Over the course of the last ten years of my clinical acupuncture practice, I have seen nearly a thousand patients. During the initial examination, each new patient tells me the different symptoms that they would like to see shift. I would say that approximately ninety percent of all the patients I’ve seen in my practice list fatigue as one of the issues in their life that they would like to address.

Approximately sixty five% of Americans report feeling some level of ongoing fatigue, or lack of energy in their lives. Twenty percent of Americans claim to have fatigue intense enough to prevent them from living a normal, healthy life.

Experiences of fatigue come in many forms. Some people experience an intense and chronic fatigue that profoundly disrupts their lives. More commonly, many people report feeling a low level of fatigue or malaise, not enough to put them in bed but enough to diminish their quality of life. People with an ongoing low level of fatigue often report that they just don't have the energy that they used to.

If you have fatigue that falls in the first category (intense and chronic), it is advisable to have a consult with a physician, especially if the fatigue is associated with other symptoms such as weight loss, fever, etc.... Both forms of fatigue can be greatly helped by a combination of lifestyle changes and complimentary medicine.

Each person has a certain amount of energy available to them that comes from two sources: their genetic constitution (called "prenatal energy" in Chinese medicine), combined with the quantity and quality of the "fuel' that they take in on a day-to-day basis ("postnatal energy”). This fuel consists mainly of air, water, food, rest, and love. Our constitutional or genetic energy capacity is fixed. We have what is passed on to us. Our post natal energy, or our day-to-day fuel, is greatly variable.

If fatigue is an issue for you, then the first step is to improve the quality and quantity of that fuel. This can be achieved, in part, by making some basic lifestyle changes. The main lifestyle issues to look at in regards to fatigue are: diet, hydration, sleep, exercise, and emotional health. Getting enough sleep (experiment with getting more if you are getting less than 8 hours), and getting adequate exercise are pretty straight forward lifestyle issues to address. The remaining three are explored below:

• The subject of ideal nutrition is much too vast to go into with any depth in this column (a future column will be devoted to it), but here are some basic recommendations. Maximize fresh local fruits and vegetables in your diet. Minimize processed and fried foods, and foods that have a high sugar and dairy content. Eat a diet that is low in animal products, low in fat and high in complex carbohydrates. This kind of nutrition will provide you with the most energy and keep your system clean.
• Proper hydration is essential for energy. How much water is enough? The Mayo Clinic says to determine how much water you need each day, divide your weight in half. Your answer is the approximate number of fluid ounces you should drink daily. Caffeinated and alcoholic beverages are actually dehydrating so for every glass of those beverages you drink, you need to add an extra glass of water.
• From an emotional health perspective, certain states of depression can give rise to fatigue. Obviously the roots of depression can be quite complex, however, fatigue can sometimes be a sign that what we are doing in our lives needs to change in some way. If our life path (work, relationships, community involvement, spiritual connection, etc.) is not aligned with our heart, then we don’t receive all the energy that is available to us. It is like being in a sailboat and not having the sails aligned so that they are catching the wind. Examining our life to see how our sails are aligned -- to see what direction we are headed in -- can be the first step to making the fundamental changes that will lead to greater energy.

Sometimes these sorts of lifestyle changes are hard to pull off. Sometimes there are physical and emotional blockages that get in the way. This is where working with a complimentary health care provider can be very useful. Systems such as acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, and herbalism can greatly assist your system in becoming more balanced. Better balance usually translates into more physical and emotional well-being, as well as experiencing greater vitality. -- Jeff Millison

Practitioner Profile
 Jeff Millison, M.Ac., L.Ac.