Get Your Energy Back: How to Fight Chronic Fatigue?

Chronic fatigue affects millions of people across the globe and can have a devastating effect on our physical and emotional wellbeing and severely impact our mental health. It can be incredibly frustrating when you can’t identify the cause of your chronic fatigue, but not all hope is lost. There are things you can do to lessen the symptoms of chronic fatigue and the impact it has on your life.

Chronic fatigue is an extreme tiredness and fatigue that doesn’t go away when you rest and sleep properly and doesn’t have a medical reason or cause. Truthfully, the idea of chronic fatigue doesn’t have one identified cause, but it can be a symptom or result of a lot of different things. We don’t fully understand what causes chronic fatigue, and that means finding the reason why you suffer from it can be frustrating and sometimes take a long time. Testing for chronic fatigue is usually done not by directly testing for it, but rather by eliminating other things that might have fatigue as a side effect. Chronic fatigue affects women in their 40s and 50s the most commonly, but anyone can suffer from it, regardless of age, fitness levels or gender.

The first thing medical professionals point to when discussing ways to overcome and aid with the treatment of chronic fatigue is diet. Examining what you eat and drink and making better choices is a great and necessary first step to negating some of the effects of chronic fatigue. This might include cutting out foods that can cause inflammation like sugar and friend foods and adding anti-inflammatory foods like fish and switching butter and oils to olive oil. Hydration plays an important role too, so be sure you’re getting plenty of water and consider adding some of the healthiest energy drinks into your diet too. Avoiding alcohol and limiting or adjusting the amount of caffeine you have in your diet can also make a difference, so trial and error makes up a big part of this.

The idea behind a food journal isn’t to keep a strict log of what food you eat or to count calories, but rather to try and examine and identify possible food causes of your fatigue. A diet and food journal should list what you ate, as well as how you felt shortly after and during the hours that follow the meal. Note down times where you felt less tired or more fatigued and try and spot patterns that might point to specific foods as a cause or an exacerbator of your chronic fatigue.

Many people who don’t get enough sleep or get too much sleep feel chronically fatigued, so it’s something that you should examine too. Look not only at the amount of sleep you get but also the quality of your sleep. If your bedroom is too hot or too cold, or if you are distracted and woken by ambient lights or the flashing of LEDs from appliances, your sleep can be affected badly. Consider also going for a sleep study to check for things like obstructive sleep apnea which might be causing you to wake up constantly during the night without even realizing it.

Chronic fatigue doesn’t have to have a huge impact on your life if you can get to the bottom of it. Work with your doctor and find ways that you can minimize the impact it has on you and your ability to live a normal and fulfilling life. Probably the two most important take aways are to watch your diet and sleep patterns.