Everyone gets tired now and then, but if you find you’re constantly exhausted, are experiencing depression, craving junk food, have a low sex drive, and feel like your head is in a fog, you may be suffering from chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue is far more than your run-of-the-mill tiredness, it’s an actual stress response by your adrenal glands that causes your body to go into a downward spiral.
Chronic fatigue has several causes but it’s most commonly caused by high stress, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and too many stimulants, such as caffeine. We love a morning cup of joe, but drinking more than one 8 oz. caffeinated beverage a day can lead to adrenal fatigue. The reason caffeine is exhilarating is because it triggers the adrenaline glands, giving you an artificial burst of energy. As with all things that go up, they must come down. This repeated dose of caffeine quite literally wears out your adrenals -causing them to go up and down rapidly.
One way you can start naturally healing from chronic fatigue right away is to reduce your caffeine intake to one 8 oz. cup a day or give up caffeinated beverages all together. More longer term changes you can make are eating healthy, avoiding junk food, getting more sleep, and switching to non-toxic cleaning products. If you find your fatigue is increasingly bad, go see a doctor, as you may have an underlying condition.
However, before you turn to pharmaceuticals or artificial methods of gaining energy, try these natural remedies first. Sometimes it just takes some lifestyle changes to get back to your healthy self. For more ways to treat chronic fatigue naturally, check out the infographic below, courtesy of PositiveMed.