8 Surprising Reasons You're Tired All The Time

We’re in the midst of an energy crisis. No, not that one. This one: We’re tired. So. Completely. Tired.

To paraphrase Aerosmith, it can often feel like your get up and go musta got up and went. It’s not just a matter of working too much and sleeping too little, though of course those are both big parts of it. It’s sometimes easy to pinpoint why you’re flagging by the afternoon — that weekend of partying, for instance — but sometimes the causes are more complicated.

Here are some common contributors to that two o’clock feeling:

1. You’re not sleeping enough.

OK. So this one is kind of a gimme, but not for the reason you think. Sleep isn’t just about resting; there’s a lot going on inside while you’re conked out for the night. Case in point: human growth hormone. Growth hormone, a protein made by the pituitary gland, plays a role in making muscles healthy and bones strong. It affects how our bodies collect fat (especially around the stomach area) and it helps balance the ratio of good to bad cholesterol. It’s also essential for normal brain function. Not enough it of leads to fatigue, decreased strength and stamina, and depression symptoms. Since growth hormone is secreted primarily when we sleep, seven and a half or eight hours of high-quality shut-eye each night will help keep weight and pain down and boost up your energy.

2. You’re eating too much junk.

We think of sugar as a quick way to boost energy, but in the long run it does just the opposite. All those that end in -ose, like glucose, dextrose, maltose and sucrose, are just going to leave you sluggish. Research shows that fast food also puts you in biological slo-mo. Try this all-day energy meal plan, instead.

3. You’re not drinking enough water.

Many people can’t identify when their fatigue is due to dehydration. A glass of water may be the jolt you need, rather than sugar (see above). Drink as much H2O as it takes to keep your mouth moist throughout the day. And remember this rule of thumb: Your pee should be light yellow to clear. If it’s brighter and darker yellow, you need to drink more water.

4. You’re low in vitamin B.

You need B vitamins for your mitochondria to turn glucose into energy. We can absorb B vitamins well in liquid or pill form, but 99 percent of us don’t get enough from our diets. Try taking a vitamin in the morning and evening. This will keep levels stable and get you energized, and there’s no harm in it since you’ll excrete any excess water-soluble vitamins.

If you’re having symptoms of low energy, check your vitamin B12 and D levels, and, in any case, have them checked annually. If you find you have the rare case of not absorbing them well into your intestine and stomach, you can get a B12 injection yearly.

5. You’ve got an infection.

Infection and inflammation can be two dominos in the low-energy cascade of symptoms. One of your goals could be to monitor your body so infections don’t linger. So what can you do? Floss regularly to lower your gum inflammation risk. Reduce sinusitis with a neti pot. Use probiotics to treat prostatitis, vaginitis and bowel infections. With viral infections, frequent hand washing, sleeping and avoiding saturated fats and simple sugars can help.

6. You need to move more.

You can jump-start your energy with an activity as simple as walking. When you get moving, nitric oxide is released from the artery linings to allow blood to move freely through your vessels. This helps get more nutrients to your cells. Your body responds to your actions. If you tell your body you’re watching re-runs all night, it will downshift energy production. If you tell your body that you need to have a brisk morning walk, it responds by giving you the energy you need to do just that.

7. Your hormones are out of whack.

There are numerous hormones that factor in to how energized or blah you’re feeling. Hormones are like dimmers on headlights. When you need bright lights, you turn on certain hormones to increase the energy to that area, and decrease usage elsewhere. The fine-tuning starts in your hypothalamus and pituitary. The two primary sources of trouble are slow-functioning thyroid and adrenal glands. As for adrenal hormones, take this little test: When you’re hungry, do you quickly switch to feeling so irritable and ravenous that if you don’t eat, you’ll commit a felony? This is a sign that your adrenal glands may not be working properly.

8. You’re insulin resistant.

Insulin resistance — a precursor to diabetes — makes it hard to get sugar (our body’s fuel) to our energy production plants. We then distribute the sugar into fat storage rather than storing it in cells, which need it to produce energy.

5 Weird Signs You're Vitamin Deficient

When your body is trying to tell you something— for example, that you're skimping on critical vitamins— it may go to some strange lengths. "With today's diet of processed foods, it's easy to become vitamin deficient, either by not eating enough of the right foods or not absorbing them properly due to digestive issues," says Dr. Susan Blum, founder of the Blum Center for Health and the author of the new book The Immune System Recovery Plan. "You may not get a disease, but you can end up with impaired functioning because vitamins are cofactors for all the biochemical reactions in the body. We need them in order to function properly." That impaired functioning can sometimes manifest in mysterious ways.

Here are five unusual warning signs that you may be vitamin deficient. The good news: Most are fixable with dietary tweaks—all the more reason to make nutrition a top priority. But if food cures don't work, be sure to check in with your doctor.

Body Cue No. 1: Cracks at the corners of your mouth.

The Deficiency: Iron, zinc, and B vitamins like niacin (B3), riboflavin (B2), and B12. "It's common if you're a vegetarian to not get enough iron, zinc, and B12," Blum says. Ditto if you're skimping on essential immunity-building protein due to dieting.

The Fix: Eat more poultry, salmon, tuna, eggs, oysters, clams, sun-dried tomatoes, Swiss chard, tahini, peanuts, and legumes like lentils. Iron absorption is enhanced by vitamin C, which also helps fight infection, so combine these foods with veggies like broccoli, red bell peppers, kale and cauliflower.

Body Cue No. 2: A red, scaly rash on your face (and sometimes elsewhere), and hair loss.

The Deficiency: Biotin (B7), known as the hair vitamin. While your body stores fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), it doesn't store most B vitamins, which are water soluble. Body builders take note: Eating raw eggs makes you vulnerable because a protein in raw eggs called avidin inhibits the body's ability to absorb biotin.

The Fix: Reach for more cooked eggs (cooking deactivates avidin), salmon, avocados, mushrooms, cauliflower, soybeans, nuts, raspberries and bananas.

Body Cue No. 3: Red or white acne-like bumps, typically on the cheeks, arms, thighs, and butt.

The Deficiency: Essential fatty acids and vitamins A and D.

The Fix: Skimp on saturated fat and trans fats, which you should be doing anyway, and increase healthy fats. Focus on adding more salmon and sardines, nuts like walnuts and almonds, and seeds like ground flax, hemp, and chia. For vitamin A, pile on leafy greens and colorful veggies like carrots, sweet potatoes, and red bell peppers. "This provides beta carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, which your body will use to make vitamin A," Blum says. "For vitamin D, though, I recommend a supplement —2,000 IU a day in one that also contains vitamins A and K, which help with D absorption."

Body Cue No. 4: Tingling, prickling, and numbness in hands, feet, or elsewhere.

The Deficiency: B vitamins like folate (B9), B6, and B12. "It's a problem directly related to the peripheral nerves and where they end in the skin," says Blum, noting that these symptoms can be combined with anxiety, depression, anemia, fatigue, and hormone imbalances.

The Fix: Seek out spinach, asparagus, beets, beans (pinto, black, kidney, lima), eggs, octopus, mussels, clams, oysters, and poultry

Body Cue No. 5: Crazy muscle cramps in the form of stabbing pains in toes, calves, arches of feet, and backs of legs.

The Deficiency: Magnesium, calcium, and potassium. "If it's happening frequently, it's a tipoff that you're lacking in these," Blum says. And if you're training hard, you can lose more minerals (and water-soluble B vitamins) through heavy sweating.

The Fix: Eat more bananas, almonds, hazelnuts, squash, cherries, apples, grapefruit, broccoli, bok choy, and dark leafy greens like kale, spinach and dandelion.

How Eating More Beans and Peas Could Help You Lose Weight

Researchers say fiber-rich diets based on legumes can help you eat less and feel full

With the end of the year steadily approaching, some consumers may already be thinking about their New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, if you – like many others – will be making the pledge to drop a few pounds, putting up a new calendar won’t make it any easier.

There are plenty of reasons why someone may fail in their weight-loss goal. Going out and getting exercise can be like pulling teeth for some people, and starting a new, healthier diet can leave others still feeling hungry. Luckily, researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports may have a remedy for the latter problem.

Professor Anne Raben and her colleagues have conducted a study and found that meals that include beans and peas can be more satiating than those based on meats like veal, pork, or beef. They say that making this dietary change could lead to greater weight loss because consumers won’t feel the need to eat as much.

Feeling full

Many dietary recommendations currently favor diets rich in protein to solve the problem of feeling hungry. That usually means eating more meat, but the researchers say that certain legumes can do the trick just as well.

They conducted a study in which 43 young, male participants were served three different meals consisting of patties; each was made up of either beans and peas or veal and pork. The researchers measured how much food was eaten to satisfy hunger and how much food was eaten at the next meal as an indication of satiety.

The findings showed that the patties made from beans and peas could satisfy the hunger of participants just as well as patties made from meat. Further, participants consumed 12% fewer calories in their next meal when eating legumes compared to meals after eating meat. The researchers believe that fiber content may have been the key.

"The protein-rich meal composed of legumes contained significantly more fiber than the protein-rich meal of pork and veal, which probably contributed to the increased feeling of satiety," said Raben.

Aiding weight loss

The researchers believe that dieting consumers would benefit from adding more legumes to their diets as opposed to meat. Raben admits that this notion against consuming larger amounts of protein goes against the norm.

"[The research] is somewhat contrary to the widespread belief that one ought to consume a large amount of protein because it increases satiety more. Now, something suggests that one can eat a fiber-rich meal, with less protein, and achieve the same sensation of fullness."

"While more studies are needed for a definitive proof, it appears as if vegetable-based meals -- particularly those based on beans and peas -- both can serve as a long-term basis for weight loss and as a sustainable eating habits,” she said.

8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 A.M.

Life is busy. It can feel impossible to move toward your dreams. If you have a full-time job and kids, it’s even harder.

How do you move forward?

If you don’t purposefully carve time out every day to progress and improve — without question, your time will get lost in the vacuum of our increasingly crowded lives. Before you know it, you’ll be old and withered — wondering where all that time went.

As Professor Harold Hill has said — “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”

Rethinking Your Life and Getting Out of Survival Mode

This article is intended to challenge you to rethink your entire approach to life.  The purpose is to help you simplify and get back to the fundamentals.

Sadly, most people’s lives are filled to the brim with the nonessential and trivial. They don’t have time to build toward anything meaningful.

They are in survival mode. Are you in survival mode?

Like Bilbo, most of us are like butter scraped over too much bread. Unfortunately, the bread is not even our own, but someone else’s. Very few have taken the time to take their lives into their own hands.

It was social and cultural to live our lives on other people’s terms just one generation ago. And many millennials are perpetuating this process simply because it’s the only worldview we’ve been taught.

However, there is a growing collective-consciousness that with a lot of work and intention — you can live every moment of your life on your own terms.

You are the designer of your destiny.

You are responsible.

You get to decide. You must decide — because if you don’t, someone else will. Indecision is a bad decision.

With this short morning routine, your life will quickly change.

It may seem like a long list. But in short, it’s really quite simple:

• Wake up
• Get in the zone
• Get moving
• Put the right food in your body
• Get ready
• Get inspired
• Get perspective
• Do something to move you forward

Let’s begin:

1. Get A Healthy 7+ Hours of Sleep

Let’s face it — Sleep is just as important as eating and drinking water. Despite this,  millions of people do not sleep enough and experience insane problems as a result.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders. Not only that, 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.

In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month — with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.

On the flipside, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked to:

• Increased memory
• Longer life
• Decreased inflammation
• Increased creativity
• Increased attention and focus
• Decreased fat and increased muscle mass with exercise
• Lower stress
• Decreased dependence on stimulants like caffeine
• Decreased risk of getting into accidents
• Decreased risk of depression
• And tons more… google it.

The rest of this blog post is worthless if you don’t make sleep a priority. Who cares if you wake up at 5 o’clock A.M. if you went to bed three hours earlier?

You won’t last long.

You may use stimulants to compensate, but that isn’t sustainable. In the long-run, your health will fall apart. The goal needs to be long-term sustainability.

2. Prayer and Meditation to Facilitate Clarity and Abundance

After waking from a healthy and restful sleep session, prayer and meditation are  crucial for orienting yourself toward the positive. What you focus on expands.

Prayer and meditation facilitate intense gratitude for all that you have.Gratitude is having an abundance  mindset. When you think abundantly, the world is your  oyster.  There is limitless opportunity and possibility for you.

People are magnets. When you’re grateful for what you have, you will attract more of the positive and good. Gratitude is contagious.

Gratitude may be the most important key to success. It has been called the mother of all virtues.

If you start every morning putting yourself in a space of gratitude and clarity, you will attract the best the world has to offer, and not get distracted.

3. Hard Physical Activity

Despite endless evidence of the need for exercise, only one-third of American men and women between the ages of 25 to 64 years engage in regular physical activity according to the Center for Disease Control’s National Health Interview Survey.

If you want to be among the healthy, happy, and productive people in the world, get in the habit of regular exercise. Many people go immediately to the gym to get their body moving. I have lately found that doing  yard working the wee hours of the morning generates an intense inflow of inspiration and clarity.

Whatever your preference, get your body moving.

Exercise has been found to decrease your chance of depression, anxiety, and stress. It is also related to higher success in your career.

If you don’t care about your body, every other aspect of your life will suffer.Humans are holistic beings.

4. Consume 30 Grams of Protein

Donald Layman, professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of Illinois, recommends consuming at least 30 grams of protein for breakfast. Similarly, Tim Ferriss, in his book, The 4-Hour Body, also recommends 30 grams of protein 30 minutes after waking up.

According to Tim, his father did this and lost 19 pounds in one month.

Protein-rich foods keep you full longer than other foods because they take longer to leave the stomach. Also, protein keeps blood-sugar levels steady, which prevents spikes in hunger.

Eating protein first decreases your white carbohydrate cravings. These are the types of carbs that get you fat. Think bagels, toast, and donuts.

Tim makes four recommendations for getting adequate protein in the morning:

• Eat at least 40 percent of your breakfast calories as protein
• Do it with two or three whole eggs (each egg has about 6g protein)
• If you don’t like eggs, use something like turkey bacon, organic pork bacon or sausage, or cottage cheese
• Or, you could always do a protein shake with water

For people who avoid dairy, meat, and eggs, there are several plant-based proteins. Legumes, greens, nuts, and seeds all are rich in protein.

5. Take A Cold Shower

Tony Robbins starts every morning by jumping into a 57-degree Fahrenheit swimming pool.

Why would he do such a thing?

Cold water immersion radically facilitates physical and mental wellness.When practiced regularly, it provides long-lasting changes to your body’s immune, lymphatic,  circulatory and digestive systems that improve the quality of your life. It can also increase weight-loss because it boosts your metabolism.

A 2007 research study found that taking cold showers routinely can help treat  depression symptoms often more effectively than prescription medications.  That’s because cold water triggers a wave of mood-boosting neurochemicals  which make you feel happy.

There is of course, an initial fear of stepping into a cold shower. Without a doubt, if you’ve tried this before, you have found yourself standing outside the shower dreading the thought of going in.

You may have even talked yourself out of it and said, “Maybe tomorrow.” And turned the hot water handle before getting in.

Or, maybe you jumped in but quickly turned the hot water on?

What has helped me is thinking about it like a swimming pool. It’s a slow painful death to get into a cold pool slowly. You just need to jump in. After 20 seconds, you’re fine.

It’s the same way with taking a cold shower. You get in, you heart starts beating like crazy. Then, after like 20 seconds, you feel fine.

To me, it increases my willpower and boosts my creativity and inspiration.While standing with the cold water hitting my back, I practice slowing my breathing and calming down. After I’ve chilled out, I feel super happy and inspired. Lots of ideas start flowing and I become way motivated to achieve my goals.

Plus, it’s healthy to do something in the morning that kind of freaks you out! Get’s you feeling alive and sets the tone for living outside your comfort zone!

6. Listen to/Read Uplifting Content

Ordinary people seek entertainment. Extraordinary people seek education and learning. It is common for the world’s most successful people to read at least one book per week. They are constantly learning.

I can easily get through one audiobook per week by just listening during my commute to school and while walking on campus.

Taking even 15–30 minutes every morning to read uplifting and instructive information changes you. It puts you in the zone to perform at your highest.

Over a long enough period of time, you will have read hundreds of books.You’ll be knowledgeable on several topics. You’ll think and see the world differently. You’ll be able to make more connections between different topics.

7. Review Your Life Vision

Your goals should be written down — short term and long term. Taking just a few minutes to read your life vision puts your day into perspective.

If you read your long term goals every day you will think about them every day. If you think about them every day, and spend your days working toward them, they’ll manifest.

Achieving goals is a science. There’s no confusion or ambiguity to it. If you follow a simple pattern, you can accomplish all of your goals, no matter how big they are.

A fundamental aspect of that is writing them down and reviewing them every single day.

8. Do At Least One Thing Towards Long-Term Goals

Willpower is like a muscle that depletes when it is exercised. Similarly, our ability to make high quality decisions becomes fatigued over time. The more decisions you make, the lower quality they become — the weaker your willpower.

Consequently, you need to do the hard stuff first thing in the morning. The important stuff.

If you don’t, it simply will not get done. By the end of your day, you’ll be exhausted. You’ll be fried. There will be a million reasons to just start tomorrow. And you will start tomorrow — which is never.

So your mantra becomes: The worst comes first. Do that thing you’ve been needing to do. Then do it again tomorrow.

If you take just one step toward you big goals every day, you’ll realize those goals weren’t really far away.

Conclusion

After you’ve done this, no matter what you have for the rest of your day,you’ll have done the important stuff first. You’ll have put yourself in a place to succeed. You’ll have inched toward your dreams.

Because you’ll have done all these things, you’ll show up better in life. You’ll be better at your job. You’ll be better in your relationships. You’ll be happier. You’ll be more confident. You’ll be more bold and daring. You’ll have more clarity and vision.

Your life will shortly change.

You can’t have mornings like this consistently without waking up to all that is incongruent in your life. Those things you despise will meet their demise. They’ll disappear and never return.

You’ll quickly find you’re doing the work you’re passionate about.

Your relationships will be passionate, meaningful, deep, and fun!

You will have freedom and abundance.

The world, and the universe, will respond to you in beautiful ways.

3 Reasons Your No-Carb Diet Isn't Really Working

Few things are more frustrating than reaching a plateau when you feel like you're leading a healthy lifestyle. "I was feeling great and doing fantastic when bam, I hit a roadblock I couldn't overcome," says Aimee, a 43-year-old who had been following the popular ketogenic diet, a low-carb plan that reduces the food that turns into sugar in the body. "Despite massive effort to remain in ketosis and mix up my workouts, the scale wouldn't budge," she says. 

The "keto diet," as its more commonly known, is fast becoming a favorite among doctors and nutrition experts. "I frequently find that a ketogenic diet helps my patients lose weight, reduce or eliminate menopausal symptoms, and so much more," obstetrician-gynecologist Anna Cabeca tells Mindbodygreen. While it's gaining popularity as an effective diet plan, Cabeca warns that a few common mistakes can derail your efforts. 

Here, she pinpoints the three most common mistakes that lead to a health plateau—and, more important, how to correct them. 

1. Eating too much protein. "Protein gets a health halo in the diet world, but on a ketogenic diet too much can prevent your body from getting and staying in ketosis," she explains. Aim for 20% of your diet to be protein. 
2. Buying low-quality produce. "Toxins congregate in fat, so when you’re eating a high-fat diet—especially one with a good bit of animal fat—quality becomes paramount." Opt for wild-caught salmon and grass-fed beef if your budget permits. 
3. Constantly snacking. Cabeca recommends clients try intermittent fasting. "They go 13.5 to 15 hours between dinner and breakfast (easy if you’ve eaten a substantial dinner high in quality fats), so their bodies shift into fat-burning mode. That alone often becomes my secret 'hack' to overcome a plateau," she says.

Coconut Water for Weight Loss

Compared to other types of drinks, coconut water is low in calories, but it's not calorie-free. If you're looking for a natural drink to add to your weight-loss diet, coconut water makes a good choice, as long as you stick with the waters without any added juice or sugar. Always consult your doctor before going on any weight-loss diet.

Coconut water is the liquid you find when you open up a fresh coconut. In essence, coconut water is the actual juice of the coconut, not to be confused with coconut milk, which is a mixture of coconut water and coconut milk and is much higher in both calories and fat.

Coconut water without any other added ingredients is a low-calorie drink. One cup contains 45 calories, 0 grams of fat, 10 grams of carbs and 1 gram of protein. If you're lucky enough to get fresh coconut water, you'll also get some fiber, which is helpful when trying to control hunger on a weight-loss diet. One cup of fresh coconut water contains 2.6 grams of fiber.

The drink is also a rich source of a number of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, calcium, potassium, magnesium and manganese. However, the amounts vary greatly between the fresh juice and ready-to-drink coconut water, with fresh juice a better source of the minerals and ready-to-drink water a better source of vitamin C.

If drinking coconut water helps you create or maintain a negative calorie balance, then it may help you on your weight-loss diet. For example, if you drink 1 cup of coconut water instead of 1 cup of orange juice daily, you save almost 90 calories. If 1 pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, swapping your OJ for coconut water can help you lose 1 pound in about six weeks.

When drinking coconut water as part of a weight-loss plan, count and track the calories in the drink to stay on target. Coconut water is also a source of sodium, and the amount may vary from brand to brand. Sodium not only causes you to retain water, but getting too much in your diet may increase your risk of hypertension. Read food labels and go for the brands with less sodium.