Tired all the time? Here's how to reboot your energy levels

Shake off lingering fatigue with our top ten expert tips

Tiredness that leaves you temporarily floored is more common than you might think

How often do you find yourself fighting a wave of fatigue that strikes for no apparent reason? 

Tiredness that leaves you temporarily floored is more common than you might think, and often the underlying causes can be traced back to diet and lifestyle habits. 

Here, with the help of experts, we investigate how and why your energy levels might have slumped.

Are you dehydrated?

Dietitian Aveen Bannon says hydration is the first thing she checks when clients complain of tiredness. Even mild dehydration strains the body’s circulatory and other systems, causing mental and physical fatigue. 

It’s not just liquids, including tea and coffee, that can boost your fluid intake but foods high in water, such as soup, cucumber, tomatoes, apples, and watermelon.

“The simplest way to check your hydration status is to look at the colour of your urine,” says Bannon, who founded the Dublin Nutrition Centre. 

“Don’t check the first pee of the morning, but after that, what you are aiming for is a pale straw colour. If it is perfectly clear, you may be drinking too much and if darker than pale straw you may not be drinking enough.”

Nutritionist Aveen Bannon

Some supplements, including B vitamins, can also affect the colour of urine. 

“If your urine is suddenly a very bright yellow colour it can be from vitamin supplements,” Bannon says. “It won’t apply to every pee, so you can check subsequent ones.”

If you are tired for no apparent reason, making a concerted effort to pay attention to your fluid intake can often be a turning point. 

“Including an extra glass of fluid or water can sometimes be enough,” says Bannon. “On average, we need 1.5-2 litres of fluid per day, which may increase if hot weather or you are very active.”

Are you working too hard?

A day at your desk answering emails and filing reports is bound to leave you tired. But researchers at Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris recently discovered how work stress takes its toll in other ways. 

They showed how intense focus and concentration for several hours could cause potentially toxic by-products to build up in the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that plays a crucial role in cognitive control.

To simulate a working day, one group of participants in their trial were asked to watch letters appear on a computer screen every 1.6 seconds and match them with other letters while another group completed a similar but less mentally arduous test. Both groups worked for six hours solid. 

Only those completing the more difficult tasks displayed physical signs of fatigue, such as reduced pupil dilation and higher levels of a signalling molecule called glutamate in their brains. 

Too much glutamate leaves people mentally exhausted, and the brain craves rest to eliminate glutamate during sleep, said the researchers.

Mathias Pessiglione, a neuroscientist who led the study published in Current Biology, says the findings indicate that a long day at your desk produces “a true functional alteration in the brain — an accumulation of noxious substances”.

Feeling tired is a red flag for us to stop working, switch off for at least five minutes and preserve “healthy brain functioning”. 

According to the mental health charity Mind, simple steps such as clearly defining the end of the working day with a break away from your desk can be helpful. 

Tidying your workspace or making a to-do list for the next day can help you switch off if you work from home. 

A study showed that a 10-minute brisk walk outside or 10 minutes of mindful meditation improved mood and reduced perceived fatigue.

Switch off notifications when you get home

According to a study, pinging work emails or even the expectation of getting one after-hours causes rising stress levels and adverse effects not just for you but for your partner or family, so switching those off can help. 

When it comes to other notifications, it might be better to stick your phone on vibrate rather than silence mode.

Researchers reporting in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour in August 2022 found that out-of-office workers who had their phones in silent mode tended to pick up their phones to check for messages more often than those who had their phones with vibrate mode on. 

This was most true for people with Fomo (fear of missing out) or NTB (need to belong), in whom the simple act of silencing notifications appears to be more “psychologically distressing”, the team from Pennsylvania State University wrote.

Are you under (or over) exercising?

Taking at least one day a week of rest from hard workouts has been found to be beneficial in offsetting mental fatigue

A brisk walk or workout might seem the last thing on your mind when you are sapped by fatigue, but too little physical activity could be the cause of your lethargy. 

Studies have found that regular, low-intensity activity helps boost energy levels. At the University of Georgia, sedentary people who frequently complained of feeling tired were able to increase their energy levels by 20% and reduce feelings of fatigue by 65% when they engaged in 20 minutes of low-intensity aerobic exercise, such as walking or cycling, three times a week for six weeks.

However, there’s a tipping point when it comes to exercise.

Studies have shown that if you are doing prolonged or intense workouts without factoring in enough time to recover, you risk experiencing fatigue due to overtraining syndrome.

Taking at least one day a week of rest from hard workouts has been found to be beneficial in offsetting mental fatigue, repairing muscle tissue restoring the body’s fuel reserves, including carbohydrates.

“If you exercise intensely, then recovery days are very important, particularly as you get into your late 40s onwards when it takes longer for the body to repair itself,” says Dalton Wong, founder of Twenty Two Training. 

“Both under and over-exercising can make you feel tired for different reasons.”

Are statins to blame?

Cholesterol-busting statins, drugs that help lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes, are prescribed to almost one-third of people over 50 in Ireland. But they can have side effects, including fatigue. 

Research has shown that statins disrupt the pathways where Co-enzyme Q10 is made in the body resulting in lower concentrations of this vital enzyme in muscle tissue and the bloodstream.

“Coenzyme Q10 is a naturally occurring compound found in oily fish, meat, wholegrains, and nuts,” says Bannon. 

“Its primary role is to help generate energy from our cells, although it is also involved in immune support and physical performance.”

She says supplementation might be helpful for individuals with particular health conditions but that you should check with a health professional before trying something like ubiquinol, the active, ready-to-go form of CoQ10.

Are you eating too many processed carbs?

Blood sugar control significantly impacts energy levels, and if you are someone who snacks on refined carbs — sugary foods, crisps, biscuits, cakes — or who over-indulges on white pasta, rice, or bread at mealtimes, it could be why you are feeling tired.

“If you are only snacking on sugary foods, you might be displacing your intake of healthier, more sustaining options like nuts, fruit, and yoghurt,” Bannon says.

Healthy grains — brown rice, barley, corn, millet, quinoa, teff, bulgur — vegetables and the addition of some protein in the form of eggs, chicken, or tofu will be more filling and help to “help stabilise your energy levels”, says Bannon.

Are you getting enough vitamin D?

Your body can produce vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight, and experts recommend 15 minutes of daily exposure to sunlight between April and September to boost stores. 

Additional vitamin D can be found in dairy products, oily fish, cod liver oil, milk, and eggs. 

The government recommends most people consume a supplement of 10 micrograms a day during the winter months. Healthy older adults in Ireland might need 15 micrograms daily, while those who are housebound with limited or no sunlight exposure should take a 20 microgram supplement.

Researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine suggested screening for vitamin D deficiency should be considered for people with “unexplained fatigue”, and others have suggested supplementation could “significantly improve fatigue” if a vitamin D deficiency is diagnosed, although you will need to consult a dietitian for precise doses.

Check your magnesium intake

Magnesium is essential for healthy muscle and nerve function and over time too little of it in the diet can result in a loss of potassium in muscle cells, a side effect of which can be tiredness. 

According to the HSE, male adults aged 19 to 64 need 300mg of magnesium daily, while women in the same age group need 270mg daily.

“It is thought that many of us may not have enough magnesium in our diets,” Bannon says. 

“Magnesium is involved in more than 300 functions in the body, and with low levels, you may experience tiredness and muscle twitches through fatigue.” 

Meat and dairy, oat bran, brown rice, pumpkin, sunflower seeds, quinoa, and dark leafy green vegetables all contain magnesium. Dark chocolate, coffee and nuts are also sources.

Are you getting enough iron?

We need iron for normal energy metabolism and the formation of red blood cells and haemoglobin that transports oxygen around the body. Unexplained tiredness is usually the first sign of low iron levels. Men over 18 and women over 50 need 8.7mg of iron a day, and women aged 19 to 50 need 14.8mg daily.

“You can improve dietary intake through red meat, fortified breakfast cereals, green vegetables, fortified plant protein foods, beans, pulses, and legumes,” Bannon says. If you still feel overwhelmingly tired and breathless, a blood test taken by your GP can tell you if you have iron-deficiency anaemia in which case a course of supplements might be prescribed.

Keep an eye on your alcohol intake

That extra glass or two of wine could also be the reason you are groggy and tired the next day.

We all know we should stay below the HSE recommended upper limits of 11 standard drinks for women and 17 standard drinks for men but bad habits during the pandemic when many drank more frequently, have proven hard for some to break. 

That extra glass or two of wine could also be the reason you are groggy and tired the next day.

More than six units, or two large glasses of wine, in an evening, can make us spend less time than usual in the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep, an important restorative stage, and that leaves us feeling exhausted the next day even if you don’t have a raging hangover.

On average it takes your body an hour to process one unit of alcohol so Drink Aware advises to give your body time to process the alcohol you’ve drunk before you try to sleep. 

“Alcohol works on the same receptors as sleeping tablets so you tend to drop off quickly but later on sleep is interrupted by dehydration, a need to visit the bathroom and body heat generated as you burn off the extra calories consumed from the drink,” says Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep scientist and author of How To Sleep Well.

Overindulging and a hangover is a combination of dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and low blood sugar all of which can leave you exhausted.