There is nothing worse than feeling like your energy is in the tank.
Maybe it’s that 3pm energy dip that only coffee, Redbull, or 4-Hour Energy will cure.
Perhaps you wake up already dreading facing the day.
Or maybe things are generally okay, but you just don’t have the energy to get out, exercise and experience those wonderful feelings of vitality.
You might chalk this up to the fact that you are getting older.
Or, maybe you just feel like you have too much to do and not enough time to get it done. Don’t despair.
There is a proven path to greater energy that thousands like you have already travelled.
Here are 3 options you can follow that will help to dramatically boost your energy and get your life back on track!
- Mind your Mitochondria
Mitochondria are the energy engines in each and every cell of your body.
They make fuel called ATP. If they aren’t running well, simply put – your energy is going to suck.
The thing about mitochondria is they require maintenance.
This is both good news and bad news.
The good news is that if properly maintained they last forever! The bad news is that inflammation and nutritional deficiencies break them.
At Origins we have a test that can pinpoint how well your mitochondria are functioning. It also determines whether you’re not producing energy due to inflammation or nutritional problems.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen who have both — inflammation and nutritional deficiencies, which have been ruining their mitochondria.
If you want to make your mito’s work, make sure to supplement properly (we recommend Designs for Health Mitochondrial NRG) and continue reading below.
- Hone your hormones
Hormones have a major effect on your energy.
You’ve probably heard of the “stress” hormone cortisol. Cortisol has gotten a bad rap in the press lately.
Of course that’s due to oversimplification and the desire of people to put things in the good vs. bad category.
Cortisol is neither good nor bad, it’s all about how much you have and when you have it.
Cortisol performs a bunch of hyper-critical functions in the body such as decreasing inflammation, regulating the immune response and…wait for it….freeing up blood sugar!
If you’re walking down the street and tiger jumps out in front of you, cortisol gets released to free up blood sugar so you can fight or run.
This is all well and good.
Where people get into trouble is when life situations (like work, finances, relationships etc) lead to a chronic fight or flight response.
When this happens the brain looks all the cortisol pumping around your body and says “hey wait a minute…there’s been too much cortisol running around here for too long.
I better dial this system back so I have it when I need it.”
The brain then down-regulates cortisol production and you start to feel tired.
We run salivary cortisol tests on clients to identify the status of the hormonal system which is a great idea if you think you might be a bit off kilter.
So what’s the solution?
Three things.
Sleep, cutting caffeine and adaptogenic herbs.
Most humans need at least 8 hours of solid sleep. Sleep is how your brain cleanses and resets itself.
Adaptogenic herbs like eleuthero, maca and ashwagandha are also helpful to regulate the overall stress response.
Cutting caffeine so you’re not jacking up your system all the time is also super important.
Some of these “herb” words may sound really different, difficult, or confusing, but it’s actually pretty simple.
At Origins Medicine, we help to identify what is going on and provide, plus explain what each one does and how it works.
That way you begin to feel better and don’t have to search all around town trying to find them and wondering how they work, or how much to take.
If you have insomnia, don’t sleep well, or depend on caffeine and sugar to get you through the day — then be sure to take our test below to see if you have adrenal burnout.
- Decrease your Inflammation
You don’t drive your car around with your foot on the brake. Inflammation is the brake that keeps your energy system sub-par.
Inflammation comes from physiological stress on the body and there are three basic types of stress, dietary, inflammatory and emotional.
Dietary Stress
It’s no mystery that the food we eat leads to stress on the body.
What most people don’t know is that many of the foods we eat may appear to be healthy, may actually be processed and have chemicals added to them.
The biggest culprits are sugar and processed foods, refined seed oils (canola, soybean, corn and vegetable), and hormone and antibiotic laden meat and dairy (go organic grass fed here folks).
Oh yeah, non-organic grains like wheat and corn also wreak havoc on your body, as much of it has been washed in fungicides and herbicides. Following an anti-inflammatory diet like the Mediterranean , Paleo or AIP will do wonders to make you feel better.
Emotional Stress
Constant stress, feeling helpless, unexpressed anger and other emotions all affect our hormones.
Unstable emotions lead to unstable hormones, which lead to unstable emotions.
It’s a big feedback loop!
Emotional stress isn’t going away anytime soon, so it’s critical that we learn how to manage it.
Downtime, play, meditation, counseling/therapy, spiritual practice and getting honest with yourself will help lead you to feeling better, more vital and alive.
Inflammatory Stress
If you have another disease process running in around in your body, it’s important to get some help and therapy with it.
Whether it’s a chronic skin condition, low immune system, or pain that won’t go away — all of these can wreak havoc on other body systems.
This is because chronic inflammation starts to affect other body systems like the mitochondria we discussed above.
Getting these other disease processes managed will help everything else run so very much better.
If you’ve made it this far then you realize that the way we run our energy system has a big effect on how we feel.
Remember that getting your energy back is not an overnight short term project.
I can’t overstate the importance of giving yourself the time and tools to succeed.
If you need support, Origins Medicine is here to help.
