Every day is the same. You push snooze on your alarm clock six times, then crawl out of bed-no time for breakfast. Struggle through the morning, fueled by many mugs of strong coffee. Drag yourself to lunch. Drag yourself back to your work desk and muscle through the afternoon. Then drag yourself back home, where all you want to do is order Mr Delivery and sit in front of the TV under a thick cozy blanket.
You are exhausted just thinking about it.
Fatigue is at near-epidemic proportions. Making even small changes in your diet can have a substantial effect on your energy levels.
Brain Fuel
There are some foods that make us droopy and sleepy, whilst others give us energy to burn. It is only in recent years that scientists have begun understanding why-the answer, as it so often does, begins in the brain.
To a large extent our mood, feelings and energy levels are controlled by neurons-nerve cells in our brain which communicate with the help of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. Studies have shown that neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine can dramatically affect energy levels, which is why they are sometimes called wake-up chemicals.
Our diets provide the raw materials needed for the production of these neurotransmitters . What we eat, or don’t eat, can play a large role in how we feel. The building block for dopamine and tyrosine is the amino acid tyrosine. Tyrosine levels are elevated when you eat high protein foods such as chicken, fish and low fat yoghurt. Dieticians recommend that protein foods and carbohydrate foods be eaten together as the carbohydrate foods alone cause a rapid release of sugar in our blood and a subsequent rapid drop in energy. The protein helps to even this out.
You don’t need to down large amounts of protein to get the energizing effects. Eating just 90g of a protein rich food like a large chicken breast or a boiled egg, “feeds” your brain enough tyrosine to get the dopamine and norepinephrine flowing.
Even though protein-rich foods can boost your energy, the fats that often go with them can drag you down. Digesting fats diverts blood from the brain which can make you feel sluggish. Thus, lean proteins and llte dressings are preferred over processed meats and high fat sauces and dressings.
Snooze foods
At 15:00, do you know where your energy is? Not at the coffee corner. While a cup or two of coffee early in the day has been shown to boost alertness and mental functioning, drinking large amounts day after day tends to lower energy levels. Be careful of high sugar foods and snacks as these foods contribute to feelings of fatigue as they release sugar quickly into the bloodstream, causing sugar to spike. Sugar can also cause fatigue by indirectly stimulating the production of serotonin, which, as we have seen, is the brain chemical that plays a calming role. That is exactly what you don’t need when you are fighting fatigue.