
Conquering Fatigue: Your Total Guide To Getting Your Energy Back
Have you ever felt tired throughout the day? You might be physically healthy but you just can't get enough rest. Check out these possible sources of why you're feeling tired and how you can get your energy back.
Lack of Sleep
You might be feeling an excessive feeling of wanting to get more sleep. If those afternoon naps and early sleeping at night aren't helping you at all, you can add a few supplements to help you get back on track.
1. Whole Foods (Iron and Magnesium)
These will not just help you with your energy levels, these will also help you maintain healthy blood pressure. These will keep your blood well oxygenated and will ensure that your muscles function properly.
Aside from going for food supplements, you can find these minerals in grocery stores. For example, you can find iron in beans and meat and magnesium in green leafy vegetables.
2. Melatonin
Do you sleep with your lights on? Having too much light in your room while sleeping might be the cause of your lack of sleep. Our bodies produce melatonin when we sleep. This is the hormone responsible for sending us to sleep.
Melatonin is very sensitive to light, so it means the darker the room, the more melatonin we can produce. This, of course, means that we can get better sleep.
If reducing light in your room while sleeping doesn't work, you can get supplements in the market.
3. Glycine
Glycine is an amino acid. This can help you fall asleep more easily and will promote deeper sleep.
This can mostly be found in food. A good source is collagen, a protein that forms connective tissues in animals. If you don't like chewing on those, you can also get some collagen from your local supplement store.
4. Theanine
Theanine is another amino acid that can help you get better sleep. It will help improve your sleep quality.
You can get theanine in tea. Since most teas also contain caffeine, you might have to go for teas with less caffeine or just go with decaf. Still, theanine is also available in pill form that can be taken 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
Stress
Being stressed for a long time may result in metabolic burnout. This is one of the reasons why stress isn't good for our body. Stress can be relieved by meditation and exercise, but there are also proven supplements that can help you with stress.
1. L-Tyrosine
L-Tyrosine is an amino acid. It can counteract stress before it even happens. Ensuring that your blood has plenty of L-Tyrosine will help the body produce adrenaline and dopamine and therefore protect us from the effects of stress.
You can also take L-Tyrosine supplements an hour before supposed stressful events occur.
2. Rhodiola Rosea
Rhodiola Rosea is an adaptogen. It can help you to be less sensitive to stressful events. It helps maintain proper serotonin levels in the brain, which can affect our moods and hormones.
It is thought to be safe and effective. They can even be taken once a day without a decrease in effectiveness.
3. L-Ornithine
Chronic stress results in having too much ammonia in your blood. This can cause fatigue and foggy thinking.
L-Ornithine can help relieve the fatigue that ammonia causes. Since it's hard to know if the fatigue is caused by high ammonia levels because it requires having a blood test, taking L-Ornithine is not a guarantee that it will help relieve your fatigue.
Long Workouts
This doesn't refer to that muscle fatigue that can be felt after a few sets of exercise. This refers to the involuntary reduction of workout intensity and motivation.
It might be tempting to turn to pre-workout stimulants. Some can reliably increase energy and performance, but habitual use can lead to some issues like high blood pressure.
Here are a few of safer and non-stimulatory alternatives to get you through workouts.
1. Creatine
Creatine is a dietary supplement that is well known to increase muscle size. It is also effective in reducing fatigue and promoting energy.
While creatine's safety has been the subject of some controversies, for the most part, it is identified as safe for long-term use for those that don't have pre-existing health issues.
2. BCAAs
Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are a group of amino acids that includes valine, leucine and isoleucine. These are good for preventing fatigue during intense workouts or exercises.
Like creatine, these can help with increasing muscle size and strength. BCAAs are available in the market but they are quite expensive.
3. ALCAR
Acetyl-L-Carnitine (ALCAR) is a type of L-carnitine. It is an amino acid that can prevent fatigue during intense workouts and exercise. It can enhance the rate of oxygen delivery to muscles and help prevent lactic-acid build-up.
ALCAR can also provide a cognitive boost. It increases energy availability in the brain and therefore helping the user think more clearly.
4. Glucose
Glucose is the body's primary energy source. It will give a subtle increase in performance and may increase muscle synthesis over the long term.
Glucose is often sold at supplement stores as "dextrose".
Remember
Always remember that taking supplements shouldn't be your first step in conquering fatigue. It is very important that you first analyze what might be causing your fatigue, may it be stress, lack of sleep, or long workouts.
Only resort to supplements after you have tried the natural ways and you are still struggling with fatigue.
Photo by Marcelo Chagas from Pexels
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