Causes of Fatigue and Sleepiness – The Most Common Overlooked Cause

WAIT! DON’T GO!  THIS ARTICLE IS DIFFERENT.  If you are looking for causes of fatigue and sleepiness, but don’t want to hear the same blah, blah reasons that show up on every website, then keep reading.  This article is not about quick fix schemes that are going to give you an immediate burst of energy in the next few hours only to have you crash even harder. This article is simply about getting you to think differently about your fatigue.  By doing so, you will feel better.  No today, not tomorrow, but definitely in the weeks to come.  Best yet, it will be lasting.

Fatigue Frustration – Why It Will Get Worse

Frustrated by your fatigue?  Most patients I work with are frustrated by their fatigue when I start working with them.  The solutions that you hear all sound good, at first anyway.  But they all have shortcomings, most of which can be narrowed down to two things.  First, there are many causes of fatigue, and not personalizing it sets you up for failure.  Second, at this still stuns me, is that one of the greatest contributors to your fatigue has been overlooked.  It has been overlooked by you, your family and friends, and yes, even your doctor.

The causes of fatigue and sleepiness are seemingly mysterious.  But they should not be.  In fact, what I can tell you is that the most common overlooked cause is right under your nose.  Well maybe just a little lower, right under your chest.  It is your gut.  Now if you think that was the big punch line.  It’s not.  There are several articles about leaky gut and its relationship to chronic disease.  That is true.  But the real story is not about fixing leaky gut.  You can simply do that with glutamine very easily.  Overcoming fatigue through your gut is about making sure the beneficial bugs in the gut, the probiotics, are able to work efficiently.

Causes of Fatigue and Sleepiness Directly Linked to Probiotics

To help you understand how to address the causes of fatigue and sleepiness through your gut, I have to help you understand a few things.  These are critical, so listen up.  You know that B vitamins you have been supplementing trying to get more energy.  Did they help?  Some, maybe not at all.  What would you say if I told you that the probiotics in your gut, the bacteria that are supposed to be there are your best suppliers of B vitamins.  You didn’t even know they produced B vitamins did you.  That’s alright, most people don’t.

The great thing about probiotics in this context is that they are always producing B vitamins.  Free B vitamins for everyone.  So if you didn’t get anything else out of this article, maybe I can at least show you why continuing to buy B vitamins may not be necessary.

Are You Going to Accept Lazy?

For the most part, your probiotics are always good.  However, there are times when they are being lazy.  It’s not really there faulty.  They don’t want to be lazy and they certainly don’t want to contribute to your causes of fatigue and sleepiness.  But if they don’t get what they need, or if there are bad bacteria or fungus inhibiting the probiotics from functioning at a high level, they cannot do their job.  This means B vitamin production is reduced. Guess whose energy suffers?  That’s right, yours does!

What About Sleepiness?

They story does not end here.  Your probiotics are linked to sleepiness as well.  See the probiotics don’t just produce B vitamins.  They produce a lot of other beneficial compounds for you as well.  One other group is called psychobiotics.  That term still makes me chuckle.  It basically means the bacteria are producing beneficial substances for your brain to function at a high level.  If you brain is not getting fed consistently, you are going to deal with mental fatigue.  Sleepiness is just one way that mental fatigue can present.

Step One Towards Being More Energy

I told you when you started reading this article that this was not going to be a quick fix.  It is a long term solution.  Therefore, there is not going to be the proverbial magic bullet at the end of this article.  If you were expecting such, my apologies, but that is not how I roll.  Only real answers here.  Now, on to step one.  The first step is knowing if you even have enough probiotics to produce enough B vitamins and vital brain substances (aka neurotransmitters) to meet your needs.  This can all be accomplished by looking at a simple stool test.  This is the window into your gut.  This is how you learn which probiotics are in the gut and which ones are not.

Now, I know you want more.  So I am not going to hold back.  I want you to feel better.  Once you figure out which probiotics you need to add to make an impact on your gut, you can go ahead and start adding in more color fiber sources into your diet.  Yes, I am speaking about vegetables.  The more, the better.  And I don’t just mean “more” as in quantity.  I also mean “more” variety.  Eat lots of colors and dense fiber sources. These are fuel for your probiotics.  In fact, diet is one of the most important modifying factors of the gut.  Before you know it, you will be checking “lazy” probiotics off of your list of causes of fatigue and sleepiness.