You get your nine hours of beauty sleep regularly every night. So why do you feel so tired? You eat all the right foods or so you think. You regularly exercise thirty minutes a day. However you just can’t seem to get up and go. Even sex seem to be a chore. …

If you are fatigued and have trouble falling asleep, or sleeping restfully, suspect that caffeine may be the cause when: You drink any caffeinated beverage within three hours of bedtime You drink the equivalent of five or more cups of coffee per day You become aware that small caffeine increase makes you restless, excited, super-alert or nervous. 

You may suspect that your fatigue may be caused by caffeine overstimulation, if you drink the equivalent of five or more cups of coffee per day and if you suffer symptoms of physical hyper stimulation or a sense of depletion. If cutting down on your coffee makes you feel better, you have discovered the source of your problem.

Do you remember the times you used to feel depressed and out of sorts? Do you remember what you craved to eat at that point in time? Was it fruits and nuts? Was it salad and fruit juice? Most of you at such times would have gone for sweet things like chocolate, cookies and candies or ice-creams

The initial rush of energy or lift that you get occurs because these food products are quickly metabolised to produce blood sugar. This is precisely what happens when you crave your mid-morning cup of coffee with sugar. Initially you will get a temporary energy lift since it raises your blood sugar level. This is followed soon by a downward plunge of energy leaving you feeling worse than before, calling for a repetition of more coffee and sweets or alcohol.

When we have a simpler way of life we would strike at our enemy or run away for an emergency. The event would end and the body would return to a more normal relaxed state. In everyday situations however we are confronted with a series of stresses that arouse our bodies in the same fashion as a fight/flight emergency. No wonder you are tired. 

However many individuals don’t feel their emotions of anger, impatience, frustration or depression and despair. They may be so accustomed to being worried or hostile that they think the condition is normal. Meanwhile their bodies are falling apart as they tax it to the limit. Fatigue is the inevitable outcome.

If you want to have a constant supply of energy, forget the “three square meals a day” rule. Most meals aren’t square anyway but are likely to be unbalanced or inadequate anyway. Eat like a rabbit or squirrel. Nibble your way through healthy snacks. No, I am not suggesting that you snack on ice-cream, chocolates and sweets or pastries.

Eat health foods that build up your energy level consistently. Substitute protein for sweets and carbohydrates at your many meals. Snack on slices of fruits, nuts, a piece of raw fruit, a celery or a carrot stick.

Make a protein powder drink with your fruit juice for breakfast or lunch and you will have the juice of life to burn for hours. If you plan to attend an important meeting after lunch and you need to be mentally alert than skip the carbohydrates during lunch. Have a salad with some fish or chicken.

You could even try a protein drink with fruit juice. Sometimes though, you happen to be a really nervy type. You want to deliberately calm down and slow down at the meeting. That is when you would want to snack on rice and vegetables.

Skip the protein foods for they will make you overly alert. Another quick energy boosting routine is to eat a little fat. That’s right fat. I can imagine some of you shaking your head and thinking “Now I have really heard it all”.

Researchers have learnt that a little fat is necessary to make your gall bladder work. I have heard of horror stories of people who have had their gall bladder shut down on them because went they went on a diet and did not take any fat at all. They needed surgery after that.

Taking a little fat staves of hunger as well as fatigue for hours, Either add a bit of cold-pressed vegetable oil to your protein drink before you blend it (you will never notice it there) or add more oil to your salad at mealtimes and drink only the remains from the bowl.

Each one of us has a different ‘peak time’ or highest-energy time of the day. Some of us are morning people, others have more energy around mid-afternoon, while some people feel their best at night. Most people know instinctively when they are having their ‘up’ and ‘down’ times.

And you probably don’t get just one of these: some people feel up in the morning, down in the afternoon, and up again in the early evening.

 

Our body has many different rhythms or cycles. Many of us are familiar with Circadian Rhythms. These are twenty-four-hour cycles of wakefulness and sleep.

 

Another important cycle is called the Ultradian Rhythm, a recurrent period or cycle repeated throughout a twenty-four-hour circadian day. Within the one-day (twenty-four-hour) circadian rhythm, researchers have found shorter, ultradian rhythms. We experience an Ultradian Rhythm every 90 to 120 minutes. You have probably experienced this many times: you were working hard, feeling energised and productive, thereafter you started to tire a bit and lose your focus after a while. 

This normally occurs after about an hour and a half to two hours. It is a bit different for each person. The Ultradian cycle is the most important cycle for high performance.

 

The idea with 60-60-30 is for us to use sixty-minute chunks of time to focus on a single thing. We put two of these chunks together then we spend thirty minutes completely relaxing and eating a small healthy meal.

 

One reason this can be so powerful is because if you don’t take these breaks, you’ll burn your energy reserves and your will-power, and damage the system that allows you to renew. By taking these breaks, you help your renewal system to heal and become more effective.

 

The 60-minute chunks are actually three cycles of fifteen minutes focused on the task, then a short fifteen-minute break followed by a second round of four cycles of fifteen minutes. I use little timer, set it to forty-five minutes, and put it to the side of my desk. What’s great about it

is it frees me to completely focus for the next forty-five minutes. I know that I don’t need to check emails or voicemails for forty-five minutes. When it beeps, I set it for fifteen minutes then I go stretch, move around, and in general do something different.

 

Forcing ourselves to work through with sheer determination as our energy wanes is counterproductive. This is like reading a book when we are tired; we ending up reading the same paragraph over and over again, until we either fall asleep with book (or Nook or Kindle or iPad)

in hand, or realize that we must stop. Only then can we regain our focus and comprehension.

 

Another common strategy when we find ourselves nearing the end of one of our Ultradian Rhythms is to pump ourselves up with caffeine and/or sugar or to ‘power through’ the energy drop. Or grabbing one of those energy drinks to keep going  even when we want to crash.

 

To sustain peak performance, we need to manage our energy throughout the day. We allow our body and mind to renew by taking periodic breaks every ninety minutes. By working with our natural (down) cycles, we can become many times more effective and productive throughout the day.

After almost 30 years of seeing clients with a range of fatigue conditions, we have come to the following factors that could underlie as serious case of fatigue. These factors are:

Digestive Issues: Food Allergies, Parasites and Yeast
 Chemical Poisons: Could include Heavy Metal Toxicity and Organic Poisons
 Nutritional Deficiencies: Iron, B12, Folic Acid

Hormonal: Hypoglycemia, Hypothyroid, Female Hormonal Imbalance, Adrenal Fatigue

Emotional: Unfinished business, cognitive overwhelm, grief

 

On this podcast I’m going to help you design a life that works. So you are able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The more clear you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you’ll step into your true potential, stay on track and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? 

Feel free to reach out to me to ask your questions at AskDrSun.com.   Your life is a gift. Design it. Do what matters and join me each week as we get closer to designing the life of your dreams.  I am Dr Sun. Join me next week on Your Life by Design.