Top 5 Reasons We Get Tired – And What We Can Do About It
Little things we do and don’t do can exhaust us both mentally and physically.
Here are the top 5 common bad habits which can make us feel tired:
Sleep. Lack of sleep is the top reason sapping our energy. Sufficient sleep helps improve memory, sharpen the attention span while decreasing inflammation. It helps establish a healthy weight, expand lifespan, improve mood and decrease stress.
Skipping workouts. Sedentary but otherwise healthy adults who began exercising lightly three days a week for just 20 minutes at a time reported feeling less fatigued and more energized after six weeks.Regular exercise boosts strength and endurance, helps make our cardiovascular system run more efficiently, and delivers oxygen and nutrients to our tissues.
Not drinking enough water. Being slightly dehydrated, as little as 2% of normal fluid loss, takes a toll on energy levels. Dehydration causes a reduction in blood volume making the blood thicker. This requires our hearts to pump less efficiently, reducing the speed at which oxygen and nutrients reach our muscles and organs. To calculate our normal fluid needs, take our weight in pounds, divide in half and drink that number of ounces of fluid a day.
Diet. An un-nutritious diet can make us feel sluggish, irritable, weak, and unable to focus. Less oxygen can travel to muscles and cells causing increasing risk of anemia. Load up on dark green leafy vegetables, navy and pinto beans, almonds, walnuts, chia and flax seeds. Pair them up with foods high in vitamin C to allow for better absorption of essential nutrients.
Striving to be a perfectionist. We work much harder and longer than necessary while setting unrealistic goals which may be difficult to achieve. In the end, there can be no sense of self-satisfaction. Setting time limits for ourselves on our projects and taking care to obey them can ultimately provide more balance. In time, we’ll realize that the extra time we were taking wasn’t actually improving our work.
AUTHOR
Dr. Payal Bhandari M.D. is one of U.S.'s top leading integrative functional medical physicians and the founder of SF Advanced Health. She combines the best in Eastern and Western Medicine to understand the root causes of diseases and provide patients with personalized treatment plans that quickly deliver effective results. Dr. Bhandari specializes in cell function to understand how the whole body works. Dr. Bhandari received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 1997 and Doctor of Medicine degree in 2001 from West Virginia University. She the completed her Family Medicine residency in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts and joined a family medicine practice in 2005 which was eventually nationally recognized as San Francisco’s 1st patient-centered medical home. To learn more, go to www.sfadvancedhealth.com.