Everyone knows what it’s like to wake up after a poor night’s sleep. You feel tired, irritable, and have trouble focusing and remembering things throughout the day.
Imagine feeling that way all the time.
Chronic fatigue plagues millions of people on a daily basis. And the trouble is that being tired is one of those things that seems to have an obvious solution: to get more sleep.
But most people with true fatigue don’t feel better by simply staying in bed longer. That’s because, while too little or poor sleep can definitely cause fatigue, it is by no means the only culprit.
Over the years of working with professionals suffering from fatigue and other health issues, I started to notice some common trends that were going overlooked.
My latest YouTube video discusses the 7 most common causes of chronic fatigue that I see routinely go unnoticed, even by doctors.
Many of the people who come to me complaining of being tired all the time have already tried various diet changes, supplements, and biohacks to fix their fatigue, with little improvement.
This is because the true causes of their fatigue are going untreated and they are “playing darts in the dark”, trying whatever they can to get relief.
What they don’t know is that an underlying (or upstream) condition is causing fatigue as a symptom, and no amount of extra sleep or melatonin is going to permanently fix the real problem.
The 7 Most Common Causes of Extreme Fatigue
#1. Low testosterone levels
Low testosterone can affect men and women, alike. The most common signs of low T are low energy, weight gain, depression, brain fog, and low libido. I like to get Total Testosterone and Free Testosterone levels on my clients if I suspect they have low T.
#2. Gut issues
Especially constipation. There is a ton of great research on the gut-brain connection. A sluggish gut can make a sluggish brain. I’ve seen it time and time again; once a client starts having regular bowel movements, their energy increases dramatically.
#3. Burnout
Also known as adrenal fatigue, or Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis Dysfunction, it occurs when chronic stress leads to elevated cortisol levels over an extended period of time. Your body responds to this by down-regulating the release of cortisol, meaning that you have generally lower cortisol levels than normal.
Symptoms include exhaustion, depression, anxiety, poor recovery from activity, and brain fog.
#4. Food sensitivities
Fatigue is a common symptom of people suffering from food sensitivities. There are 2 ways to determine if you have a food sensitivity: 1. An elimination diet, and 2. A high-quality food sensitivity panel that looks at all 3 types of hypersensitivity reactions.
#5. Nutritional deficiencies
Common deficiencies are B12 and iron, but other sources of fatigue that I’ve found are low B6 and low protein intake.
#6. Medications and alcohol
It might be stating the obvious, but alcohol is a depressant and causes fatigue even in the short term. Chronic alcohol use (and abuse) causes changes in the brain that lead to impaired brain function, such as poor memory, brain fog, and low energy.
Fatigue is also a side effect of many medications, such as those for blood pressure, anti-anxiety, and cholesterol. Fatigue may not be a common side-effect for these medications, but it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been noted in a small group of people taking them. To check if a medication you’re on may cause fatigue, just Google the name of the medication and see if there are any reports of fatigue being an issue.
#7. Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is when you frequently stop breathing while sleeping and have a large number of short wake periods over an extended period of time. People with sleep apnea typically wake up exhausted because they are constantly having these micro awakenings, never falling into a deep, restful sleep.
Despite common belief, you do not need to be overweight or have a thick neck to have sleep apnea. If you believe you are suffering from sleep apnea, there is a simple screen you can perform on yourself called the STOP-BANG screen to determine if this is a legitimate concern.
What to do if I think I have 1 (or more) of these problems?
The answer is not a simple one. Our bodies are extremely complex and nuanced. In many of these cases, you need labs to diagnose a deficiency or imbalance. If a medication is the culprit, it would require a very personalized approach to getting you off of the medication (which in most cases is totally doable!).
The point is, these are often things that are overlooked by most doctors, either because of a lack of awareness or because addressing them takes more time than the average doctor has to give each patient.
That’s because extreme fatigue is a subtle and insidious symptom, not an obvious one like chest pain. It doesn’t usually get the attention it deserves, and when it does, it’s usually countered with a pill.
But I treat it very seriously. Getting poor sleep affects everything from your body’s functions on a cellular level to your mood and energy levels. It’s vitally important to correct the underlying conditions affecting your sleep.
And if getting to sleep every night is giving you trouble, check out My Top 6 Natural Sleep Hacks for Helping You Fall Asleep FAST, Without Pills.
