Living A Full Life

Why You're Always Tired and What You Can Do About It

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 23

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Feeling constantly exhausted no matter how much you sleep isn't something you should accept as normal aging or just part of modern life. Millions struggle with unexplained fatigue while doctors often dismiss their concerns, leaving them dependent on caffeine just to function.

The real culprits behind chronic fatigue go far deeper than most realize. This episode dives into the science of energy production, revealing how mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone imbalances, blood sugar dysregulation, gut health problems, and environmental toxins systematically drain your vitality. Each of these factors disrupts your body's natural energy systems in different ways, creating a perfect storm of exhaustion that conventional medicine often misses.

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the actionable roadmap it provides. From specific nutrition strategies that stabilize blood sugar and support mitochondrial health to the surprising benefits of cold exposure, red light therapy, and targeted supplementation, you'll discover evidence-based approaches to reclaim your energy naturally. Learn which adaptogens regulate cortisol levels, how gut bacteria influence fatigue, and why detoxification pathways matter for sustainable energy production.

Whether you're dealing with brain fog, afternoon crashes, or persistent exhaustion, this episode offers a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing fatigue at its source. Stop masking symptoms with stimulants and start rebuilding your body's innate energy systems. Your path to waking up refreshed and maintaining steady energy throughout the day begins with understanding these hidden energy thieves and implementing the practical strategies shared here. Ready to transform your relationship with energy? Listen now and take the first step toward breaking free from the fatigue cycle for good. Subscribe to Living a Full Life for more science-backed health guidance that addresses root causes rather than symptoms.

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Speaker 1:

Are you constantly exhausted, no matter how much sleep you get? Do you wake up feeling drained, rely on caffeine to push through the day or hit an afternoon crash that leaves you struggling to focus? If so, you're not alone. Millions of people are dealing with unexplained fatigue and the frustrating part. Most doctors will tell you it's just normal or part of getting older, but I'm here to tell you it's not. In today's episode of Living a Full Life, we're uncovering the real reasons why you're tired all the time and, more importantly, how to fix it. We'll break down the hidden culprits behind chronic fatigue, from hormone imbalances and mitochondrial dysfunction to nutrition deficiencies, gut health issues and even environmental toxins. I'll also share cutting edge research and real, actionable strategies to help you reclaim your energy naturally, without relying on caffeine for quick fixes that mask the problem. So you are ready to wake up feeling refreshed, power through your day with ease and finally break free from the fatigue cycle. Stick around, because this episode is going to be going to change the way you think about energy. Last week, we went through hormone dysregulation. This week it's a great follow-up about chronic fatigue, because that came up with cortisol, insulin and the sex hormones.

Speaker 1:

Chronic fatigue isn't just about being tired. It's a signal that something deeper is off in the body, the root cause of chronic fatigue. The latest research and real strategies to restore your energy, naturally, is how we're gonna uncover this. So what is chronic fatigue? More than just tiredness. It persists, it's debilitating, it's exhaustive and that doesn't improve with rest. The CDC defines chronic fatigue syndrome as a long-term illness affecting multiple body systems. Studies show mitochondrial dysfunction plays a key role as well, and the most common symptoms that people have of chronic fatigue is brain fog, muscle weakness, unfresh sleep, dizziness and immune dysfunctions. It's often misdiagnosed as depression or burnout. So chronic fatigue takes time to develop and as it develops over time, it dismantles the hormone system. But there are a few hidden causes to chronic fatigue that, if we uncover it, will give you power to help get through it if you're dealing with it or if you know someone that's dealing with it. The first one is mitochondrial dysfunction. Your cells can't produce enough energy. The science behind this is that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cell. Research shows that people with chronic fatigue have impaired mitochondrial function, and this is from the Internal General of Clinical and Experimental Medicine from 2009. And how to fix it is we need to increase coenzyme Q10 management, magnesium, b vitamins and even use L-carnitine amino acid.

Speaker 1:

Cold exposure and exercise enhance mitochondrial biogenesis. So let's dive into mitochondria a little bit here and what we can do. We want to stimulate its production. Mitochondria produce something called ATP, adenosine triphosphate. It's the energy source of every cell and it's produced on a regular basis by every cell until its death, at a constant frequency, depending on expenditure of energy. And what we can do through science, through light therapy, and we use things like class four lasers, red light therapy, blue light, uv different things that can stimulate the mitochondrial of each cell to produce more ATP, which gives the cell more energy and therefore does things more efficiently. So using red light but we talked about cold exposure as well this is where cold plunge science comes in a little bit Plunging into cold temperatures for short amounts of time can actually increase ATP production.

Speaker 1:

But a more comfortable way of doing this is using red light therapy. Full body red light therapy has been shown to increase mitochondrial function and decrease inflammation at the same time. But exercise in itself can enhance mitochondrial biogenesis. So we have to stimulate the biogenesis of mitochondria producing more energy by exercising. That's the long-term goal. With that, as we start to stimulate that function in the mitochondria, producing more energy by exercising that's the long-term goal with that. As we start to stimulate that function in the mitochondria throughout the entire body and all the trillions of cells in it, we start to get better energy production. That is the long-term solution to fatigue in general. But we have to start feeling better before we can exercise right. And cold exposure and cold plunges are maybe quick little fixes but you can't sit in a cold plunge all day and the effects of the cold plunge only last a few minutes and then start to plateau. So it's that initial effect of the cold plunge and decreasing our body temperature that inspires and increases mitochondrial production. And that's where you get those scientific events from the blood tests that are done at that time in those moments. But it plateaus after a certain amount of time, just like red light therapy. As soon as our body and our cells absorb a maximum dosage of light that it can, it saturates the cell and there can't be any more light exposure. So same thing with that.

Speaker 1:

Number two is hormone imbalances. We talked about this last week. Listen to that podcast Choose hormone imbalances. We talked about this last week. Listen to that podcast Low thyroid and cortisol dysregulation leads to chronic fatigue, leads to fatigue in general. Adrenal dysfunction leads to erratic cortisol levels, affecting energy regulation.

Speaker 1:

Okay, hypothyroidism is a leading but often overlooked cause of fatigue. These are the two things with the hormones, as far as cortisol from the adrenals and the thyroid, with hypothyroidism, that lead to fatigue. So how do we stimulate this? How do we fix it? We need to support adrenal function with adaptogens. Adaptogens we brought up ashwagandha last time and rhodiola. These are great herbs that you can add and tinctures that you can add to your diet as supplements to help support the adrenals and the thyroid.

Speaker 1:

We want to optimize thyroids with iodine, selenium and zinc through our diet. This is what we have to make sure we have a steady diet of good quantities of iodine, selenium and zinc and this comes through red meat, fish, shrimp and leafy green vegetables. So we want to have that on a daily basis, a well-balanced diet. Then we want to have some doctor supervision if we do run into hypothyroidism, to make sure that we are triggering that from a medical perspective to balance the blood levels of this to help us overall with the fatigue. I mean we can't deviate around that. That is just the way it works. Then we get into blood sugar dysregulation. Then we get into blood sugar dysregulation. This is probably the most common reason people fall into bouts of fatigue is because of the energy rollercoaster that happens with that.

Speaker 1:

Insulin resistance is linked to chronic fatigue and brain fog. So we got to fix this by eating a protein and healthy fat diet, especially starting off the day with our first meal and not absorbing sugar first thing in the morning. The American diet has not taught our children or ourselves very well about how to start our days with a healthy meal and we got to change that entire philosophy around breakfast to be heavily dense in protein and healthy fats like eggs, meat and lower in carbs like eggs, meat and lower in carbs and then, of course, avoid processed sugars and refined carbs. Muffins, waffles, pancakes, cereal all these things are not a good way to start the day and can dysregulate the entire cortisol balance in the body and spike blood sugar, which leads to an increase in insulin production, which makes us more tired.

Speaker 1:

Gut health and microbiome imbalance. We had a great series of podcasts, probably four or five weeks ago, on the biome and the science behind it is that chronic fatigue patients often have gut dysbiosis and leaky gut syndrome. So what we need to do is replenish the biome as vastly as we possibly can, and that's going to be by eating fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, dill, pickle, these types of things that are fermented to get a pre and post biotic for our gut and then take prebiotics and probiotics to restore gut bacteria and cycling through these, the best way is to choose a probiotic, finish it, give yourself a two month break between the next probiotic and cycle every two months with different probiotics to help build the flora back. This would happen this would need to happen after bouts of antibiotics, for whatever reason may be. Having a cold flu infection and needing to take antibiotics wipes out our entire gut flora by like up to 99%. So we need to replenish this quickly. It happens quickly. Through a normal diet, the flora will come back. However, we won't get them in balance easily and over long periods of time of imbalanced gut flora can lead to fatigue. Fatigue is more of a symptom of leaky gut syndrome and dysbiosis of the gut, so that will happen over time. But having a healthy gut is step one for minimizing fatigue. So go back to those podcasts as well.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, the environmental toxins. These are the hidden energy drain that we do to ourselves every single day. Heavy metals like mercury and lead, mold toxins, pesticides, herbicides can disrupt energy metabolism within the body. We know this from the literature, and the way to fix this is to try and filter our environment as much as possible, and that's through filtered water, eating organic foods as much as possible, like leafy green vegetables should be organic. Most of our fruits should be organic. Minimizing mold toxins by washing our produce and use non-toxic household products so you're not breathing this stuff in all the time. Cleaning the inside of your car with chemicals on a hot summer day and then sitting in it is a horrible VOC volatile chemicals that we get into the air that we end up breathing in. That's one example of not using chemicals. The same is in the house If you live in there all day and you're smelling these chemicals from the cleaning products. Not a good way to keep a healthy hormone system and it can really disrupt a lot of those things as well. So the detox pathways that we want to use to help with environmental toxins, to pull these out of the body, are going to be things like sweating through exercise and cardiovascular exercise and cardio and using a sauna, like an infrared sauna, or even taking binders like activated charcoal chlorella to help bind toxins within the body and pull them out through our waist. These are great ways to cycle through, detoxing and getting through some of the ways that we are making ourselves fatigued.

Speaker 1:

Now we can dive deeper into chronic fatigue syndrome and how it's linked to major disease processes. But that's more of a medical type discussion to have and that's more of a one-on-one type thing to do with your functional medicine doctor or your medical doctor is to go through that if you're suffering from long-term chronic fatigue blood work, hormone testing, heavy metal testing, checking for these things across the board to see where things may be elevated and may be the root cause to chronic fatigue. Short bouts of fatigue can happen due to stress, overwork, over-exercise, where we feel fatigued, but we should be able to get good rest and rejuvenate quite quickly within days. If fatigue lasts for more than weeks or months, you may have chronic fatigue. So here's a step-by-step practical strategy guide to help yourself if you are feeling fatigued.

Speaker 1:

Start with nutrition and energy for production. Prioritize protein, healthy fats and fiber to stabilize your blood sugar first. Then increase mitochondrial supportive foods like grass-fed beef, wild-caught salmon, leafy greens berries and then eliminate inflammatory foods, especially gluten, processed sugars and vegetable oils. Then we want to optimize our sleep and our circadian rhythm so to regulate light exposure. We want to be waking up during sunrise and reduce blue light at night. We want to use magnesium, glycinate, glycine, tart cherry extract as great foods and supplements to help regulate mitochondrial production, but also dopamine and serotonin I'm not getting the right word here, it'll come back to me. Deep sleep protocols as well no eating three hours before bed, blackout curtains in the room and consistent sleep schedules. Consistent sleep schedules. Then we want to reduce stress and our nervous system and to give our nervous system some rest, and this is going to be through breath work.

Speaker 1:

Meditation, relaxation, just lying flat and closing your eyes and just breathing are proven ways to lower cortisol. Cold therapy and heat therapy we talked about both. Sauna detoxes, cold showers to boost mitochondrial production, grounding and nature exposure. Just walking in the grass barefoot has a has um effect with our overall antioxidant system. That's what, what, where it was coming for me to help with the negative and positive protons in the body as well, to balance those. Then we have smart supplementation for energy and recovery. Coenzyme Q10 and PQQ boost mitochondrial function. Magnesium and B vitamins are essential for energy metabolism, and adaptogens like rhodiola ashwagandha can regulate cortisol.

Speaker 1:

But don't forget our omega-3s. Omega-3s I'm a big proponent of taking omega-3 in your supplement regimen because we just don't get enough in the foods. Yes, it's in coconut oil, avocados, salmon, fish. It's in the good oils. However, it's hard to consume enough of these foods to get that oil. If you eat salmon every day, you're probably getting enough, but not very many people eat salmon every single day. It's maybe a once a week type thing. So you're going to take a 1500 milligram omega-3 fish oil base once a day in part of your supplement regimen to help make sure that you're getting a basic omega-3 intake every day.

Speaker 1:

Make sense, that is a strategy for chronic fatigue. So there is always a strategy. No matter where we end up with our health or a diagnosis, or wherever it may be, there's always a strategy out there, and the Living Full Life podcast always delivers natural and vitalistic protocols. We believe that starting there just makes the most logical sense before we start getting into innovative medical procedures that have their own side effects to it. The vitalistic way doesn't have any side effects to it. The worst thing that can happen. It may not help or help a little bit. That may be the worst thing that can happen, but there is usually no side effects to trying things vitalistically.

Speaker 1:

We just don't want to be ignorant to pathology and ignore it. If there is something happening pathologically, like leukemia, cancer, things that are happening underneath that we may have not been detected yet. We want to make sure we're doing our yearly wellness checks getting our heavy metals tested maybe every five years to make sure that we're not being exposed to any environmental toxins and wellness checks with blood work and scans, mammography, x-rays, mris these things can all look inside the body to detect pathologies as well. So these are not things we want to avoid, but use them strategically in our overall health and wellness. If you have any questions or any direct topics that you want us to work on, reach out to info at fulllifetampacom. We love answering questions. Stay well, stay healthy and take care.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host
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Dr. Crystal Corona

Co-host