Cheerfulness without coffee: good sleep, nutrition, an appointment with a doctor for a health check

After a long win­ter and a lack of sun­light, a long stay in enclosed spaces, fatigue is felt. Many peo­ple try to cheer up with a cou­ple of cups of cof­fee, but the strength does not last long. If weak­ness is con­stant­ly felt, an appoint­ment with a doc­tor is need­ed — to rule out ane­mia and check the thy­roid gland. If patholo­gies are exclud­ed, a good sleep, a bal­anced diet and an increase in phys­i­cal activ­i­ty will help.

Who needs to see a doctor?

If the patient is tired of con­stant lethar­gy, there is no strength to work in the morn­ing, an appoint­ment with a doc­tor is impor­tant to rule out prob­lems such as ane­mia and hypothy­roidism. These are the most obvi­ous and com­mon caus­es of fatigue. Low ener­gy lev­els can be the result of a hemo­glo­bin defi­cien­cy (ane­mia) or an under­ac­tive thy­roid gland, includ­ing iodine defi­cien­cy. An appoint­ment with a doc­tor and blood tests can iden­ti­fy the prob­lem, find out the caus­es and deter­mine the tac­tics of treat­ment.

In addi­tion, an appoint­ment with a doc­tor and an exam­i­na­tion by a spe­cial­ist can exclude var­i­ous infec­tions, vit­a­min and min­er­al defi­cien­cies, and the devel­op­ment of meta­bol­ic dis­or­ders. So, for exam­ple, a high lev­el of plas­ma glu­cose that occurs against the back­ground of excess weight can also pro­voke con­stant fatigue. You can fight it by adjust­ing your diet and increas­ing the amount of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty in order to reduce weight and nor­mal­ize meta­bol­ic process­es. Hav­ing learned the results by phone or in per­son in the doc­tor’s office, it is worth tak­ing care of your health.

Iodine deficiency, thyroid problems

The body is a com­plex sys­tem in which the prob­lems of one organ inevitably affect the state of the whole body, and the thy­roid gland is one of the clear­est exam­ples of this. When there is a defi­cien­cy of thy­roid hor­mones, a con­di­tion called hypothy­roidism occurs. For him, fatigue and lethar­gy, phys­i­cal inac­tiv­i­ty and weight gain are typ­i­cal. In some cas­es, the thy­roid gland works worse with a pro­nounced defi­cien­cy of iodine in food and water, then sup­ple­ments and food enrich­ment with iodine-con­tain­ing prod­ucts will help cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion. But in some patients, espe­cial­ly women, hypothy­roidism may be asso­ci­at­ed with an autoim­mune lesion of the thy­roid gland (Hashimo­to’s thy­roidi­tis). In such a sit­u­a­tion, it is nec­es­sary to have an exam­i­na­tion by a doc­tor and the selec­tion of hor­mone replace­ment ther­a­py in order to com­pen­sate for the defi­cien­cy of hor­mones. If the doc­tor has not iden­ti­fied health prob­lems, sim­ple tips will help to cheer up.

Healthy food for energy

In order for the body to receive all the nec­es­sary nutri­ents and vit­a­mins with min­er­als, prop­er nutri­tion is nec­es­sary. It is worth giv­ing pref­er­ence to the most nat­ur­al and unprocessed food prod­ucts, includ­ing meat and fish, poul­try. They should be boiled, baked or cooked with a min­i­mum of fat. Plant-based nutri­tion is no less use­ful, most­ly in the form of fresh fruits. Processed veg­eta­bles are also accept­able — steamed, baked or grilled. Use­ful are nuts, whole grains that pro­vide ener­gy and con­tain B vit­a­mins nec­es­sary for activ­i­ty. Nutri­tion should be var­ied and low in calo­ries, which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for those who are over­weight. It is quite pos­si­ble to dras­ti­cal­ly reduce the amount of sug­ar and oth­er light car­bo­hy­drates in the diet. You can start your morn­ing with a smooth­ie to get a boost of ener­gy. There are many cook­ing options, you can not repeat for a cou­ple of weeks.

Need physical activity

As the old say­ing goes, ener­gy begets ener­gy. In oth­er words, to be active, you need phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. And it is not nec­es­sary to run a marathon in the morn­ing; The eas­i­est way to cheer up is exer­cise. Walk­ing the dog, climb­ing stairs, walk­ing to work (or at least a cou­ple of stops) are use­ful: all this is phys­i­cal activ­i­ty that caus­es the body to burn ener­gy. Any phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, even if it takes only a few min­utes, helps to acti­vate blood cir­cu­la­tion, improve exter­nal res­pi­ra­tion, as a result, the body will receive a boost of ener­gy. It is impor­tant that phys­i­cal activ­i­ty become part of the usu­al sched­ule — they help rebuild the metab­o­lism to burn ener­gy instead of stor­ing it and sav­ing it.

Good sleep — for cheerfulness

It is impor­tant to get good sleep every day, and this seems like an easy thing, if not for the phrase “every day.” The sleep cycle con­sists of four stages:

• Stage one — the tran­si­tion from the state of wake­ful­ness to sleep;

• Stage two — light sleep, when a per­son sleeps rel­a­tive­ly shal­low, toss­ing and turn­ing;

• Stage three, which is the most impor­tant, recov­ery stage.

• Stage four is REM sleep (rapid eye move­ment stage), which is the dream­ing stage.

Stages 1–3 last 4 to 7 hours of total sleep time. The fourth stage is usu­al­ly between 90 and 120 min­utes of sleep a night.

If a per­son wakes up in the sec­ond or fourth stage, they are like­ly to feel sleepy or exces­sive­ly sleepy. Typ­i­cal­ly, peo­ple go through a sleep cycle four to five times a night. To help you get through all your sleep cycles with lit­tle or no awak­en­ing, here are a few tips:

• Before going to bed, it is impor­tant to devel­op a rit­u­al that will allow you to relax. You can take a hot show­er or bath with laven­der essen­tial oil, lis­ten to relax­ing music, read some­thing light, or drink a cup of chamomile tea. Do not exer­cise about two hours before bed­time.

• It is impor­tant to stay away from elec­tron­ic devices, includ­ing mobile phone, tablet, lap­top and TV, at least 30 min­utes before going to bed.

• It is worth mak­ing sure that the micro­cli­mate in the bed­room is com­fort­able in terms of tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty, as well as light­ing. Com­plete dark­ness is more com­fort­able for sleep and health­i­er.

• If you have prob­lems falling asleep and stay­ing asleep, mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments, mela­tonin, moth­er­wort, and valer­ian root can be used. They should be con­sumed in cours­es, in the form of nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ments or in the form of herbal teas at night. Before going to bed, it is use­ful to take a walk, be in the fresh air, relax and unwind.

If sleep prob­lems are not elim­i­nat­ed by all these meth­ods, it is impor­tant to see a doc­tor for an exam­i­na­tion and find out the true caus­es. Do not take sleep­ing pills on your own, they can only wors­en the sit­u­a­tion.