Blog

Everybody’s tired these days. It seems our memories and our nights are getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, our stress and our irritability are growing. As a nation, we purchase energy drinks and take adrenal supplements. We can’t get out of bed in the morning, and we hit a wall before the work day is finished.

Do we sprint so much that we out distance our reserves, or is there an energy crisis at the cellular level?

Energy is Produced in the Mitochondria

You’ll recall from your high school physics class that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells. One particularly unique feature about them is their double membrane.

This twin layer makes them doubly vulnerable to damage. See, all cell membranes are made of phospholipids, a special class of fats that allow a two-way exchange of materials in and out of the cell. That way nutrients can enter and wastes can exit. But because they are lipids, they are subject to oxidation – a type of damage that occurs in fats. And because these membranes also contain proteins, they are subject to glycation – literally, sugar-coating that makes them sticky and cross-linked so that they cannot send or receive signals properly.

The bottom line is that diets high in processed fats and sugars dam the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes and stop the creation and dissemination of energy.

Interrupt The “Kryptonite”

The first step to overcoming fatigue is to halt the acceleration of glycation and oxidation. That means:

• Eat only natural, unrefined fats, not processed and refined fats. Stay away from the Big Five: cottonseed, corn, canola, soy, and sunflower. Instead, use olive, avocado, coconut, and grass-fed butter.
• Stop eating refined flours and sugars. Eat nutrient-dense whole foods, mostly from plants (vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains in limited amounts) with high-quality animal products for protein requirements.

Power Up Your Powerhouses

• Eat anti-oxidant foods. That means lots of colors! Make half your plate vegetables. Eat your fruit, don’t drink it. Swap white carbs like rice, potatoes and pasta for colored ones like wild rice, yams, and squashes.
• Work with a health practitioner to supplement your diet with the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that may be missing in your diet.

Diet is the biggest factor you have control over to regain your energy. If your thinking is foggy, your memory is impaired, or you suffer from mood disorders, focus on cellular nutrition to feel happy, healthy, focused, and sharp once again.

Trying to control sugar cravings without addressing insulin resistance is like learning to swim without getting in the water: you’re only going through the motions, not developing any lasting change.

Because insulin resistance instigates carb and sugar cravings, it is pointless to try to curb these cravings until you correct the insulin resistance – which develops after years of poor eating habits. Signs and symptoms of insulin resistance include:

• fatigue
• hunger
• hormone imbalances that contribute to
  • PMS, PCOS, and facial hair in women
  • thinning hair, “man boobs,” and erectile dysfunction in men
  • low thyroid
  • infertility
• inability to lose weight
• abdominal fat
• migrating aches and pains
• desire for sweets after a meal
• rising cholesterol and triglycerides

Five Steps To Reverse Insulin Resistance

You need both diet and lifestyle changes that bring your physiology into desirable condition, just as dressing meat or dressing a mannequin makes it suitable or fit. You can remember the acronym DRESS for these needed changes: Diet, Relaxation, Exercise, Supplementation, and Sleep.

Diet: Eat whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugars and flours. Get plenty of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and detoxifying foods. That means eating lots of colorful fruits and vegetables; plenty of high-quality protein, especially fish; a variety of legumes, nuts, and seeds; and an abundance of omega-3 oils from seafood, flax, chia, grass-fed meats, dairy, and eggs.

Relaxation: Your stress hormones raise blood sugars and therefore trigger insulin resistance, so it is essential to practice relaxation daily, even hourly, using breathing exercises, acupressure, meditation, guided imagery, exercise, recreation, journaling, gratitude, and other techniques.

Exercise: More movement of all kinds will benefit you. Even a walk after dinner each evening is helpful. Interval training has the added benefit of increasing the efficiency of your calorie burning so that you burn more when you are not exercising. But recent studies show that resistance training with weights is most desirable for reducing insulin resistance.

Supplementation: The following nutrients have been clinically shown to be helpful in controlling blood sugars and moderating insulin resistance.

• B Vitamin Complex, especially B-6, B-12, and biotin to protect against diabetic neuropathy and enhance insulin sensitivity
• Magnesium because most individuals with blood sugar dysregulation show magnesium deficiency
• Alpha-Lipoic Acid, a powerful anti-oxidant that helps with glucose conversion
• Omega 3’s to help nutrients get into the cell that otherwise would be blocked by insulin resistance
• Berberine to lower blood sugars
• Chromium to lower insulin levels
• Cinnamon to imitate the action of insulin
• Vitamins C and E to serve as anti-oxidants

Sleep: Even one night of sleep deprivation may increase insulin resistance by as much as several months of a poor diet. As few as four days of sleep deprivation in a row causes significant metabolic disturbances that reduce total body insulin sensitivity. So while diet and exercise are certainly critical in optimal health, sleep is just as critical.

No get-up-and-go? Wake up exhausted? Feel tired but can’t fall asleep? Lie awake for hours in the middle of the night? Pump stimulants during the day to keep going?

You could be experiencing a blood sugar dysregulation which is causing disrupted nights. Unfortunately, the worse your sleep patterns, the more blood sugars tend to spin out of control.

What causes blood sugar imbalances?

Here are some common contributors:

• An excessive amount of refined carbohydrates in the diet (breads, crackers, pasta,  pastries, baked goods, etc.).
• Chronic low-grade emotional stress or frequent high intensity emotional stress.
• Unidentified physiological stresses, such as food sensitivities, inflammation, or infection.
• Insulin resistance.

How do disrupted blood sugars make you fatigued?

Let’s try an analogy. Your nose is designed to be evenly moist. When you have a cold, the excess mucous congests it to the point that you can hardly breathe. At the other extreme, it sometimes becomes so dry that it bleeds.

Now, let’s imagine the the individual cells of your body to be something like a nose. An excess of insulin will eventually prohibit the passage of nutrients into them, just as mucous prevents the smooth flow of air. When cells don’t get fuel (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose), they can’t create energy, perform their work, repair, and reproduce. Then you feel chronically fatigued – almost like a nose without enough air.

On the other hand, stresses – both emotional and physiological – take energy away from the cells, like hot, dry wind pulling moisture from a nose. A constant stream of stress will eventually leave a body exhausted and empty like a parched nose. The irony is that any stress triggers cortisol production, and rest is almost impossible when cortisol levels escalate. So no matter how weary you feel, you can’t seem to restore yourself.

Cortisol is a mobilization hormone. When it is high, melatonin drops like the heavy side of a teeter-totter. Melatonin influences your ability to sleep. The less you sleep, the more you want to use sugar and other stimulants to make it through your day. These, in turn, trigger more insulin resistance and more cortisol production. So, instead of having smoothly-regulated blood sugars, the highs get higher and the lows get lower, like a nose that alternately plugs and bleeds repeatedly. Having enough energy becomes a mirage in a desert of fatigue.

How can you stop the spiral?

Of course, you will want to work with a practitioner to find the root cause of your insulin and cortisol spikes. But there are also things you can do at home. These include:

• Eating a diet that is balanced between natural fats, appropriate proteins, and slow-burning carbohydrates from unprocessed whole foods.
• Syncing your body with circadian rhythms of light and dark by being in sunshine during daylight hours and limiting your exposure to artificial light at night.
• De-stressing throughout the day, but especially taking time to wind down in the evening with regular relaxation practices, such as meditation, gratitude, journaling, aromatherapy, breathing exercises or yoga.

To learn more about intercepting the Tiredness Spin, you can register for a local, live class on Taming Fatigue.