How to Fix Tiredness

The Energy Dilemma

There are two times in my life that I remember always being tired. I was making big mistakes that would prevent me from using energy correctly. Once, when I was a swimmer in college and trained 20 intense hours a week, and then the year after I stopped swimming. Now I finally understand why I felt tired. At 32, I feel more energetic than when I was 22. Thanks to research, by 62, I might have even more energy than today.

How Our Bodies Use Energy

I researched how the human body uses energy. Humans often make choices that work against their goals. My biggest mistakes in seeking energy were eating a lot of sweet things, drinking coffee, working out, and sitting down. 

Sweet things have a lot of simple carbohydrates. Carbohydrates will give you energy immediately but for a short time. For example, marathon runners drink a lot of simple carbohydrates because they need the energy right away, but they know that this will only last a few kilometers, so they have to drink or eat more carbs every few miles. Eliud Kiptchogue, the world’s greatest marathon runner, drinks his carefully prepared carb-loaded drinks 13 different times throughout the two-hour race. In his fastest run, he drank 200 grams of carbs, the highest formally recorded carbohydrate intake by a marathon runner.

Fun fact: The man who delivered his drinks is a 56-year-old German named Claus-Henning Schulke, AKA Bottle Claus.

The food you eat is very important to your energy levels, but food is not what tells your body to move! There is something more powerful that controls the amount of energy your body uses or stores for later.

The relationship Human-Nature

In this world, some animals seem to have a lot of energy, and others seem to be resting all the time. Some of them get tired after a short burst of vigorous exercise, and others can walk, swim, or fly for many hours without getting tired. In their natural habitat, none feel lazy. They all do what is best for them or for the species. Interestingly, there is only one creature that can run for many, many hours but chooses not to.

Humans have many physiological adaptations that allow them to run long distances. One of them is that they do not have much hair and can lower their temperature with sweat. Why is it that some humans have the energy to run a lot and others don’t? 

Energy for these human creatures seems to come from environmental factors rather than from their food, rest, or exposure to sunlight. But the invisible difference between those very energetic humans vs. the low-energy ones is inside the skull.

Energy Sources

So, the more energy you use, the more energy you have?

Humans have three types of “batteries”: carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Some humans have more batteries than others. Sometimes too many batteries are too heavy for them to move. Sometimes the joints are rusty from not moving enough. But even if the joints are fine and have enough batteries, it is useless if the “cables” do not send the signal to move. 

People with a lot of energy are the opposite of what we think of as someone with a lot of energy. They have enough motivation to do just about anything, and their bodies are capable of amazing things.

Feeling motivated is created by a molecule called DOPAMINE. This is what we have been looking for all this time. According to Andrew Huberman, dopamine isn’t the main molecule of pleasure as many people thought after the initial studies on the brain. It is now known that it is the molecule of desire and motivation! The dopamine system might be counterintuitive, but once you understand it, it makes perfect sense.

The Science of Dopamine

When we think about something that has the potential to make us feel good, our dopamine spikes, and here is the important part: it then drops below where it was for a while until you’re about to get what you want. It will then rise again when it reaches the desired point, and depending on how good the result was, it will go up if it is more than you expected, it will go back down to the baseline if it was what you expected, or if it was not a disappointment, it will fall still lower than it was.

Tips for Boosting Motivation and Energy

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By the way, don’t forget to share this knowledge to others..

Thank you!