Happy New Year? Are you Tired?

Good New Years to you People of the Interverse!

Although it would seem appropriate to write a New Year’s resolution post, I feel that cake has been made by many other fitness and health bloggers. So my first post of the New Year will be based on something my cousin reminded me of today, which can be crippling when it comes to wellness. This is feeling tired, exhausted, and generally run down a good portion of the time, what can be causing it and how to deal with it.

Why is this topic important? Well, if you are tired all of time, you are not exactly going to be motivated to tackle that resolution you have made for yourself. Maybe what I call the “resolution high” will carry your behaviour change for a couple of weeks, but if you do not deal with the fatigue you experience daily/on a regular basis, then you are likely to relapse. Also, if you are tired all the time it means your body is not operating at maximum capacity, and yes, this can be changed if you figure out where the lack of energy is steaming from. 

So how do you know you are tired? I know it seems like a simple enough question, but (in my opinion) there is “normal tiredness”, which can be dealt with by changing simple behaviours, and “abnormal tiredness”, which is usually doing with something deeper and medically based.

I will deal with normal tiredness in this post and will touch on when being tired becomes abnormal in a later post.

“Normal” Tiredness:

What I deem “normal” tiredness (if being tired is ever normal) is something that is not regularly occurring and is associated with acute/short term aspects of your schedule and beaviours. (Note: any of these examples can become chronic and abnormal if you engage in them all of the time)

Problem #1: Dietary Tiredness:  This occurs when how you’re eating affects your moods and energy levels and is often linked to being unaware of your sugar consumption. For example, if you eat a lot of sugar or high glycemic index foods (for more about this click here) during the first half of the day, or a big lunch and then crash at 2pm, this is a relatively easy fix.

If you think this problem sounds familiar I recommend the following.

•   Eat Breakfast! If you do not eat breakfast you are setting yourself up for a very tired day. If you are one of those people who don’t like to eat in the morning (I used to be one of those people), start small (e.g., eat a banana) then work your way up.  You should be eating a relatively large meal for breakfast. I’m 130lbs, 5’2 female and I eat 1-2 eggs, half an avocado, and 1-2 English muffins, sometimes a banana.

• Make sure you have protein for breakfast: This can be in the form of eggs, natural nut butter, almonds or cottage cheese. Having protein first thing in the morning will keep your blood sugar level throughout the morning (see glycemicindex).

• Go low carb during the day: This takes some time to get used to but try and stay away from breads and sugars during the day (even in the form of juice). Eating protein and veggies instead will leave you feeling a lot more energetic

• Avoid too much caffeine and sugar in the form of drinks: I’m a graduate student, so yes I have caffeine, but I always try to limit it to 1 or 2 cups a day. If you are finding that you need 3 or more cups of caffeinated/sugary drinks to keep yourself going think again. Yes they will give you a quick “pick me up” but once your blood sugar crashes you’ll likely feel worse off than before. 

Too much caffeine have you crashing?!

Problem #2: Lack of Sleep:  

This is as, if not more common, the dietary tiredness. Although the recommendations are 8 hours of sleep/night for adults, in my opinion, how much sleep you need is a very individual thing. For me I work best on 7-8 hours. The only way you will find this out is to experiment. However, if you are getting less than 6 hours of sleep/night you’re probably not running at full capacity. 

Why do you need sleep? Well, during the day we use our brains quite a bit (some of us more than others) and we need sleep to repair/rest our brains. This is why REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is very important. It is believed that in this stage of sleep your brain basically repairs itself and forms new connections. So if you are not sleeping deep enough to get to REM sleep or not staying long enough in REM sleep, waking up and trying to operate is like trying to run a marathon right after you ran a marathon with no rest. 

So how do you get more sleep, or quality sleep? Well there are some ways, and if you’re one of those people who are all like “Robyn, I just can’t get to sleep at a reasonable time, I’m not TIRED” I have some tips for you indeed!

• Go to bed at a reasonable time: If you get up at 6am you should be going to bed no later than 10:30pm (if you need 7-8hours). You have to take into account that it will take time for you to fall asleep, which sometimes be up to half an hour. If you have trouble going to bed earlier because you are not tired try the following

o   Not watching TV/being on the computer 30 minutes before you go to sleep: This will keep your brain super active and not ready for a good night’s sleep

o   Engage in progressive muscle relaxation once in bed. To find out what that is click here, for a YouTube tutorial click here

o   Listen to relaxing music and read or write half an hour before bed

o   Mediate half an hour before bed: To find out more click here

·         Make sure your bedroom is dark and quiet:  

      This can be a really good way to mess up the quality of sleep you are having. This can really be a problem if you live in a condo or apartment building (or if the girl above you walks around in high heels all the time while her dog runs back and forth…….). 

      To make you bedroom super dark you can just buy really dark curtains. If that’s not an option try an eye mask. It’s amazing the difference it can make. Ear plugs can help with noise, but can take some time to get used to, a white noise machine can also help.

Problem #3: Not getting enough exercise: 

So now you are saying to yourself “Ok Robyn, I’ve been hearing this since I was a little kid, make sure you eat right, get enough sleep, and exercise.” Yes, I know you have Internet person! This is because to feel your best and thus perform your best you need to do all of these things. If you are eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly and you are still exhausted (or are doing the first 2 and can’t workout because you are exhausted) there is probably a bigger problem to why you are tired. 

So before running to your doctor and asking them to fix you, ask yourself honestly, are you taking care of your body the best way you know how? If not try to change your eating, sleeping, and activity habits first before popping a magic pill and hope everything will get better. I have lots of advice on my blog of how to starting eating better and exercising, so do some diggings!

Tired of being tired?

I digress.. As for exercise. The truth is, you don’t have to be following a fitness model’s workout to be getting enough exercise to boost your energy levels. This is a common misconception that we have in modern society. It goes along with the all or none mentality we are brought up to believe in of “if you’re not going 100% then why bother?”  It is also pushed by fitness professionals that you must be working out 5-6 days a week lifting heavy, doing burpies, and complex programming to be “truly” healthy. Why is this incorrect in terms of health? Because you’re not trying to be a fitness model or professional athlete, you want to feel better and be healthy, and that’s ok!

So how much exercise do you need to boost your energy levels? Well, just like sleep, this varies from individual to individual. For high stress people (aka Me), more exercise may be needed than less because releasing tension is one of the goals in boosting energy in these people. For easier going people, 30 minute walk every night after dinner may be more than enough.

The Canadian recommendations are 150minutes/week of moderate to vigorous physical activity, which should be broken up into bouts of 10min or more. So, if you take a 10min brisk walk everyday of the week and two, 30 minute brisk walks on Saturday and Sunday you are meeting the Canadian health recommendations. Pretty reasonable eh?  I would start there if you are unsure if you are getting enough exercise. 

So there you have it, some ways to help you with your energy levels if you’re finding they are kind of low these days. If you’re reading this and are saying “I do all of this stuff and I still feel like crap” a good place to go is your Dr. I will touch base on what abnormal/chronic tiredness could be caused by, but that will be a later post.

As always, and questions, comments or concerns are always appreciated, and feel free to E-Mail me at byntraining@gmail.com if you have any questions you’d rather have answered in private.

Stay Strong and all the best in the New Year!

~Byn