How Do You Know If Your Fatigue

Risks And Side Effects

First, remember that any new dietary regimen or addition of supplements in your lifestyle should be implemented under the supervision of a physician/naturopath you trust.

In general, introducing more plant-based foods into your lifestyle and eliminating stimulants, sugary foods and processed items with a ton of sodium or chemicals added to them is going to help you feel and live better, regardless of conditions you may or may not have.

The larger concern comes when referring to herbs, spices, supplements and essential oils used to combat adrenal fatigue. Dont blindly use any new supplements, herb or essential oil without medical supervision or proper education on how, how much, how often and how long to use these supplements.

There are several herbs that should not be used when pregnant or breastfeeding. This includes medicinal mushrooms, adaptogenic herbs and some essential oils.

How Do You Know If You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

If you have consistent tiredness lasting at least 6 months and getting sleep doesnt help you feel better, you should see your doctor. Your doctor will check for chronic fatigue, as well as other underlying infections or psychological disorders of which fatigue is a symptom.

There isnt a single lab test that can help a doctor diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome. Rather, the diagnostic criteria is complicated and often overlap with symptoms of fibromyalgia. The United States Institute of Medicine has proposed the following guidelines must be present for a diagnosis:

• Fatigue so severe that it interferes with the ability to engage in pre-illness activities
• Not a lifelong condition, but of new or definite onset
• Not alleviated by rest
• Worsened by physical, mental or emotional exertion

To meet the Institute of Medicines diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, a person would also need to experience at least one of these two symptoms:

• Difficulties with memory, focus and concentration
• Dizziness that worsens with moving from lying down or sitting to standing

Take The Right Supplements

While itd be great if we could get all of our daily nutritional requirements from food alone, its rarely possible. The way in which food is grown, stored, processed and cooked destroys much of its nutritional value. Although most whole foods still harbor plenty of health benefits, they may not have enough of the vitamins and minerals you need to recover from adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue also wreaks havoc on the ability of your gut to absorb nutrients from food, as chronic stress hinders normal digestive function. Thats why supplements are a great way to top up your bodys nutritional needs, especially when your stores of a certain nutrient have been depleted for a while.

Here are some of the best supplements to help you recover from adrenal fatigue:

B Vitamins

This group of vitamins is the first step in getting your mind and body back into gear. B vitamins work together in helping the body create energy from the food you eat, while also supporting brain function and healthy skin, hair and muscles. Although the role of each B vitamin differs slightly, theyre all vital for a healthy metabolism and energy production.

B12 is particularly important in fact, its commonly referred to as the energy vitamin. Its needed for nerve function, mood regulation and the production of red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body, which aids energy production in the cells. Vitamins B12 and B6 are also linked to positivity and mental alertness.

Magnesium

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Some Illnesses Cause Fatigue

Sometimes, fatigue can be the first sign that something is wrong in your body. For example, people with rheumatoid arthritis, a painful condition that affects the joints, often complain of fatigue. People with cancer may feel fatigued from the disease, treatments, or both.

Many medical problems and treatments can add to fatigue. These include:

• Taking certain medications, such as antidepressants, antihistamines, and medicines for nausea and pain
• Having medical treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, or recovering from major surgery
• Infections
• Chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, thyroid disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Untreated pain and diseases like fibromyalgia
• Anemia
• Sleep apnea and other sleep disorders

Managing a health problem may make the fatigue go away. Your doctor can help.

Herbal Supplements And Superfoods

Adrenal fatigue can also be tackled with adrenal supplements that help your body adapt better to stress. These are called adaptogens and theyre usually potent herbs and superfoods that are extremely powerful and healing.

Some of the most common include ashwagandha, rhodiola, holy basil, schisandra, reishi mushrooms, ginseng, maca, and curcuma. Taking them in your smoothies, smoothie bowls, or even in pill form shows improvement in cortisol levels over time. Therefore, theyll help support adrenal fatigue and lessen your symptoms.

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Being Overweight Or Underweight

Overweight increases the risk of fatigue by increasing the risk of conditions that have fatigue as a common symptom, such as diabetes or sleep apnea.

Carrying more weight and experiencing joint or muscle pain can lead to or exacerbate fatigue.

Similarly, people with underweight may tire easily, depending on the cause of their condition. Eating disorders, cancer, chronic diseases, and an overactive thyroid can all cause weight loss, as well as excessive tiredness and fatigue.

Ok So How Do You Deal With Fatigue Symptoms

While your symptoms of exhaustion may point to the need to take a solid week of rest, the following, from Gough, may help you to feel more energised.

Its pretty simple out with energy-zapping foods, in with energy-pumping alternatives, and make a few minor adjustments to your current lifestyle, including getting the full span of vitamins and minerals that your body requires to function at its peak. Oh, and dont break the following rules, says Gough. Youll thank us for it in the long run.

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Overuse Of Stimulants Like Sugar And Caffeine

Are you one of those people whose day revolves around finding your next shot of caffeine? If so, youre not alone! Millions of people rely on stimulants like coffee and sugar to lift them up when they get tired. However, theres a big difference between drinking an occasional coffee and consuming stimulants all through the day.

The problem is that stimulants tend to lose their effectiveness over time. As chronic stress takes its toll on your endocrine system, each cup of coffee or sugary snack gives you less of an energy boost. Caffeine can prevent you from getting a good sleep too. The more stressed and tired you become, the more stimulants you need. This vicious cycle is how many people unwittingly accelerate their decline into hormonal dysregulation and extreme fatigue.

It doesnt have to be this way. Simply becoming more mindful of your caffeine and sugar consumption will often help to reduce it. Limit yourself to one or two coffees each day at first, then try to give it up entirely. Eat a nutritious, healthy diet, and try some of these low sugar recipes. Look for low glycemic fruits instead of sugary dried fruits or fruit juices. Learn how to improve your sleep hygiene so you wont feel the need for those stimulants. And identify ways to work more efficiently during the day, so you take rests when needed.

Do I Need To See A Doctor

If you can figure out the reason for feeling tired yourself, and do something about it, then no. If the tiredness is getting in the way of your life, or making you feel unhappy, or you feel unwell, then yes, you should visit your doctor.

You should definitely see a doctor if you feel tired and have lost weight without trying to. Also see a doctor if you have other symptoms as well as being tired, such as coughing up blood, a change in the way your guts are working, heavy periods or a lump somewhere it shouldn’t be.

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How Is Fatigue Managed

Making sure you have good quality sleep can help you manage fatigue. Ensure you go to bed at the same time each night and stick to healthy sleep habits.

Eating a healthy diet and doing regular physical activity will also help improve your sleep and lessen fatigue. Eat small, frequent meals throughout the day with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables avoid junk food and try to avoid alcohol and caffeine since these can affect your sleep.

If you have fatigue, talk to your doctor about whether it is safe to drive or carry out your normal work duties.

You’ve Got Dark Under

Sure, you might not be getting enough sleep. But dark circles crop up when stressors like fatigue, emotional stress, or dehydration disrupt healthy circulationand that shows through your thin under-eye skin, says Sandra Chiu, a Brooklyn acupuncturist, skin expert, and the founder of Treatment by Lanshin. If your dark circles are accompanied by a sunken, hollowed-out look, that often indicates a more serious issue with the kidneys, Chiu warns, and you should see a doctor.

The fix: Slow. Down. No amount of eye cream or concealer or will help if you’re overworked, exhausted, and overwhelmed by emotional stress. Chiu’s so-simple-it-hurts rule? “Do less, and be still more,” she says.

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When To See A Doctor For Your Fatigue

If youre still feeling tired all the time despite doing all you can to improve your diet, sleep and exercise habits, its time to see a doctor. Your doctor will talk to you about your symptoms and lifestyle and see if you have any other medical issues or are taking any medications. Your doctor may ask you to have various tests to see if you have another medical condition that is causing your extreme fatigue. If this is the case, you will get the answer to why you feel exhausted and be on your way to being treated and feeling better.

What Are The Symptoms Of Fatigue

Fatigue can cause a wide range of symptoms.

• Physical: feeling tired all the time, headaches, lightheadedness, sore, aching or weak muscles, loss of appetite, prone to getting sick.
• Mental: slowed reflexes and responses, poor decision making and judgement, short-term memory problems, poor concentration.
• Emotional: moodiness, irritability, low motivation, feeling depressed and hopeless.

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Physical Causes Of Tiredness

There are several health conditions that can make you feel tired or exhausted.

These include:

Tiredness can also be the result of:

• pregnancy particularly in the first 12 weeks
• being overweight or obese your body has to work harder to do everyday activities
• being underweight poor muscle strength can make you tire more easily
• cancer treatments, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy
• carbon monoxide poisoning especially if your gas boiler has not been serviced regularly
• side effects of medicines and some herbal remedies

If you have been feeling constantly tired for more than 4 weeks, it’s a good idea to see your GP so they can confirm or rule out a medical condition that could be causing your tiredness.

What Is The Treatment For Tiredness

There is no specific treatment for tiredness. The days of doctors prescribing a “tonic” are over, as there is nothing which really works. The secret is to try to narrow down the cause and then do something about that.

If the cause is a medical condition then often treatment of the condition will resolve the tiredness. For example, if you have anaemia then iron supplements can treat this and the tiredness resolves as your blood count improves. It is thought that even supplementing low-range-of-normal iron levels helps with tiredness. If you are found to have an underactive thyroid gland then a pill which replaces the thyroid hormone you are missing is usually very effective and you will find you have more energy.

If you are found to have chronic fatigue syndrome, you may be referred to a specialist in this illness for help through psychological therapy, graded exercise therapy, or medication.

If you have anxiety or depression, this can be helped by talking therapy , cognitive behavioural therapy , medication or various other possible treatments.

It may seem bizarre, but physical exercise can actually be remarkably effective for treating tiredness. Any moderate exercise, such as walking, swimming or cycling, can help you feel less tired. Regular exercise is also an excellent way to stay healthy.

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Distinction From Addisons Disease

Adrenal fatigue is closely related to, but not to be confused with, Addisons Disease, a disorder characterized by insufficient cortisol production due either to a pathology directly affecting the adrenals or a disruption of signaling between the brain and the adrenals. While symptoms of Addisons Disease are similar to adrenal fatigue, the primary difference is that adrenal fatigue is considered a possible result of the overuse of otherwise healthy adrenal glands due to stress.

The adrenals are necessary to have gluconeogenesis to take place in the liver, as well as the glycogen storage where it stimulates the production of blood glucose, says Dr. Wilson. So, most of the major symptoms of either adrenal fatigue or Addisons Disease are a result of either a lack of cortisol or a lack of blood glucose and the many effects that it has systematically throughout the body.

He theorizes, Unlike Addisons, adrenal fatigue doesnt have a pathological origin, with the exception of the overuse of antibiotics which may partially shut down the use of the adrenal glands. So, you do get different symptoms with versus adrenal fatigue, because youre talking about the difference between a body that cant secrete cortisol versus a body that isnt secreting sufficient cortisol.

What Can I Do To Fight Adrenal Fatigue

First of all, even if your doctor doesnt give you an adrenal fatigue diagnosis, dont dismiss your symptoms as nothing. Because the truth is, he or she probably wont give you that diagnosis. As mentioned, adrenal fatigue isnt a recognized medical condition and thats simply because theres not enough research around it.

Still, stress can influence so many aspects of our health, and attacking the adrenal glands doesnt seem impossible. While the ways to detect adrenal fatigue arent really efficient and your official diagnosis may not be there, your symptoms are. And you need to find a way to fight them.

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The Impact Of Caffeine And Energy Drinks

90% of American adults drink caffeine-infused beverages almost every day. This includes coffee, tea, and energy drinks, which have high quantities of sugar in addition to containing the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Some of the smaller energy shots can contain up to 160mg of caffeine in a 60ml bottle. With extreme tiredness, you may start drinking too much of these drinks to give yourself a temporary energy boost.

The problem is that these caffeinated beverages have short-lived results and do not tackle your general fatigue. Caffeine has a stimulatory effect on the nervous system, and creates a momentary surge of adrenaline. However, once it subsides, you are left drained of energy the opposite effect to what you wanted. Caffeine can also lead to other problems such as:

So rather than improving your fatigue, caffeine can cause you to feel worse.

Tips For Feeling Less Tired

Many of the lifestyle reasons for being always tired are interrelated and once you improve on one, youll find it easier to tackle other areas. For example, if you start getting sufficient quality sleep, youll have more energy to exercise and prepare healthy meals. Similarly, if you improve your diet, youre more likely to have the energy to exercise and consequently get better sleep, and so on.

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Lifestyle Causes Of Tiredness

In today’s 24/7 “always on” world, we often try to cram too much into our daily lives.

And to try to stay on top of things, we sometimes consume too much alcohol or caffeine, or eat sugary and high-fat snacks on the go rather than sitting down for a proper meal.

The main lifestyle causes of tiredness include:

How Is Fatigue Assessed

Before you’re treated for fatigue your doctor, nurse or other healthcare professional will need to ask some questions. These are about how you feel, your day to day life and the treatment you’re having.

There are no medical tests to measure fatigue. But a good way to describe fatigue is on a scale of 1 to 10. Where 1 means you dont feel tired at all and 10 means the worst tiredness you can imagine. Some may use a questionnaire to help them work out how its affecting you.

They usually ask you a lot of questions about the history of your illness and fatigue. This may seem like too much to deal with if you’re feeling tired and weak. You probably just want them to sort it out as quickly as possible. But it is very important that your fatigue is properly assessed.

This helps your team to make the right decisions about treating you. Your family and friends may be able to help if you are feeling so tired that you can’t answer questions.

Some of the questions your doctor might ask you include:

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