How to Prevent Fatigue (simple lifestyle tips)

Heather Stillufsen

Millions of people across England and the world feel permanently wiped out. Of course this could be do with insomnia, being a carer or looking after young children/babies, but sometimes fatigue can come from physical conditions or even stress.

Severe fatigue is serious, with experts saying that if you have severe exhaustion, it likely would in an ideal world take a good few months to get back to normal, but of course most people have life responsibilities for family or work.

If you feel constant fatigue after healthy lifestyle changes, it’s best to visit your GP for a blood test, to rule out anaemia or other medical issues. 

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. Matthew 11: 28-30

Good Quality Sleep

A good night’s sleep is obviously the first port of call, ideally seven to nine hours each day (and that’s proper sleep, not alcohol sleep, which often puts you in a different kind of non-healing sleep, then wakes you up at 2am).

Good sleep is not so easy if you have insomnia, and worrying about it will make things worse. If your sleep deprivation is due to a nocturnal baby, read The Baby Sleep Guide (by a sleep consultant who is also the mother of triplets!)

If you’re a carer, read our help our carers tag, to find lots of help (from benefits to buy things to make life easier, and how to find practical help and support).

Create a calm bedtime routine. Switch off computers and the TV (especially the news and horror films!)  an hour before bed, and read a book (not a horror novel!) or take a warm bath, or even have an evening potter around the garden. Avoid alcohol and cigarettes (both are stimulants).

You don’t need essential oils (and they are not safe for pets that sleep on your bed, cats can’t break them down in their liver). A good routine is far more helpful. 

Also ensure your bedroom is clean and comfortable, and the right temperature (not too warm or cold). Use black-out curtains and an eye mask, if needed.

Read our post on safe baby nurseries, for tips on preventing SIDS (crib death).

Park Your To-Do Worries on Paper!

Often people feel stressed and fatigued, because they have a constant ‘monkey chatter’ going on in their heads, on all the things they have to do, which makes them feel tired.

Treat yourself to one of Good Tuesday’s to-do pads (on recycled paper). Beautifully designed, these can inspire you to create small lists that you can plough through over time. Offloading the info onto paper, can help to clear your mind, and help your brain feel more ready to sleep.

Fuel Your Body with Nourishing Foods

Food is fuel. If you’re not putting  good fuel in the tank, your ‘car’ won’t run. You need good nutrition to sleep, as well as to work and run marathons. Build meals around whole foods, lean plant proteins (like tempeh), complex carbs, and colourful veg. Add healthy fats for good brain health.

• Breakfast: Oats with plant milk or yoghurt, topped with berries and seeds. Beans on wholegrain toast with tomatoes. Smoothie with spinach, banana, oats, and peanut butter.
• Lunch: Marinated tofu or beans with quinoa and a big salad. Wholegrain wrap with vegan tuna, crunchy veg, and hummus. Soup with lentils and a slice of wholegrain bread.
• Dinner: Tempeh, brown rice, and greens. Tempeh chilli with beans and peppers. Stir-fry with tofu, mixed veg, and noodles.
• Smart snacks: Apple and almonds, Greek-style vegan yoghurt with fruit, carrot sticks with hummus, wholegrain crackers with vegan cheese.

Stay Hydrated to Keep Fatigue at Bay

• Aim for 6 to 8 glasses a day, more if active or in hot weather.
• Keep a bottle nearby, sip often, refill mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
• Add flavour with lemon, mint, cucumber, or berries if plain water bores you.
• Watch for signs of mild dehydration, darker urine, dry mouth, headache.
• Avoid alcohol. This is a sure way to make you feel tired the next day.

Keep caffeine from tea and coffee early in the day (avoid for pregnancy/nursing).

Incorporate Movement and Relaxation

• Regular walking helps to boost blood flow and clear the head.
• Use Lucy Wyndham-Read’s 10-minute body stretch, for stiff muscles.
• Her body weight exercises are good, or use resistance bands.

Getting Things Done, When Fatigued

Rest-Do Days is a practical guide to finding a balance between resting and doing, so you can recharge your energy, while doing things important to you. It’s aimed at people with MS, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, vasculitis, Parkinson’s and other chronic autoimmune diseases. By an occupational therapist.

Wintering: The Power of Rest in Difficult Times

Wintering is a comforting meditation on the periods of life, when we must retreat to care for and repair ourselves. The author thoughtfully shows how to come through these times with the wisdom of knowing that, like the seasons, our winters and summers are the ebb and flow of life.

Read posts on keeping safe in snow and frosty mornings.

A moving personal narrative on the transformative power of rest and retreat, illumination emerges from many sources, not least the hibernation of creatures like sleepy dormice.

Plants and animals don’t fight the winter. They don’t pretend it’s not happening, and attempt to carry on living the same lives they had lived in the summer. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, and vanishing from sight.

But that’s where the transformation occurs. Its’ a time for reflection and recuperation, and for putting your house in order. Slowing down, getting enough sleep, resting.

This is an invite to accept sadness, and find nourishment in deep retreat, and joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and an understanding of life as cyclical.

May thoughtfully examines the emotional, spiritual, and geographical reality of the cold times, the dark days, and those periods of our lives when things are neither soft nor easy.

In so doing, she offers a great and humane service to her readers: she shows us that wintering cannot be avoided, but need not be feared.  Elizabeth Gilbert

Katherine May is a renowned writer and speaker, whose work touches on nature, slow living and spiritualty. She is author of the popular Substack newsletter The Clearing. She lives by the sea in Kent, and loves walking, sea-swimming and cooking feasts.

Purdey’s (a better brand of energy drink)

You don’t normally need energy drinks. For most cases, plain water is fine. But if you do drink them, don’t rely on them, just use them as boosters (say if you are feeling tired before work or a long drive, when you have to stay awake).

Energy drinks can raise the heart rate and blood pressure if consumed in excess (they are banned for sale for teenagers in Sweden and Lithuania). They should also be avoided for pregnancy/nursing, children and on medication, due to caffeine and herbs like guarana, ginseng, cola nuts etc).

Pop ring-pulls back over the cans before recycling, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

The first energy drinks were invented in the 1930s. Lucozade was created by a Newcastle pharmacist, and Ribena as ‘free vitamin C’ for children. But due to the upcoming sugar tax, both now contain artificial sweeteners, so taste rank.

Energy drinks have been around since the 1930s (Lucozade was invented by a Newcastle pharmacist and Ribena created for ‘free vitamin C  for children’). Both are very high in sugar, though artificial sweeteners are also now added, to protect against a possible sugar tax.

One personal trainer suggests a healthier homemade alternative is simply to add fresh lime juice to sparkling water.

If you want to buy an energy drink now and then, look in stores for Purdey’s, these are made with sparkling water, fruits and botanicals, and sweetened with stevia (in three flavours – raspberry rose, grape apple and dark fruits).

Gusto Organic offers ‘real cola’ that with organic Fair Trade ingredients, sweetened with cane sugar and agave (the ‘naturally slim’ version is sweetened with stevia). Other flavours are lemon guarana, Sicilian blood orange and fiery ginger beer.

Why Choose Natural Brands over Red Bull?

Red Bull is now the third most profitable soft drink on earth (after Coca-Cola and Pepsi). Due to caffeine limits in various countries, the recipes differ, depending on where it’s sold. But it’s basically a mix of caffeine, taurine (an amino acid to stimulate the brain), B vitamins and simple sugars (or sweeteners).

Apparently users report that it tastes ‘like diluted cough syrup with bubbles’. One person says on first taste, it resembles battery acid? Banned in France for 12 years (the recipe was adjusted to now sell it again), the high acid level means (like diet cola) it also rots tooth enamel.

Masking Red Bull with alcohol is very dangerous, as the stimulants can mask the depressant effects of booze, and cause life-changing dangers (like suicidal thoughts).

Another reason to avoid Red Bull, is that it’s a big Goliath company, in a world of little men. In 2013, a Norfolk micro-brewery was told to change its name (similar but not the same), or face legal action.

How the average beer-loving man in eastern England could confuse a pint of ale with a can of energy drink is not clear. But they had to reach settlement, in order to continue to use a name that was not even the same. It’s corporate bullying, and a good reason to choose Purdey’s energy drink instead!

Red Bull also funds a charity that uses mice for spinal cord injury research. Far kinder, more accurate and cheaper to fund humane medical research instead. 

Neat Natural Energy Bars (vegan and no palm oil)

Neat natural energy bars are a bit different, in that not only are they vegan (no honey or whey powder) but they never use palm oil, in order to protect the habitats of orangutans and other endangered creatures (it’s also daft to import a saturated fat oil from thousands of miles away in Indonesia, to sell in shops in England).

Created by two healthy peeps, these are packed with goodness – dried fruits plus nuts and seeds for protein and calcium, and sold at cafes, delis, health food shops, food halls and sports centres nationwide.

Most of the bars have chia seeds, which are high in fibre and a good source of omega 3 fatty acids. They were prized so highly in Aztec cultures that they were use as a form of currency.

Recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if your council does not recycle. Keep these cereals away from young children and pets due to nuts, dried fruits, chocolate etc. Read more on food safety for people and pets.

Like all seeds, it’s best to avoid these for young children and people with swallowing difficulty, due to choking hazards. If using them in desserts, always follow recipes to mix with liquid first (never eat them dry). 

Ideal for a healthy snack or even a better-than-no-breakfast option if you’re in a rush, choose from 5 flavours:

• Blueberries and Chia Seeds
• Bananas and Chia Seeds
• Red berries and quinoa
• Apricot, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds
• Cacao, coconut & chia seeds

No palm oil (to help the orangutans)

There is no such thing as ‘sustainable palm oil’, because the world does not have enough land, to cope with demand for this cheap fatty oil that is used in junk food and bar soaps. The ‘Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil’ is just a self-policed term by industry, yet our orange-furry cousins are in real danger of extinction.

Many mothers have been shot dead protecting their babies (which is why you have the orangutan orphanage programs on TV). Greenpeace says the term ‘sustainable palm oil’ is as useful as a chocolate teapot.

You don’t need it (and vegan charities should stop certifying foods containing it). It’s used only because it’s cheap, and import is causing unnecessary carbon emissions. Companies can use natural alternatives instead, like this brand. Because it cares more about endangered species than cheap shortcuts to profit.

Vegums Super Iron Gummies (for adults or children)

These lentil quinoa burgers (Ela Vegan) are packed with iron.

Vegums Super Iron Gummies are quality supplements (created by pharmacists), of tasty blackberry supplements sold in cellulose (wood pulp) bags that you just cut and compost, after use (or bin to break down in the bin).

Ideal for daily health and immunity, they are also gentle on the stomach. Save 20% when you subscribe online for monthly home delivery.

If you are taking a multivitamin supplement, do not take extra iron, only do so if you have low energy, pale skin, shortness of breath and you can hear your own heartbeat (palpitations are often a sign of iron deficiency).

Always check with your GP before taking supplements if on medication (also for women if pregnant or nursing). Keep them away from children and pets, and recycle unused supplements and medicines at pharmacies (never flush them down the loo).

The supplements are designed to help:

• Fight fatigue
• Support red cell production
• Keep immune systems healthy
• Strong nails, hair and skin

Also in a children’s version

How to take these supplements

Just take 2 gummies daily (or 1 gummy daily for children ages 3 to 12). Ideal for anyone who feels tired or grumpy! NHS website has good information for parents of vegan children.

Dr.Vegan Iron & Vitamic C supplement

Dr.Vegan Iron & Vitamin C is another quality supplement (for adults), sold in a refillable metal tin. You then just order refills in eco-friendly pouches after that, to save on waste and save money. Subscribe online for big savings, once you have the first order with the tin.

Designed for anyone who is feeling tired due to lack of iron, it also contains vitamin C, as this helps to absorb iron. It not only helps energy, but also can help to improve mood, focus and metabolism.

Take 1 capsule a day (30 minutes away from tea or coffee, as this can hinder absorption). Expect results within a few weeks.

Join the transparent label campaign

The Transparent Label Campaign is a worldwide movement set up by US supplement company Terraseed, to demand that supplement companies list full ingredients, so people can avoid ones with gelatine, fish, collagen, creatine and magnesium stearate (mostly in vitamin D and omega 3 supplements – which cause the death of 24 billion creatures each year).

Also boycott krill supplements (you can easily get omega 3 fatty acids from nuts, seeds or algae supplements). Krill is an important food for whales, seals, penguins and fish, and removal causes by-catch of other creatures.

Plant-based foods high in iron

There is a complete myth that you have to eat meat to get iron. In fact, eating too much iron is not good (especially for women past menstruation and men, who don’t lose blood each month, as it can oxidise around the heart. One of the only ways to get rid of it is actually to donate blood.

Learn to cook a few plant-based recipes!

• Spinach has iron, but other leafy greens have more (check medication due to interaction with vitamin K).
• Vitamin C (helps absorption, a good reason to give up smoking.
• Pulses. Get going on learning about pulses (lentils, beans and peas are great sources iron), as are chickpeas, canned beans and kidney beans.
• Seeds and nuts are also good. Pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds (tahini is creamed sesame seeds) are wonderful, as are flax seeds (also known as linseeds, you can combine one tablespoon with three  tablespoons of water to make a ‘vegan egg’ to bind cookies in baking.
• Tofu and tempeh are high not just in protein, but iron too.
• Quinoa and oats are also high in protein, as are iron-fortified cereals.
• Dried apricots (choose organic), prunes and even dark chocolate are good. As is blackstrap molasses, if you are in the mood for making gingerbread!
• Cooking acidic foods in cast iron pans is good to increase iron content.
• Avoid drinking tea or coffee with meals, as this can inhibit iron absorption.