What Gives You Energy

If you're battling fatigue, it is important to understand what gives you energy on an average day. If you're struggling with fatigue, you can begin to tackle it from any of these angles. For example, if you've tried balancing your thyroid and adrenal hormones but haven't considered cellular energy, consider starting there. So, what is energy, and why do you have it some days and not others?

It turns out that this is a far more complex question than you might think, because many factors must come together for us to wake up in the morning feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The good news is that there are some signals you can look at, like the times of day when you feel energetic vs. the times of day when you don't, to help you find the parts of this equation that are working well and the parts that need a little boost.

What makes you feel energetic?

Thyroid Hormones Give You Energy

Thyroid hormones determine a great deal about how much energy you feel on any given day, because these hormones are largely responsible for your resting metabolism. Resting metabolism is similar to how fast your engine revs when you're not doing anything. It determines how much energy you use just by being alive. People with higher levels of thyroid hormones use more energy, feel warmer, feel more energetic, and generally act bouncier than those with lower levels of thyroid hormone.

Adrenal Hormones Give You Energy

Your adrenal glands are responsible for producing the hormone counterparts of the major neurotransmitters epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline). Also, cortisol is important in helping to maintain your circadian rhythm and also in helping you recover from fight or flight situations.

Your adrenals play a part in background energy levels, and more specifically, in stress and situational response. Fight or flight situations trigger a massive release of adrenaline and noradrenaline to help prepare your body to fight or flee, then cortisol helps clean up the mess afterward. In the Western world's stress-saturated lifestyle, adrenal hormones often become overwhelmed and overworked by the near-constant fight-or-flight panic of modern life. This system carries significant weight, and supporting the adrenals, as well as modifying behavior to help protect adrenal health, can make a huge difference for individuals experiencing deep fatigue.

Sex Hormones Give You Energy

For both genders, sex hormones play a significant role in energy levels; for men, healthy levels of testosterone, coupled with low estrogen, contribute to a feeling of well-being and increased ability. For women, the higher estrogen times of their menstrual cycle tend to be highest in energy, whereas higher progesterone times are typically more sleepy. Estrogen and testosterone both influence the energy levels of people of all genders; however, testosterone is the primary influence for individuals who are biologically male, while the estrogen-progesterone balance is the primary influence for those who are biologically female. When these hormones fall out of balance, energy levels, moods, fertility, and many other things can be affected.

Neurotransmitters Give You Energy

'There are several neurotransmitters that boost your energy level, including epinephrine and norepinephrine, which we talked about in the context of their action as hormones in the body. The difference between a hormone and a neurotransmitter is that a hormone is released by one part of the body and acts on tissues different from that part.

Neurotransmitters are released by brain cells to act on other brain cells, usually on specific cells to which the original cell is linked. In the brain, these neurotransmitters function mostly in the medulla oblongata, regulating heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. Dopamine is well known for raising feelings of energy, confidence, and motivation, while serotonin elevates mood, energy, and physical restlessness.

Histamine is also a neurotransmitter that contributes to the feeling of energy and is intricately involved with your circadian rhythm. So, situations in which it's hard to get out of bed in the morning could be many things, but one of those is low histamine. Other neurotransmitters, such as GABA, increase feelings of sleepiness.

There are many gene SNPs that influence resting levels of various neurotransmitters. Slow COMT patterns boost energy-increasing neurotransmitters, while fast COMT suppresses them, and this can lead to a difference in normal resting energy levels. The MAOA gene patterns also influence mood by altering the rate at which norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin are metabolized. While this gene does influence energy levels, it has a stronger influence on aspects such as aggression and food cravings. While it seems reasonable that genes affecting GABA or GABA receptors might also influence energy, the research suggests they are more closely correlated with traits such as alcoholism. Clearly, we are in the early stages of research in all of these areas.

Nutrients, Food, and General Nutrition Give You Energy

Food provides two basic resources: one is calories, which represent the energy that can be used or stored. The other resource is nutrients, including vitamins and minerals, that help your body produce key substances such as hormones and neurotransmitters. Having stable energy relies on having an availability of both of these stably and steadily.

The most direct source of caloric energy is sugar, so blood sugar that fluctuates between highs and lows is one of the leading causes of fatigue. It also leads to irritability, anxiety, and blood sugar problems like diabetes. To prevent this, it is best to eat a balanced diet with good sources of fiber, healthy fats, and proteins and low in starchy, sugary foods.

Nutrients, derived from a diet rich in whole foods, give your body the building blocks to make the hormones, neurotransmitters, and basic body structures necessary to function. Having a good diet in an immediate sense gives you the stable blood sugar that you need for caloric energy, and a good diet over a longer period of time gives you the background of nutrients.

Mitochondria and Cellular Energy Give You Energy

Your energy as a human depends on the energy of each of your parts, your roughly 28 trillion cells. These cells have their way of creating energy internally, which requires the nutrients from the food you eat, especially B vitamins. This process occurs in a cellular organelle called the mitochondrion, essentially the cell's power station. Several factors can interfere with mitochondrial function, including B vitamin deficiency, high viral load, and toxicity. Cellular energy is often a factor in chronic fatigue and other complex disease states like post-viral syndromes, including long COVID.

Sleep and Rest Give You Energy

One of the most obvious and immediate contributors to the feeling of energy is sleep quantity and quality. By my age, one night of bad sleep is enough to throw a wrench into the works and give me a day of fatigue, inefficiency, and irritability, and longer-term sleep disorders are far more damaging than that.

Far more subtle is the influence of rest, which is the counterpart to productive work. Rest is a forgotten stepchild these days, but it is essential to our successful functioning in both work and life. Knowing how to use rest effectively can boost energy, mental alertness, and productivity. Adding structured rest to your day can significantly boost overall energy, and this is especially noticeable in mental energy.

Understanding the factors that make you feel energetic can help you find and isolate the cause of your fatigue.