On The Other Hand
If you get your finger chopped off and you don’t feel any mental stress about it, then maybe your mind and body are disconnected and do not affect each other. For everyone else, your mind and body are forever interconnected and any man made borders or terms are just imagined and only used to simplify the complicated topic of health.
You may not have started out with mental stress causing your Chronic Fatigue but you certainly have mental long lasting mental stress when your ability to live your life was seemingly randomly taken away.
The ability to thrive, the knowledge that you could do something is such a big part of your mental well being.
Hormones
If your hormone levels are not functioning optimally, all systems of the body are affected including energy levels. We all need to learn and keep in mind that the body functions as a system with many sub-systems. If one sub-system is imbalanced enough than all systems will be thrown out of balanced to one degree or another.
How are your energy levels throughout the day? Do you wake up feeling rested and with higher energy levels? If not, your cortisol in the morning may be low.
One of the best tests to take to get a window into your hormones is the Thyroid Adrenal Hormone test (as long as it is a complete test, image below does not show entirety of the test).
Important thing to keep in mind is everything on this picture and on the other part of the test are on different sides of the same coin. If a test lacks enough interconnecting data points then it is harder for the practitioner and the client to have enough data to have an accurate picture to base the next steps on.
On this test (pictured above) you can notice a relative spike in cortisol just before bed, meaning this client will not get the best sleep because her cortisol is rising before bed. This doesn’t necessarily mean she has difficulty falling asleep.
Why Do We Need Tests?
The same reason any uses any lab work. No one can feel what is going on a microscopic level with every chemical in the body. By having impartial data, both the practitioner and the client can rest easy knowing that it is impartial.
The Limits of Testing
As you have probably already gleaned from reading this, there are always multiple reasons for everything. It is then necessary for any practitioner to so this insane seemingly pointless thing called talking to the client and listening to the client.
The fundamentally flawed idea that someone can sum up everything wrong with a person’s health with just data is an insane childish fantasy that belongs in the ground with all the people that fantasy has killed. Reality is too complicated to be boiled down to numbers and graphs, this is one of the many reasons why you need to communicate with someone.
To point out the obvious, because we’ve all been brainwashed by doctor TV shows, the person with the condition has the most time with the condition to notice all the subtleties happening day to day. To put it another way, there are millions of data points every day and the only person recording them is the person with the fatigue.
The Takeaway: You need to be heard. No test will substitute for being heard.
My favorite hormone chart
I’ve covered this numerous times so feel free to go back to my previous hormone content to learn more.
What I want to point out here is that hormones are made of resources called nutrition. If you lack nutrition you have less resources.
Your body has preferential treatment towards stress for survival reasons.
And lastly, your body can perceive danger from everything you see or come into any form of contact. If you are receiving too many stress signals your body will not fulling enter the rest and recover mode, leading to the exhaustion stage of stress.
The Takeaway: Reduce or eliminate as many signals of stress as possible so you can recover and gain energy.
Minerals- The Spark of Life
Lately minerals have been getting a lot of attention for their anti-viral benefits but to label them as anti-viral would be misleading because they benefit us in kindreds of different ways. Their pro-hormones, anti-anxiety, anti-constipation, brain-boosting, energy boosting, fertility enhancing, anti-grey hair, sleep aids, promotes better dental health and more. Yet, they are still a glossed over subject in the health field.
The best test for minerals is the not so well understood Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis or Minerals and Metals Test (affiliate link). This can help determine what stage of fatigue you’re in but most likely if you are reading to an article on chronic fatigue, you’re in the exhaustion stage.
Your Electrolytes
Calcium and sodium elevates for energy (overly simplified). Magnesium and Potassium counter that and are used for rest and recovery.
Many minerals play hundreds of roles in the body so it is a good idea to make sure you have an optimal supply of these resources.
I can’t give justice to the way I felt after balancing my minerals and detoxing the heavy metals that built up over my lifetime.
Start Out With Less, Not More
With trying to fix a problem, we tend to start out with looking for something to add. With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the body is already taxed and having a difficult time keeping up, so it makes more sense to start out with removing rather than adding.
It isn’t too uncommon in my practice to have a client that can’t add anything to their day even if it is broken down nutrition. The liver could be so overburdened that adding the necessary resources for their organs to function is too much.
Start out with reducing the Total Body Burden by making a habit of sweating everyday, hydrating with half your bodyweight in ponds converted to ounces for example 150 lbs person divided by half equals 75 lbs which converts to 75 ounces of water minimum a day. As long as it’s clean water that is filtered by a good filter, you will be flushing out the body.
Fasting allows the body to clean up through autophagy. For the full benefits of autophagy work your way up to 24 hours, at your own pace. There are of course benefits to fasts that go even longer.
Reduce your home toxins by getting a good shower filter and a water filter. Replace your air conditioning filter with a better filter or invest in a good air purifier. Notice I keep saying good? That’s because you need to do your research before buying anything to make sure you are actually getting what you paid for.
Sleep! Precious sleep. For some a good nights sleep is a finicky thing. It took me a long time to finally be able to sleep through the night and wake up with energy, so I know the struggle first hand. What to start out with first, even if you think you sleep well enough, is to have impeccable sleep hygiene. Turn off all electronics 2 hours before bed, no blue lights either. Reduce Electromagnetic Radiation, turn off all electronics in your house including wifi. Meditate before bed, shower, read, do breathing exercises, whatever you want to do and works for you.
IgG Based Food Sensitivities are really applicable for CFS. Imagine that you are unknowingly eating food that your immune system doesn’t like. This take away energy I’m sure you would rather use for anything else and can persist your whole life, if you are unaware.
Reduce TBB with
Fasting
Sweating
Reduce home toxins
Focus on Sleep
Find IgG based Food Sensitivities
Of course the shortcut to success is with a health coach, and I highly recommend being coached in any aspect of your life you want to improve.
I hope you found this helpful, feel free to share this with anyone you think it could serve.
If you would like more information like this, subscribe. New content will premiere every week. If you need help with your health, let me help you or point you to someone who is a better fit, email me at mathew@rootlvlwellness.com to set up a free exploratory call or to join my free health coaching group. Until next time, seek knowledge, take ownership and take constant action. Bye.
*I do not diagnose, treat or cure disease.