I was really tired every single day at a period of my life, without knowing the root cause of my tiredness and brain fog. In fact I never searched the root cause at all, instead, I kept trying to address the symptoms. I was so tired that I could not even get up in the morning, could not focus, procrastinated, lost clarity, lacked quality of sleep, spend time worrying about the tiredness, mostly laying down...
Sometimes I even thought that I might be a chronically tired person. But that turned out to be not the case. The main problem why I could not find the root cause of my tiredness was that I was not properly observing my body's responses to different things. Once I started observing my body and mind differently, the real problem was discovered and it all turned out to be something related to what I was eating, doing and thinking...
Once I turned 25, I started taking the control of my health and lifestyle. I read and researched about physical, biological and psychological reasons behind tiredness. Finally, after continuously observing and analyzing many days of my own daily activities, routines, food and body's response, I figured out the root cause of my tiredness issues.
First I discovered that food was the main culprit of most of problems. I noticed that different foods affects my body and mind, on how I feel after few hours or the next day. What you eat makes you. What goes in comes out. It made sense to me. I had no external symptoms with food. So it was really hard to tell what food causes the tiredness. So I started eliminating different food items from my diet. Then I monitored my energy level and mood for couple of days. By trial and error, I eliminated few specific items from my diet which really changed my life. Main culprit in my case was milk, then wheat and then the late afternoon caffeine consumption. Then I also found out that my job was considerably straining my eyes causing lack of blood flowing to my brain. Due to lack of sun exposure I also had vitamin D deficiency and due to my diet I was lacking enough B Vitamins, Zinc and Magnesium, which all contributed to brain confusion and tiredness. In addition, my physical exercise routine was not suiting to my personal level.
In short, there was a big list of tweaks and adjustments that I had to make to my lifestyle.
Then I also learned that tiredness also can be caused by your mind and thoughts. A fully occupied brain/mind can cause your body to go out of order. You need to calm your mind down and give focus to more realistic things in life. I used to think too much about different things. My brain was always occupied, switching from thoughts to thoughts. Never relaxed. So I realized I need to put a control on it as well.
In short, the following are the list of things that I did to fix my tiredness and how I got my energy back :
1. Stopped milk - That fixed majority of my tiredness - By the way I am not lactose intolerant. But what the milk was doing to my body was something that a normal person wouldn't notice. Milk caused my nasal airways ( close to my throat area) to silently close inside and significantly reduce the amount of oxygen I get. The nasal passages around my throat was shrinking as a response to milk intake, approximately 6 hours after consuming milk or milk related products. Once I identified this, then I tried all verities of milks including organic, antibiotic free, lactose free, goat milk, etc but nothing worked. Remember, I never noticed this milk and oxygen intake relation in my entire 20s. It took years for me to notice what milk was silently doing to my body. It was a pain to eliminate milk from my life. Most food items that you buy from the store has some sort of milk by product product in it. So I had to go and ensure everything that I eat is milk free. I am 100% diary free now. I do not eat anything that has diary or by product of diary in it. Remember, if a food affects your body's intake of oxygen, which is the primary element for living, you better identify that quickly and eliminate it from your diet. So I did. It dramatically improved my energy level and life.
2. Stopped wheat - Most wheat products cause minor stomach irregularities and constipation in me on an daily basis, which contributed to tiredness and brain fog, which I rarely noticed in my 20's. It could be gluten or wheat allergy. But I do not know. No external symptoms. My stomach irregularities includes on and off constipation. Remember, constipation causes most of your blood to flow to your stomach instead of your brain, which causes brain fog and tiredness. Once I completely eliminated wheat from my diet, my bowl movement became regular, a couple of times a day to be precises. Bleached-all-purpose-floor always caused me brain fog, so now I stay away from it at any cost. So I avoid white bread, white pastries, cakes, etc.
3. Started wearing eye glasses - Apparently I was significantly straining my eyes by looking on the computer screen for the whole day for years, and it was causing brain fog and tiredness due to eye muscle stress. I never noticed it until then. Once I got my eyes checked and got a pair of glasses, it reduced the stress on my eye muscles and more blood started flowing to my brain. It increased my focus, alertness and reduced my tiredness because there is no extra strain on my facial area.
4. Stopped drinking coffee/tea after 1 PM. - Quality sleep is important. I learned by trial and error that if I take coffee or tea in the afternoon then my sleep quality won't be good at all that night and it affects the energy level the next day. Some times I could not sleep at all, some times sleep interrupted frequently and some times I could not even wake up in the morning, I was so tired. These were definitely a signal. If you had a great sleep then you will definitely notice the increased energy level in the morning. Human sleep contains different sleep cycles. Quality sleep means that you went through a REM cycle at least once. If you could remember some of those dreams from the night before then that indicates you had a great sleep. If you can recollect scenes from those dreams from last night then that means you went through a great REM cycle which cleared your short term memory area and moved everything to permanent memory. So I avoided everything that affects my sleep. (Note on my sleep hack: Please give attention to your sleep cycle and how refreshing you are waking up. Now I am using a light bases alarm clock and it wakes me up slowly than a sound based alarm which wakes me up suddenly from sleep casing unfinished and disturbed the sleep cycles) I still drink coffee until 1PM, then nothing after that.
5. Started exercising 3 times a week. I assume I do not need to elaborate on this. Exercise helps with proper blood flow and enough oxygen intake. It also strengthen your muscles and stamina, thus make you strong and energized over time. DO NOT over exercise.
6. I reduced quantity of my food intake. I eat only up to 75% of my stomach, which is enough to satisfy my hunger. I do not over fill my stomach completely. If I over fill my stomach with too much food then that leads me to be tired for next few hours, because all blood is now flowing to the stomach and brain will become foggy. So now I enjoy smaller quantity and I can tell it digest well.
7. I stopped ignoring urges for bowel movement. Now I do not ignore body's signals to empty your stomach. I take bathroom brakes frequently and make it in my schedule. Going to bathroom and emptying my stomach makes me feel refreshed because now the blood flows to my brain and not only to the stomach. Delayed emptying could be the reason for most of the brain fog and tiredness. After making this a priority, I can see the difference and I can focus better too.
8. I started taking (multi vitamins), (vitamin d), and (calcium - magnecium - zinc combo). These are important vitamins and minerals for your daily energy levels. Note: Take vitamin D only in the morning, do not take in the evening, it may affect your sleep. Take cal-mag-zinc at bed time, it gives you deep sleep and you wakup refreshed. It's the magnesium that works. I am taking these vitamins on alternative days and it improved the quality of my sleep. I started waking up in the morning well refreshed and feeling happy. Do a complete blood work and see if you need any additional vitamins or minerals in your diet.
9. I reduced my meat consumption to help body to ease digestion processes. Eat more vegetables and fruits. After making this change, I immediately saw my increased energy levels.
10. I reduced sugar consumption. Use less sugar to avoid sugar and then insulin hikes.
11. I go to bed everyday with some satisfaction. Do not go to bed stressed or unfinished with your work. Make some sort of satisfaction before going to bed. and that will make a big difference in your sleep that night. If I haven't finished my work for that day or if haven't accomplished anything that day, then I would just clean my room or organize my room to make me feel good and accomplished before going to bed. Thought of accomplishment relaxes my mind and simply put me into a happy mode. Then when I go to sleep and feel satisfied of completing some thing that day, I fall asleep fast and sleep good.
12. I practice some breathing exercise laying down on my bed before falling asleep. This is to make sure my lungs are expanded before falling into sleep. I do this everyday. This exercise seems helping the quality of my sleep. When I do this, I fall sleep pretty quickly and do not wake up in between my sleep. This is how I do it, I inhale all the way to my stomach, fill my stomach with air, then count from 1 to 5, then exhale, then count 1 to 5, and repeat the same for 5 times. This is to tell my brain and body to prepare for a good night sleep. (Note: Sometimes I fill both chest and stomach at the same time. I also try to sleep on my side to avoid breath interruptions while sleeping. Sleeping on the side seems the best in my case, sleep on my stomach or back doesn't give me a good sleep. I get great sleep when I start my sleep on the sides).
13. I try to keep some excitement for tomorrow - If you do not have the clarity on what you are going to do tomorrow, then you do not have a reason and energy to get up in the morning. You need a reason to get up. So consciously plan some small task for the early morning or at work, and try to be excited and happy about it. If you keep a ToDo list then you will know the things you need to do the next day. A reason is required to jump out of bed happy. It's a simple human nature to delay getting up unless there is something really exciting waiting for us to do.
14. I fixed my bed time to 10pm sharp everyday. If sleep on random times, it confuses the body from optimum performance the next day.
15. I keep a 15 minutes alarm on my phone to remind me about deep breathing in the day. (Filling air in your lungs consciously improves your energy - Make your Belly full and then make your chest full). I practice 5 minutes of deep breathing and relaxation between my work breaks. My energy level and focus seems raise due to this breathing practice during the day. I also noticed the same improvement of energy if I do a quick 10 minutes of power nap in the after noon, but it's hard to do power nap when I am at work. So I stick to breath exercise instead.
16. I reduced social media time. It kind of helps my body and mind to enjoy real life things. It psychologically increases my energy level to do more things in my real life. Social media shows all positive times of others, it doesn't necessarily reflect their real life. So it's better to browse once in a while but not all the time. It may occupy your mind and eventually affect your health.
17. I De-stress by writing down all your pending things (To-Do list) in a notebook - This is something I started 10 years ago. And it's to me the best de-stress method. Remember energy comes from a happy mind. So I try to trick my mind into a happy mood of accomplishment. Whenever I write everything down that I need to do, I feel like half of the task is accomplished already. I write everything down, I regularly spent 10 minutes everyday to review my ToDo list and update if something that I have completed or missed. Then I cross mark the items that I already completed. That makes me more happy because now I am recognizing my real accomplishment by cross marking my ToDo list items. This really help me de-stress, and eliminates the foggy mind and add lot of clarity to what is pending to do and helps me prioritize. For me it's a mental booster of energy.
18. Less talk, more energy. I was a fast talker. When you talk prolonged period of time, the amount of oxygen intake decreases and became tired for the rest of the day. I stopped talking too fast. Now I listen more, think for couple of seconds then answer. I learned to breath in between to ensure proper oxygen intake.
19. I monitor my mind. I learned to self monitor my mind to avoid wandering thoughts to occupy my brain and focus on one the thing at a time, this helps me to improve my productivity and get better results on what I do, and thus more satisfied and happy. This inspires me to do more things. It's a way to consciously energies yourself.
20. Now I am conscious about all of the above. When I am tired, I think about which of the above that I missed. Then I fix them.
After all these changes, my tiredness has disappeared and life returned to normal again with increased energy levels,
If any of this helps.
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