Some of the more obvious reasons for fatigue and low energy are poor sleep, high stress, and intense activity. But what about hormone deficiencies, anemia, vitamin and mineral deficiency and infections? All of these are possibilities and may be working in combination together to deplete you of your energy. Instead of reaching for the coffee or energy drinks, often loaded with caffeine and sugar, it is best to determine the root cause of the fatigue to determine why it is happening in the first place.
If it were as easy as sleeping more, stressing less, and eating better, then fatigue wouldn’t be one of the most common issues affecting peoples’ health. The Peak Method works to uncover the hidden variables affecting the ability to restore and maintain normal energy levels.
Many health issues can be a direct cause of stress. Fatigue is no different. The chiropractic philosophy handles this very well because its main focuses are Traumas, Thoughts and Toxins, also known as The Three Ts:
Thoughts are the obvious one when it comes to stress. It is the form of stress everyone defaults to when they think of stress. This is understandable because of the amount of mental stress that people encounter everyday of their lives. Mental stress is so important because of the way the body processes it. When mentally stressed, it affects your adrenal function, necessary chemical reactions, and it shifts the nervous system from a parasympathetic state to a sympathetic state. Living your life in sympathetic tone not only negatively impacts your adrenals, but drains your body of the ability to consistently provide you with the amount of energy the body needs for normal function, resulting in fatigue.
Trauma can lead to stress in the body as well. For example, this form of stress can come from joint damage, musculoskeletal complaints, organ dysfunction, or broken bones to name a few. These types of conditions call other organ systems, like the immune system, into action. If you have ever been sick with anything like the common cold, you probably felt more fatigued as the body was shifting its priority to initiating the immune system to fight the virus. These types of responses are demanding when it comes to the body's energy sources. If your body is busy utilizing energy to heal, then you will feel the energy pinch.
Toxins can cause another immune response. These can result from daily exposures to chemicals found in everyday products such as cleaners, air fresheners, perfumes, medications, etc. All of these things that we use on a daily basis, and have become commonplace in our lives, can be contributing to major symptoms.
One of the major sources that causes our bodies to go into a stressed state is the food that we eat. We are exposed to different ways of eating more today than ever before in history. Everytime you turn on the tv or open the internet there is a new fad diet you are being told you need to try. The problem with this is that there is not a one size fits all solution that works for all people. Everyone's metabolism and physiology is different, and what works for your metabolism may not work for someone else. If you are not feeding your metabolism properly, your energy production will suffer.
You can't talk about fatigue without addressing inflammation! Inflammation is your body's immune system kicking in and trying to protect the body. This can be due to the foods that you are eating. When your body launches the immune response of inflammation, it is quite literally waging a war with invading toxins, meaning it needs to supply more energy and effort toward fighting them off than normal. This leaves you with decreased energy levels—one more of the reasons for fatigue. Determining which food you are reacting to is a major solution to fatigue.
There are many factors to take into consideration when trying to solve the issue of fatigue. Diet, exercise, and stress are all important, but there are many other components that may need to be uncovered. Things like are you exercising enough, are you exercising too much? Are you on some medications that may be producing some side effects contributing to your fatigue? Are you drinking enough water? How are your sleeping conditions? Are there underlying health conditions such as infections, or anemia? Specific testing to try and identify the root cause is very important. Discuss with your practitioner your complete health history to help better understand what may be the cause. This way, you may start to identify what specific factors are causing your fatigue and get on the right track to living an energized life.