„I Am Tired All The Time“ – 13 Reasons Why

I have found that my energy levels are one of the most important conditions in my life. Whenever my energy levels are good, everything is much easier. Furthermore, whenever my energy levels are high my mood is much better – partly because of a shared underlying neurobiology between energy & mood, partly because in times of high energy I get more stuff done, and partly because having high energy simply feels good.

Unfortunately, many people struggle with low energy levels. In fact, “I am tired all the time” (fatigue) is one of the most frequent complaints at the doctor’s office. According to one study, 40 percent of adults experience daytime tiredness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities. They are always tired or even exhausted, which makes life hard and unenjoyable.

Even more unfortunately, in my experience, the vast majority of doctors are spectacularly incompetent at doing anything about it.

On the one hand, there are the evidence-based medicine worshippers, incapable of non-dogmatic thought, who will test for a pathetically small set of laboratory parameters all of which come back “normal” most of the time, eventually telling people to eat better, sleep more, and exercise. Thanks. Sometimes they give out stimulants and antidepressants or send their patients to a psychotherapist.

Then there are the cowboys doing whatever the hell they want. For example, a friend complaining of fatigue went to a specialist and was told to have all her dental fillings removed and replaced because they were “very likely” the cause of her fatigue. Another friend was prescribed an expensive lymphocyte subtype profiling on his first visit. Then there are the acupuncturists.

Fed up with doctors, many people embark on their own and go down the supplement rabbit hole. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases, no amount of carnitine, CoQ10, NMN, or exotic herb XY, will make much of a non-placebo difference (other than to people’s wallet and the wallet of the sellers). Sure, people may feel somewhat better (even in a non-placebo way) but rarely does it solve the underlying problem unless a deficiency was causing the problem in the first place.

In this article, I will line out 13 common and often overlooked causes of fatigue and low energy levels, some of them obvious, others not so much. They are listed in no particular order.

The above is only a fraction of the article. This article is currently undergoing final revisions and is expected to be published within the next few weeks to months. To receive a notification upon its release, sign up for my newsletter.