Tired All The Time – What Could Be Wrong? (Part 1)

I would say that of all the complaints I hear at my clinic, this is by far the commonest. The scary thing is that it seems to transcend age and sex. This means that ‘tired all the time’ (tatt in dr’s world) can attack anyone at any age. So how can you avoid it?

Before we can answer that question, we need to understand what is normal and why tatt happens.

Do you remember looking at kids and their boundless energy levels? When they eat sugar, they get hyperactive and start running around. A totally normal response to excessive sugar in the blood that the body needs to get rid of as sugar is inflammatory and the body knows it. So parents, please let your kids run around- its a good thing. What about in adults? What happens when we consume too much alcohol or sugary drinks (liquid carbs)? How about snacks; including ‘healthy’ snacks? We hardly ever need to run around to burn it after. This is not the ideal response to that sugar excess. So what happens here?

Your body releases insulin. Insulin’s job is to make sure that the excess sugar is picked up and either used or stored. A lot of this happens in the liver. So the liver is now under stress to deal with all this. Cortisol the stress hormone is released. Cortisol and insulin work hand in hand (not quite so simple but good enough for the layperson). You’ll find that if you consume too much rubbish or are overly stressed, you put on weight in the middle- a classic tell tale sign of the start of insulin or cortisol issues. Unfortunately with age, this worsens as the body’s ability to adapt decreases. Now, a lot of nutrients are used up in this process. When we talk about nutrients, we talk about vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants etc. So someone with a poor diet or highly stressed life actually need more nutrient support as they probably do not get enough from their diet to make up for how quickly things get used up. These hormones also communicate with other hormones- thyroid being an important one. Thyroid controls your metabolism. Or how effectively your body consumes fuel (or sugar/fat). With age, this function goes down as well. Or perhaps you’ve accumulated ‘problems’ over the years that affect your body’s functionality.

What kind of problems are those?

A whole host of potential issues. Let’s list some down:

Environmental issues such as toxic mold (in a old, damp house), or fumes from a brand new carpet or paintwork
Living and working in the city – exposure to exhaust fumes containing lead, arsenic and other heavy metals
Accumulation of toxins from food – e.g. mercury from seafood, sprayed chemicals (pesticides) in fruits and veg, chemical fertilisers
Accumulation of toxins or change in ionic charge in your body when you have e.g. metal fillings or 2 or more different types of metals in your body. This is really interesting. If you develop tatt after an orthopedic procedure or after getting dental work; including a simple brace- think about this. Its not well known enough so do your due diligence
Day to day stresses like SAD (seasonal affective disorder), lowered immunity due to antibiotic overuse or excessive exposure to bugs; overwork
Age related hormonal decline
Too much screen time
Excessive exposure to EMR (electromagnetic radiation)
Start or autoimmunity where the body starts attacking itself

This is merely a snapshot. The list goes on. On its own, there probably isn’t enough to knock the average person down but when a few factors are present, the cumulative effect can have a large effect.

This is mostly the reason why the average person will try various things to improve their tatt status and find that they may improve things for awhile but that they cannot shift it. It is also why in long standing cases, most people need help to get over it. It simply is not as easy as it seems to get to the bottom of.

So what can we do? We will investigate this in the second part of this blog series, so stay tuned….