Fatigue and Sleep Problems

Fatigue

Tired? Difficulty Sleeping?
In the busy stress-out world we live in, fatigue and sleep problems are becoming a common complaint! Fatigue can be caused by a number of problems some are related to nutrient deficiencies such as low B12, low iron, and anemias. Fatigue can also be related to your hormones: low thyroid, adrenal fatigue, low testosterone, insulin resistance causing blood sugar irregularities, and others.

With comprehensive laboratory screening we can easily identify or rule out theses common causes of fatigue. Dr. Escobedo spends 90 minutes during her intake visit to get a complete picture of your health. Taking the time to understand your complete health picture in combination with comprehensive health screening she can identify other less obvious causes for fatigue and can establish a comprehensive individualized treatment plan.

Not Getting 8 Hours Sleep?

  • Sleep obviously being a major contributor to fatigue, if you are not getting 8 hours of sleep every night then you are sleep deprived! Sleep deprivation contributes to daytime fatigue. Restoring healthy sleep is an essential part of having vital energy all day and living a healthy life!
  • The first steps in restoring healthy sleep is having healthy sleep habits. Starting with setting the mood in your bedroom, it should be completely dark, void of electronics (leave those ipads and desktops in another room).  Make it a clean, quiet, and peaceful place, used only for sleep and sex.
  • Secondly, Sleeping-Dogsmfocus on your sleep habits, try to avoid all TV, computer, and iphone use 20-30 minutes before bed. Get to bed every night at the same time (+/- 30 minutes) ideally around 10-10:30.
  • Sleep for 8 hours, you can use a sleep App to help wake you between sleep cycles to avoid feeling groggy on waking (Sleep Cycle is a popular one, but put your phone in airplane mode).
    If you’re a night owl, then start by moving your bedtime up by just 30 minutes, for example if your going to be at 1am, then aim to start winding down at 12am and be in bed for sleep at 12:30am. Keep moving it up by 30 minutes until you are getting 8 hours of sleep.

If you’re still struggling with falling asleep, staying asleep or feeling like you’re not having a restful sleep then don’t hesitate to book your free 15 minute phone consult with Dr. Escobedo. She has lots of success restoring healthy sleep with her patients.

Is stress affecting your sleep? Are you:

  • Have difficulty falling asleep and unwinding at night, feeling wired and tired?
  • Waking up at night, mind running, thinking or start to worry?
  • Having difficulty falling back asleep?
  • Waking up feeling unrefreshed in the morning?
  • Needing coffee, black tea or energy drinks to get going in the morning or get you through the day?
  • Going through or been through a stressful event in the last 5 years (graduate school, divorce, death, illness, athletic training, high stress job, moving)

If you answered yes to two or more of these question you may want to consider taking a four point salivary cortisol test to see if you have adrenal fatigue. Ask Dr. E how you can heal your adrenals naturally!