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Tired? What's causing it?

Besides a lack of sleep, there can be many things causing low energy, fatigue and consistent 'tiredness'. When we're fatigued, we want to move slow, we're not motivated, focused or as effective as we need to be. You may even not be energised by coffee or other caffeine sources!


Let's look at where energy comes from before we talk about what the contributing factors are to fatigue. The image below depicts a (basic) cellular energy chain - the metabolic cycles that give us ATP, or 'energy'. We intake our food and break it down into the tiny molecules that our cells use to do this. Fats, proteins and carbohydrates (macronutrients) can all be processed into ATP in one way or another. You don't have to understand this whole chain - it looks a bit hectic if you haven't studied biochemistry before, but take a look at the colourful rectangular boxes. These are the (micro)nutrients our cells use to process macronutrients into energy. I'm sure you've seen most of them before on the back of energy supplements or even daily mulivitamins. *Caffeine is not a necessary agent, nor a micronutrient but it does speed up some pathways shown below*


Metabolic energy pathways

Ok, but what does fatigue look like?


  • sleepiness (duh)

  • headaches, dizziness, blurry vision

  • sore, achey or resistant muscles

  • impaired cognitive function (concentration, decision making, judgement)

  • moodiness, low motivation

  • slow hand-eye coordination

  • low appeitite or endless appetite

  • reduced immune function

  • impaired short term memory


This leads us into one of the most common reasons for fatigue - a lack of the appropriate micronutrients to faciliate ATP production. Simple, right? Eat more food, take a multi? Mmmm, not really. It could simply be you're not eating enough nutrient dense foods, sure, but it could also be issues with their breakdown, their absorption or even an issue with our cells being able to use the micronutrients. What we'd call cellular dysfunction.


You may be eating all the right foods and instead using too many micronutrients up in other metabolic pathways that leaves too little for these ones. This could be due to stress, which uses extra magnesium, B vitamins and antioxidants in an effort to compensate for the excess cortisol and adrenaline. You could have a chronic illness (including mental health) or immune condition which may 'steal' some of those nutrients too. It takes a lot of antioxidants and immune cells to fight inflammation in these conditions too! Chronic stress can also drive infections/ pathogenic growth and worsen chronic conditions.


Other reasons for issues with ATP production include: thyroid dysfunction (influences use of fats and carbohydrates, stimulates ATP production normally), or glucose dysregulation or insulin resistance (known to increase inflammatory mediators when high and create oxidative stress, we need insulin to help glucose enter the cell in the first place). I'll leave those for another blog...


Provided you are eating well, getting enough sleep (!!) and moving your body properly - any one of those underlined reasons above could be holding your energy levels back. When we create a treatment plan, we ask you *a million and one* questions so we can thoroughly detect WHERE you're energy issue is and this helps give us direction as to how to improve it.


What are some easy things you can try at home?

  • get. enough. sleep.

  • drink your water so your cells can flow effectively

  • rule out thyroid or iron deficiency

  • eat balanced colourful meals

  • swap your pre-bed scrolling for a book

  • early morning sunshine

  • move your body regularly (I know, hard habit to get into once you're already fatigued)

  • combat your stress levels


Beyond that, book a consult so we can sort it out!




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