How Inflammation Can Reduce Your Energy!

In our modern culture where everyone seems intent on accomplishing more things in less time, feeling fatigue isn’t the exception — it’s the rule. Would it surprise you to learn that your lack of energy could be directly related to the amount of inflammation in your body?

Think about the last time you were sick – really sick; so sick that you couldn’t work. How did you feel? How was your energy level? Did you find it difficult to do anything more than lie around on the couch watching movies all day? If so, you’ve had a direct experience with inflammation-related fatigue.

Inflammation is a response of the immune system to a foreign invader. So when you’re fighting a cold or flu, your immune system is releasing high levels of inflammatory chemicals to beat off the bad guys. Those chemicals also have an effect on your brain making you feel drained of energy. This is a built-in evolutionary response of the body — as long as you’re on the couch, your immune system can devote all of its energy to fighting the infection.

People who are chronically tired may be exhausted because their bodies have been battling a low-grade infection for months, or even years. Eventually that kind of chronic, low-grade inflammation takes its toll. Unfortunately, Western medicine doesn’t have much to offer people who feel drained day in and day out. Doctors may advise you to get more sleep, eat a healthy diet, and start a mild exercise program — all sound advice. But sometimes even with lifestyle changes, the lack of energy doesn’t go away. Your doctor might then recommend that you see a mental health professional (as if the fatigue is all in your head), or take antidepressants (as if the depression is making you fatigued rather than the fatigue making you depressed). This advice does not address the true source of the problem — and may make it worse.

Our goal is to move out of a chronic state of inflammation and toward a state of health. Taking various supplements is a great starting place. But, those supplements will be even more effective if we make conscious lifestyle choices too. Each day, we make many choices that affect the levels of inflammation in our body. What we eat, how often we exercise, how much we sleep, our level of exposure to toxic chemicals inside and outside the home, and even the feelings we experience can all impact whether our body produces more anti-inflammatory chemicals or pro-inflammatory ones. Since many conditions share a common thread of inflammation, the lifestyle recommendations for one disease are very similar to others.

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