throughout the body, which can contribute to fatigue, adds Dr. Hsu.

Caffeine – we are all aware of caffeine and the impacts it has to our sleep/energy levels but on top of causing issues with falling asleep, caffeine also impacts our body’s ability to fall into a DEEP sleep. So you may not have any issues falling asleep but are preventing your body to fall into that deep sleep. Caffeine remains in our body up to 8 hours after consumption. 

Alcohol – Alcohol has huge impacts to our sleep. As little as a glass of wine can disrupt our sleep quality. The sedating effects of alcohol wears off after about 1-2 hours so we experience lighter and broken sleep the rest of the night, limiting our body’s ability to be a DEEP sleep long enough to recover 

Body Composition (Overweight) – Being overweight can impact our sleep for many reasons but one of the most prominent ones is the impact to our sleep wake cycle. Having too much additional fat inside our body limits our body’s ability to regulate hormones in optimal fashion – one of this hormones being the production of melatonin. Melatonin helps regulates our sleep wake cycle which produces natural cortisol in the mornings to allow us to feel energized and then melatonin in the evenings to help us sleep 

How to Improve Energy Levels

If you are feeling tired all the time the below are some measures that could help overhaul your energy levels and get back to FEELING GOOD 

• Practice Good Sleep Hygiene – read my full blog on the steps to achieve this 
• Improve your Nutrition – ensure you are eating ENOUGH, ensure you are consuming a balanced diet with adequate minerals and vitamins. If you are ensure where to start here book a free health consultation with my team below to help you balance your nutrition 
• Reduce Caffeine and alcohol intake. Note the word reduce. We dont need to totally eliminate but a reduction will do wonders for our energy levels 
• MOVE YOUR BODY – turn your attention to FEELING good through exercise rather than viewing it as a means to lose weight. Because in reality exercise doesn’t drive weight loss, your nutrition does anyway. Introduce consistent movement whether that’s walking, yoga, swimming, a gym workout. 

• Stay hydrated. Hydrate before you caffeinate is a golden guideline the women in our community follow. This works towards preventing that 2pm slump. Aiming for 2 litres of water across the day is a good baseline 
• Manage your stress  by introducing healthy stress management tools. We have been learning all about the body’s main stress hormone CORTISOL inside our Free Facebook group this week. Join myself and 12,000 other women each week as we LEARN about health and free ourselves from dieting…