Do you feel like no matter how long you sleep you always wake up tired? Are you dragging yourself through each day barely able to get the things you need to get done?
You're not alone. In this video, we explore the science of fatigue and ten reasons why you might be chronically exhausted.
From sleep deprivation and stress to poor nutrition and thyroid dysfunction, we cover all the common reasons people feel tired and lack energy even to do the most basic daily tasks.
If any of these sound familiar to you, make sure to watch it all for tips on how to get your energy back!
Transcript: The Top 10 Causes of Fatigue
How would you rate your energy levels out of 10 on a daily basis?
Do you feel like no matter how long you sleep you always wake up tired? Are you dragging yourself through each day barely able to get the things you need to get done?
Fatigue is the new illness of the 21st century and some of you I’m sure know, just how absolutely crippling it can be. So many of us are visiting our doctors to be only sent back out the door with a bloodwork that doesn’t reveal any abnormality, a clean bill of health and a belief that it must all be in our head- at least that’s what we’re told.
But let me tell you something that just may change your life: Fatigue is not normal. So for all those who have been pushing themselves through each day thinking that being so tired is just a normal part of life, this video is for you.
So fatigue can be described as the lack of energy and motivation, physical or mental.
Now if you want to optimise your energy levels and find a permanent solution to fatigue, the key lies in determining the root causes.
Let’s start with the obvious ones.
1. Lack of quality sleep
Maybe you’re struggling with insomnia, or maybe you just have a really bad sleep routine- perhaps you’re distracted by Instagram or TikTok before bed, or perhaps you’re often waking up during the night to go to the toilet. This is obviously going to impact your energy levels the next day. Keep your eyes out for a future video where I’ll talk about strategies to improve your sleep.
2. Low iron
Maybe it’s as simple a solution as iron supplementation or increasing your intake of iron-rich foods. This is where bloodwork can show an abnormality and trust me, getting your iron levels back up can make all the difference. So if you haven’t got your iron levels checked yet, it’s probably worth asking your doctor.
3. Poor eating habits
It could be not getting enough nutrients from your food which can happen if you’re eating the standard western diet of refined carbohydrates and little fruit and vegetables. Maybe you’re not getting enough protein and your blood sugar levels are fluctuating. Try eating a balanced diet of nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables, a palm-sized portion of plant-based protein such as tofu, legumes and nuts and seeds at every meal, and healthy wholegrains and fats.
There’s also a range of reasons for your fatigue that are not so obvious and having a health practitioner take your case history and do the appropriate testing can help you identify what they are.
4. Food intolerances
One of the top reasons why people are so tired is from the foods that they are reacting to. If you are intolerant to certain foods, this can damage your gut wall, cause what we call leaky gut, and therefore enable food proteins, toxins, bacteria and other inflammatory compounds to reach the bloodstream and cause an immune response, leading to body-wide inflammation and fatigue. Other common symptoms you may feel if you have a food intolerance include constipation, bloating, skin rashes and headaches. So if this sounds like you, it’s worth doing what we call an IgG food intolerance test or an elimination diet to identify what those foods are.
5. Dysbiosis
Another gut-derived cause of fatigue is dysbiosis, which is a fancy word to describe an imbalance of bacteria in your gut. Having too many pathogenic bacteria and not enough of the good guys can also cause this leaky gut picture and lead to that inflammatory, immune response.
6. Stress
This could be psychological stress or environmental stress such as heavy metals, pesticides and other toxins. These stressors can stimulate the release of pro-inflammatory chemicals and lead to leaky gut, leaky brain and systemic inflammation. This can affect neural messages from being passed as fast and cause both physical and mental fatigue.
7. Mitochondrial dysfunction
One of the primary causes of fatigue is mitochondrial dysfunction. The mitochondria provide our energy on a cellular level, and when they are not functioning optimally, our cells’ energy production is low, leading to symptoms of fatigue.
8. HPA axis dysfunction
What the heck is the HPA axis? Well it stands for hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and it is the system in our body responsible for dealing with stress. Now if you have been in a state of high stress for a while, this system, which has been responding by switching to our sympathetic state, or fight or flight response, can eventually kind of…give up. It gets tired of pumping out our stress hormones such as cortisol or adrenaline which help us fight or flee from the stressor, and instead, it goes into a state called adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is the medical term for burnout, which is most often associated with both physical and mental fatigue.
9. Thyroid dysfunction
Usually, this is a case of low thyroid function, known as hypothyroidism, and the autoimmune version called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. The hallmark symptoms are weight gain, constipation, feeling cold all the time, and fatigue.
10. Infection
The final in this list is infection and this could be a viral, bacterial or fungal infection. Infections can sap your energy as your body is busy focusing its energies and resources on fighting the pathogen. Sometimes the cause of infection is obvious like a flu that is going around, or candida, also known as thrush, but often testing can really come in handy here.
And of course there are more causes of fatigue, such as an hormonal imbalance, medication side effects, insulin resistance, or a disease such as fibromyalgia, but these are the common top 10 reasons that your energy is not where it should be.
Now that’s enough from me. I would love to hear from you so please share in the comments how energy or a lack thereof, affects your life and stops you from doing the things you love. And please like and share to get this information out to more people like you who believe their lack of energy is just a normal part of life.
Last but not least, if you want to learn more about how to address one of the major causes of fatigue, food intolerances, check out this video here.
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