Health Update: How I’m Combating My Low Energy

At the end of last year, I published a post about my goals for 2021. You may remember that my main health goal for 2021 was to work on my energy levels. Since then, I was able to meet with an internal medicine specialist and now have a bit more direction. I thought today I would share my first update on how that has been going. I’ll be sharing what ideas I’ve been trying and what I will be continuing over the next few months. My hope in sharing my health struggles is that some of you may relate to it and not feel like you have to struggle alone.
 

Did you miss my original 2021 goals post? Click here to read it first!

Background On My Energy Levels

I have struggled with low energy levels since I was in high school, but it was only in the last couple years that I fully realised how bad my fatigue is. Whenever I brought up how tired I was, the people around me always attributed it to bad sleeping habits or low iron levels. Over the last 5 years, blood tests for my iron levels have come back within the normal range. I also wake up exhausted no matter how long I sleep. I track my sleep with my Fitbit and usually average around 8 hours a night every week.

Last year I started working early morning shifts at work. It was apparent that I was functioning at a much lower level in the morning than most of my coworkers. And they were often sleeping significantly less than I was! Before this, I always thought it was normal for everyone to be tired in the mornings. A typical work day for me usually consists of being on my feet all day. As I’m working and getting tired, I get increasingly worse muscle aches. My muscles tend feel very heavy and hard to move by the end of the day. The pain is always the worst where I have bad posture.

Making a Change

Over the Summer, I had short bouts of energetic days for the first time, which showed me how different it felt to have real energy! Although that energy faded, it gave me hope that I am capable of having better energy levels in the future.

I started this health journey because I am tired of spending all my time off work recovering. I want to spend my free time doing the things that I enjoy! I’m happy to say that I have made a noticeable amount of progress on my muscle pain! I’m also starting to see positive effects on my energy, which I will elaborate on in my list below.

7 Things I’m Doing to Combat My Low Energy Levels

1. Managing My Allergies

One of the biggest things that stood out to my internal medicine doctor was how much I described my life to be effected by my dust allergy. I was regularly getting a stuffy nose while sleeping and ending up breathing through my mouth. I would often awaken in the night with an itchy mouth and ears from breathing dust in through my mouth.

My doctor said that my body was probably constantly fighting allergens. A lot of my energy was probably going into handling my symptoms. The allergies were likely also lessening the quality of my sleep because I wasn’t able to breath through my nose.

My doctor prescribed an allergy medication for me to take daily. Since then I have yet to wake up in the night due to my allergies! It has been about 3 weeks at this point. I have yet to notice it increase my energy, but having less allergy symptoms has been a good improvement to my day-to-day life.

If you struggle with consistent allergies, I definitely recommend talking to your doctor about what your options are. Before this experience, I didn’t realise daily allergy medication was an option. (Only under the advice of your doctor of course). I had already been taking precautions against my dust allergy and thought it was as good as it could get. Even though I haven’t seen much noticeable change in my energy from this, I know that in the long run it will improve because I will be having a lot less allergy induced wake-ups and a more sound sleep.

2. Decluttering My Space

My low energy is not just physical, I also experience mental fatigue. To decease my mental fatigue, I have been trying to declutter my space and become more minimal. Minimalism is something I’ve been interested in for quite a while. I’m a sentimental person, and end up accumulating a lot of stuff. I find that having a large amount of stuff makes me feel overwhelmed. Seeing mess and clutter makes me stressed, especially when I am already feeling tired. The concept of minimalism really intrigues me because the idea is that having less will make you appreciate and value the things you do have a lot more.  For most of my adult life, once or twice a year I’ve gone through my things and parted with what I no longer want. Somehow, no matter how much I’ve parted with I always feel like I still have too much stuff.

Now I feel like I’m finally ready to part with some of the sentimental things I’d been holding back on. The first place I’m focusing on is my closet. I’ve been able to cut back on my clothes significantly. I’ve read a lot about the benefits of having a more minimal wardrobe, and how it makes getting dressed easier and more fun. Hopefully by the end off 2021 I will finally feel at peace with my possessions. This is a work in progress, but I’m already starting to feel the positive effects!  

3. Chiropractor Treatments

The muscle aches and pains I get when I’m tired are the worst in the areas where I have bad posture, so I started seeing a chiropractor regularly to work on the underlying issues with my posture. It turns out I have an injury in my shoulder, which was what was causing my extremely tight neck and shoulder muscles. Since starting to treat that injury, I no longer get strong pains during work! I have felt less tired after work because I’m not fighting through pain.

I learned that it is always beneficial to get yourself checked out by a professional. Even if you think your pain is not that bad, there could be an underlying issue that will only get worse with time.

4. Walking

I have a hard time making myself exercise when I’m tired, even though I know that exercise will help fight fatigue in the long run. The best way for me to incorporate exercise into my routine is to incorporate walking as a mode of transportation. I can’t make myself walk just for the sake of it, but I can make myself walk if I need to get somewhere. I’ve started to walk to work on days with nice weather. My walk to work is about 20 minutes, which doesn’t sound like much, but the entire walk is up a very steep hill. My route even includes 3 flights of stairs. I find that on days that I walk to work, I feel much more awake and have a clearer mind while working.

5. Eating Healthier

Eating healthy can mean something different for everyone, depending on their situation. For me, eating healthy means eating a balanced diet. I am a pescatarian, which means that the only meat I eat is seafood (which I don’t have very often). If I am not consciously trying to eat a balanced diet, my diet becomes very carb heavy. For the last 2 months, I have been trying to actively incorporate more protein into my diet because it is a nutrient I often miss. I have also been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables in place of the carb-heavy snacks I am always eating. So far, it is hard to say how much this has directly affected my energy levels. I have been having less mental fog lately, which is likely due to a combination of eating healthier as well as the other items on the list.

6. Iron Supplements

I mentioned earlier that my iron levels have been within the normal range, which is true, but they were still on the lower side of normal. My doctor recommended a more effective supplement to the one I had been taking. I never really notice differences in my energy between when I take iron and when I don’t, but I know that a lot of people do, so I thought that I would mention that this is something I am doing. If you are feeling tired all the time, I recommend asking your doctor to get your iron levels checked to make sure you don’t have iron deficiency anemia. Before you start taking iron supplements you should always talk to your doctor.

7. Not Snoozing My Alarm

I have always struggled with waking up to alarms. I have tried everything; waking up to music, putting the alarm across the room, light-up alarm clocks, and apps where you solve puzzles to turn them off. The problem is that I only wake up to the start of the alarm, and only enough to snooze the alarm and then fall right back to sleep. If the alarm is hard to turn off, I will just fall asleep with the alarm ringing! Because of this, I have to keep snoozing my alarm over and over to experience the transition from silence to noise. This struggle happens no matter how many hours of sleep I get. Even if I get 10 hours of sleep, I still won’t wake up!

I finally came to realisation that nothing I was doing on my own was going to work. I enlisted the help of my partner to help me physically get out of the bed after my alarm rings. When every part of my brain is begging me to keep sleeping, I can’t be rational with myself. When my partner talks to me, he can be rational and remind me that I actually want to be awake. Of course not everyone has the privilege of someone to help them this way, so this won’t work for everyone. I’ve only been waking up this way for about a week, but this change has made the biggest improvement in my energy levels by far! It has almost completely eliminated the period of lethargic hours I normally feel after waking up.

Comparing My Progress to My 2021 Health Goals

Let’s take a look at how these changes compare to the original goal and sub-goals I made at the end of 2020.

Did you miss my original 2021 goals post? Click here to read it!

2021 Goals: Health

Main Goal:

To have more energy on a consistent basis.

Sub-Goals:

• Implement a regular stretching routine
• Improve my posture with regular exercises
• Reduce my overall sugar intake
• Incorporate exercise into my weekly routine
• Drink water regularly while I’m at work
  

So far, I have been getting closer to my main goal of having consistently more energy. I have a lot less really bad days, but I wouldn’t say that the other days are consistently good. I’ve still got a lot of improving to do!

As for my sub goals, I have been working with my chiropractor, which has been improving my posture. But, because of my shoulder injury, I haven’t been able to really create a regular stretching routine. I would say that by eating a more balanced diet I have ended up eating less sugar and carbs. I’ve been able to incorporate exercise into my routine by walking to work some days, but haven’t been able to do so consistently because of the snow and rain we’ve been experiencing here (they call it Raincouver for a reason). I’d say that I am now consistently drinking at least 1 full bottle of water while working, so I’m pretty proud of that habit.

All in all, I think I’ve made substantial progresses towards my health goals over these first 2 months of 2021. I’m getting better at figuring out what works for my body and building good routines.

What helps you with your energy? Leave a comment below. Let me know if you’ve had any success with the ideas I’m working on. How are your 2021 health goals coming along?