fatigue Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

Energy Crisis

Do you struggle with fatigue? If so, you’re not alone. In a study conducted by Virgin Pulse, over 75 percent of employees admitted that they show up at work tired. So much so, that sleepy workers cost companies over $400 billion each year from costly mistakes and accidents.

Whether you’re working, a stay at home parent, or retired, fatigue that lasts more than a couple of weeks is your body’s way of letting your know something’s up. What’s going on is that your energy, or Qi, is depleted. And fatigue can manifest in a number of ways; you may wake up after a good night’s sleep still feeling tired, you may poop out as the day goes on, be too tired for exercise or other activities, or feel completely exhausted after eating a meal.

In Chinese medicine, fatigue is actually called a Qi Depletion, and there are a number of reasons that it may be happening:

-Lack of sleep. This may seem obvious, but you need at least seven hours a night. Regularly getting much less than that, and you’re going to feel tired.

-Long-term stress, emotional upset, or depression. Poor mental health can be exhausting. In Chinese medicine, chronic stress or depression causes your energy to become to become diverted, making it inaccessible to your body and unable to support your health.

-Your diet. Your energy is made primarily from the food you eat. When you eat good food, your body has the ingredients—the building blocks—it needs to produce energy. However, if you’re getting your meals from the drive through window or a box of food that’s been chemically engineered to last decades, your energy is going to suffer.

-How you digest your food. The reality is that even when you eat really nutritious food, if you’re digestion is funky, your energy is still likely to suffer. Digestive problems, such as stomachaches, gas, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation are all a sign that your digestion may not be ideal.

-Medical issues. There are a number of health conditions that can affect your energy levels. A thyroid imbalance, infections, anemia, heart disease, and diabetes are all examples of problems that can tank your energy.

-Lack of exercise. While this may feel counter intuitive if you’re already feeling fatigued, most people report feeling energized after as little as ten or fifteen minutes of activity. You don’t have to run a marathon; taking a walk or working in the garden qualify as exercise.

-Pain. Similar to being chronically stressed or depressed, being in chronic pain also blocks your energy, making it unavailable to power the rest of your body.

-Loss of blood. A recent surgery, labor and delivery, heavy menstrual periods, trauma, and even a very large bruise all represent a significant loss of blood. Decreased blood volume translates into diminished nutrients, as well as hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout your body.

-Working too hard. The Chinese have a term, overwork, which describes extremes in work. Anything from too many hours at the office to overdoing the late night cram sessions for tomorrow’s exam would qualify as overworking. The bottom line is that if you’re overdoing it, you’re depleting your energy faster than you can rebuild it, which is a recipe for exhaustion.

So what can you do if fatigue is ruling your life? You can rest, recover, and rebuild your energy through getting enough sleep. You can eat well, get a little bit of exercise (but not too much), and make a commitment to stress relief and better mental health.

However, if despite all your best efforts, you’re still exhausted, Chinese medicine may be able to offer some relief. An acupuncturist or practitioner of Chinese medicine can help uncover the source of your fatigue and create a treatment strategy unique to your specific needs. Through the use of acupuncture, combined with Chinese herbs, diet and nutrition, lifestyle counseling, and education, your practitioner can help you recover your energy.

Why Am I So Tired?

As a practitioner of Chinese medicine, I work with many patients who are flat out tired. They struggle to get out of bed in the morning, poop out at night, or don’t have the energy to do the things they want to do throughout the day. Some come to me because exhaustion is their chief complaint; for others fatigue is a secondary symptom of something else going on. Regardless of how it manifests, there are many, many tired people just trying to get through the day.

I know all about exhaustion. Several years ago after major surgery, I was sent home to heal. After a couple of weeks, I was up and about and feeling pretty chipper, with one exception. Every evening after dinner, I experienced exhaustion so profound that that I could barely move. The only thing I could do was go to bed and crash. This fatigue lasted for almost a year after the surgery, but when it finally resolved, I knew that my healing was complete.

What’s interesting to me is that almost every patient I see is clueless as to why they’re so tired. This may be because the underlying cause can be seemingly unrelated to a patient’s symptoms. Most people think lack of sleep is the most common reason that they’re tired. While poor sleep can make you feel exhausted, there are many other causes of of fatigue. Here’s my short list:

-A recent illness or surgery. Your body is programmed to heal, but it takes a lot of energy to do so. It’s common to feel exhausted after an accident, illness, or surgery because all of your energy reserves are going toward putting you right. In addition, if there was blood loss involved, as in the case of surgery, it’s more likely that you will feel fatigued for some time–even years–afterward.

-Childbirth. Like an illness or surgery, it takes many months to regain your energy after giving birth. The actual event, coupled with blood loss and sleepless nights can leave new moms exhausted for as long as the first year of their baby’s life.

-Poor diet. You get your energy from the food you eat. If you’re not eating well, it’s like putting bad gas in your car’s tank–you won’t run well, either.

-Poor digestion. Your body converts food into nutrients and energy through the process of digestion. You can eat the best food in the world, but if your digestion is funky, it can leave you feeling depleted and tired. Signs that things aren’t going well gut-wise include heartburn, gas, bloating, stomachaches, nausea, loose stools, constipation, and lack of appetite.

-Overwork. Considered to be an underlying cause of illness and depletion in Chinese medicine, working long hours without a break can lead to exhaustion. Even when you’re getting enough sleep, working, studying, caretaking, or overexercising can translate into exhaustion.

-Stress. Unrelenting stress affects everything from your muscles to your mood to your digestion. Over time, stress has the ability to deplete you at the deepest level, causing an exhaustion so profound that it can take months to recover.

-Stagnation. This is a term in Chinese medicine in which your energy just isn’t moving well. Stagnation is a little like a car’s engine that is seizing up, and can be the cause of a host of different symptoms. Physically, stagnation causes pain, poor digestion, menstrual symptoms, and muscle tightness. Emotionally, stagnation manifests as stress, frustration and depression. The link between stagnation and fatigue is simple: if your energy is all bound up, it’s not available to fuel your daily activities.

If you can’t muster the energy to get through the day, Chinese medicine and acupuncture has a lot to offer. At Acupuncture in the Park, our first order of business is to identify the cause. Our goal is to eliminate what’s wiping you out as well as to rebuild your energy stores. We have a number of tools to work with, including acupuncture, Chinese herbal formulas, food therapy, heat therapy, and lifestyle changes. You don’t have to walk through life like a zombie–acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help!

Depression, Lack of Motivation, and Chinese Medicine

Last week I was at a networking event of CAM healers in the Minneapolis area, where I met a number of practitioners working with really interesting therapies. During one conversation, I was asked what kinds of conditions I treated most frequently. Hmmm…good question.

Actually, my answer was pretty simple and straight forward: Lately I seem to be seeing a lot of working women (and some men) who are dealing with depression, anxiety, and stress. One of the reasons why so many people are struggling emotionally is our current economy. While things seem to be getting a little better recently , I still see many people who are stuck in jobs they dislike (okay, hate) because they feel like any job is a good one right now. Many are working in positions where their co-workers have been laid off and not replaced. As a result, they are doing more work in the same amount of time for the same amount of pay. Under those conditions, who wouldn’t be depressed?

While depression is associated with a whole host of symptoms, one of the most life-altering is the lack of motivation and fatigue that some people experience. I have worked with a number of patients who experience this kind of sluggish depression in which they struggle to do anything during the course of the day. For some, just getting out of bed each morning or going to work is a challenge.

Why does this happen? In Chinese medicine, there are a number of answers. The simplest is that depression is considered a blockage–clearly something in the emotional realm is not moving smoothly. Over time any kind of blockage wipes you out–it literally depletes your energy–and you feel exhausted. Energetically, depression is like physical pain in that if it isn’t resolved, it takes all of your resources just to deal with it. This tires you out.

On a deeper level, depression is considered constrained Liver energy, or Qi. Your Chinese Liver is the organ system that regulates the smooth flow of all your body’s functions–physical and emotional. When the realities of your life are not what you want, it causes stagnation of your Liver Qi. Furthermore, each organ system in Chinese medicine has an emotional component, and the emotion most closely associated with your Liver is anger. It is frequently said that anger turned inward becomes depression.

So how do you explain the sluggishness sometimes associated with the depression/Liver Qi stagnation? Well, one of the first casualties of Liver constraint is that it heads right on over to your digestive system and shuts things down. Like an emotional upset that causes you to lose your appetite, depression messes with your digestion in slo mo. You will know that this is happening if you have symptoms like crazy cravings for sweets, weight gain around the middle, and absolutely no energy. The problem here is that your energy comes from eating good, healthy food, but also from digesting it well. When your digestive system is closed for business, you have no way of producing more energy, hence the feeling of exhaustion.

And there’s more. Your Chinese Liver is paired with the Gallbladder, which has a number of functions. However, it’s the emotional aspect of the Gallbladder that’s pertinent here. The emotion associated with your Gallbladder is something called courage. What we call courage may be the fearlessness that comes to mind for most. However, in this context, courage is also the ability to make a decision or a plan, move forward decisively, and follow it through to completion. Therefore, the inability to decide, act, or the lack of motivation to act is associated with a weakness of the Gallbladder system.

As an acupuncturist, the path to healing this chronic, sluggish, no-motivation depression is complicated. It involves soothing your Liver, strengthening digestion, rebuilding energy, calming your emotions, and addressing Gallbladder issues. This sounds like a lot, but through acupuncture, the use of Chinese medicinal herbs, diet, and some lifestyle modifications, many patients who are struggling with this kind of depression find relief from their symptoms.

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