> Emotional and Mental Health > Energy and Fatigue

The New Year holds great promise that this will be the year that you make time every day to exercise, drink plenty of water, and eat well. These simple choices can not only improve health but also allow you to take control of three things: your energy, your weight, and your stress level.

To get started, let’s look at where you are right now. What choices are you making that contribute to feeling stressed, fatigued, or overweight? How are these three factors affecting your overall health? Once you understand what is going on, you can figure out what to do: make choices that boost your health and your energy. It’s not as hard as you might think.

What’s the Source of Your Stress?

If you lose your temper easily or often feel overwhelmed or anxious, you need to find ways to reduce your stress level. Breathing techniques, visualization, movement, positive thinking, and yoga can help you relax. But first you’ll need to slow your pace of life to find time for daily practice of these relaxation techniques. When relaxing activities like massage, music, and reading become a daily habit you’ll see the rewards in your health, and the people around you will benefit from your increased calmness.

Also schedule massage, chiropractic, or physical therapy if your stress, in part, relates to nagging aches and pains. Chronic pain is both a response to and a symptom of imbalance in the mind-body connection. You can work through this imbalance by seeking medical advice to resolve the physiological source of your pain. At the same time, talking to a psychotherapist can help identify deep-seated issues or long-held trauma that may be causing tense muscles and accompanying chronic pain.

Once you figure out what’s wrong, sit down and write goals for your job, relationships, money, and future. These will help you remain realistic and meet your expectations–a great stress reducer.

Why Do You Feel Fatigued?

If you seem to lose energy in the middle of the day or consistently fall asleep after dinner each evening, you need to find new ways to increase vitality by boosting your energy level. Maybe you should start by giving yourself at least eight hours of restful sleep each night. Continue to make enough sleep a priority throughout the year.

If your tiredness does not go away, perhaps it is not tiredness at all but an allergic reaction. For many people, certain foods like wheat and dairy products can cause allergic symptoms like fatigue, headaches, joint pain, and frequent colds. The body’s energy is drained by constantly going through an allergic reaction. Get tested for allergies or avoid common allergy-causing foods (such as dairy) for a while to see if it changes your energy level.

Once you’re tested and well rested, you should feel strong enough to include at least 20 minutes of walking or more vigorous exercise each day. Exercise stimulates the production of endorphins in the brain–“feel-good chemicals” that give a natural sense of well-being and energy. Without them, you feel tired and depressed.

Why are You Overweight?

If you have been trying unsuccessfully to lose the same ten pounds for the past six months, you need to find ways to choose healthy, nutritious foods that energize you while helping you keep your weight in control.

Every meal is an opportunity to boost your health and energy. But what makes a healthy meal? It’s simple. All you have to do is shift your thinking from “eat to get full” to “eat to feel good.”

Choose between five and ten whole fruits and vegetables each day. Fruits and vegetables contain soluble fibre and bioflavonoids, nutrients that help prevent and successfully treat disease. Low-fat fermented dairy products like yogourt and skim milk cheeses provide calcium, protein, and beneficial bacteria for digestion. Soy, rice, and almond milk are good substitutes for cow’s milk because they are easier to digest.

Peter Bennett, ND, and Stephen Barrie, ND, recently co-authored Energize Your Life: A Three-Week Plan to Change the Way You Look, Feel, and Live (Bindu Health, 2005) www.energizeyourlife.com.

Source: alive #279, January 2006