3 surprising causes of fatigue

Feeling tired often? Today we’re going to look at 3 causes of fatigue that are often overlooked.
Feeling tired is a symptom that something in your body/brain isn’t working the way it was designed to work. It often overlaps (not always) with other symptoms like inflammation, weight imbalance, poor sleep, and gut issues. And in most cases of fatigue, the root cause ties back to gut health.

Your gut is where you take all the good stuff you eat and drink and transform it into the many building blocks your body needs to make energy, think clearly, sleep well, maintain a healthy weight, build muscle, and clear out toxins that need clearing out daily so you can thrive. 

Without this basic function, your energy doesn’t stand a chance.

It is my passion is to work with people like you whose health symptoms–like low energy, gut/digestive issues, excess weight, mood imbalance, and skin & sleep problems–are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully.
 

3 Surprising Causes of Fatigue

1. Adenosine imbalance. Adenosine is a brain chemical that makes you feel relaxed/sleepy. You have lots of receptors on your brain (like locks on a door) for various chemicals including adenosine. Caffeine fits these same receptors! Like a key that can open a door, caffeine’s “key” fits the adenosine locks which blocks adenosine from fitting there and making you feel sleepy. That’s why caffeine is a stimulant. The bad news is that over time your brain adapts to caffeine by increasing both adenosine and adenosine receptors (this is why caffeine withdrawal can feel brutal–eventually your brain will turn back down adenosine production and you feel normal again. There’s much more to this process and if you’d like to geek out on it, click here).
2. Low orexin. So orexin is your peppy, upbeat, happy brain chemical. When it’s up, you feel alert, focused, and energetic. When it’s low, you feel exhausted, depressed, and sleepy. What crushes orexin levels? Refined sugar, foods/drinks that cause big spikes in blood sugar, caffeine, and inflammation. True, you’ll get an initial spike in energy (from your “reward” brain chemical dopamine”, followed by depletion of orexin and all that goes with it.
3. Inflammation. Sugar (refined sugar, blood sugar spikes and crashes) leads to increased cytokines from your immune system which suppresses orexin (remember, low orexin=low energy).

For more detail on these brain chemicals and fatigue, check out this podcast. It’s excellent.

There’s plenty you can do with diet and lifestyle to support robust brain chemicals (eat whole, unprocessed foods whenever possible, hydrate, get 7-8 hrs of sleep/night, move your body, etc). And it’s probably not a surprise to read that sugar isn’t a health food!  For many of you, you may know what to do but don’t have a system in place that allows you to do it consistently and experience the benefits: having good energy being one of them.
If you are tired of being on the hamster wheel with your energy or other symptoms and you’re ready to take your health to the next level FOR GOOD, I’d love to connect with you. Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session. http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability).

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!

~Rebecca