Asking yourself “Why am I so tired” all the time? Join the club, its the most commonly searched term in Google for "Why am I..."
Feeling run down is now so common that it’s gained its own nickname: TATT, or “tired all the time.” The vast majority of Americans now proclaim feeling tired multiple days a week — even those who get the suggested seven or eight hours of sleep most nights.
All of the fatigue helps explain why more and more Americans are turning to energy drinks, sugary coffees, and other uppers in an effort to remain awake and alert during the day.
A whopping 90 percent of Americans use caffeine on a daily basis, earning the substance its status as the "most abused psychoactive drug in the world".
How Your Blood Affects Your Energy Levels
Key tests include vitamin D for fatigue, Ferritin for checking anemia, CRP-hs status for inflammation and TSH for thyroid function.
You can learn more about the markers we test for here.
Feeling tired all the time is one of the most common reasons people give for visiting their MD. Cardiac biomarkers such as HDL, LDL, CRP-hs also have an important bearing on your fatigue as they are a direct result of your heart's health.
If these tests are poor for you it could indicate a pending serious issue with your heart.
We recommend using this test to get started into looking at why you are so tired all the time. If you want to include in Vitamin D then we suggest this test.
Three Common Diagnoses of Fatigue
Lack Of Sleep
While this seems pretty obvious as a reason for chronic tiredness, it is more common than you might think. This is why its seperated from lifestyle factors below.
Current research shows that lack of sleep actually damages the brain.
Leading to loss of emotional processing, memory, verbal processing and more.
The stress and business that life creates often keeps us from slowing down enough to get a solid night's rest. Surprisingly (or not really), a solid catch up on sleep can fix the issue and you end up feeling great.
It's not a medical condition in the general sense of the term but often medications are prescribed to help you get to sleep should stress be commanding your sleep schedule.
While a lack of sleep isn't a medical condition per se, your doctor may be able to help you learn about ways to reduce your stress or prescribe medications to help you with occasional sleeplessness.
It's helpful to begin by determining your sleep needs. The "average" adult needs around eight hours per night, but few people are average. Harvard recently showed that sleep debt is a real thing that's accumulated. Extra sleep helps repay this debt and get you back to zero.
Hypothyroidism
Hyperthyroidism is where your thyroid isn't making as much thyroid hormone as it should.
Thyroid disease is extremely common, especially in women, and affects 27 to 60 million people in the United States alone.
An easy way to test that is by getting your thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) checked. It's especially important to track this over time. You can spot issues early on, you can also correlate your diet, lifestyle and other changes that may have occurred why your thyroid levels changed. If you aren't tracking it - it's impossible to tell when the change occurred.
TSH can easily be added on to your TSH or added onto an already occurring subscription. Just send us a message letting us know you want it. Mention this blog and get a 10% discount.
Lifestyle Factors Leading To Being Tired
No surprise here. We are what we eat, what we think and what we do. Most people are "busy" but not always in the best way.
Here's a few items from Health Line:
- physical exertion
- lack of physical activity
- lack of sleep
- being overweight or obese
- periods of emotional stress
- boredom
- grief
- taking certain medications, such as antidepressants or sedatives
- using alcohol on a regular basis
- using illicit drugs, such as cocaine
- consuming too much caffeine
- not eating a nutritious diet
Some of those sound close to home? It could almost be sadly said, that this is more common than it is rare. Common, yet completely not normal. These things can lead to extreme stress on the system.
Cortisol ends up dominating and destroying your internal systems. Learn about how cortisol creates heart damage during stress.
Most of us already know the answer, eat better and exercise. Take the first step and do it. However, before you embark on your transformation, do yourself a favor and baseline your internal health. It is a major motivator.
This way you can actually see the changes that are happening. Trust us, its better than just looking in the mirror and standing on a scale.
A Quick Break Down
Breaking it down really simply:
- Your Tired & Maybe You Don't Even Know It
- Your Thyroid Is Acting Up
- Your Lifestyle Isn't Adding Up
Check out what the Mayo Clinic has to say about it as well. It's always smart to rule out red flags.
If there are no red flags and you don't require medical management, time to make some changes. You are in charge of your own health, no one else.
Therfore, we offer you something better than just looking in the mirror or standing on a scale.
See whats happening on your insides in real time.
