The Dr. Josh Axe Show - 6 Reasons You're Always Tired & How to Boost Energy Naturally

Starting point is 00:00:00 and seeing tens of thousands of patients in my career. Do you know the number one complaint and symptom I see in most people? It's low energy and fatigue. And so many people wake up tired no matter how long they sleep at night. And if your brain feels foggy, if you're wired at night but dragging all day, that's not normal. And it's not just stress or lack of caffeine. Something deeper is going on.

Starting point is 00:00:25 And today I'm going to walk you through the real reasons you're tired and what you can do starting today to get your energy, clarity, and motivation back. Welcome to the Dr. Joshak show. So a few years ago, I went through something that completely changed how I think about fatigue. You know, I had a spinal infection. I had to go through rounds of antibiotics and eventually I was completely healed. However, I felt completely drained and exhausted afterwards. And even once I regained my health, my workouts felt impossible. I wasn't recovered. I wasn't recovered. covering very well. I had some brain fog issues. And overall, I just felt, here's the thing I'll explain. I felt wired but tired, no matter what I did. Now, here is how I discovered the root of my

Starting point is 00:01:27 issue is I finally did some different advanced blood work and functional medicine testing. And something showed up, actually two things in particular showed up on my blood work when everything else was pretty much in complete alignment. But it showed that I had low levels of vitamin B2, and I also had mitochondrial dysfunction. My mitochondria were not functioning properly. And so those two things, vitamin B2, which is called riboflavin, which is actually a really critical part of the methylation pathway and mitochondrial pathway, was often deficient severely. And then I had mitochondrial dysfunction, which might have been because of just the vitamin B2 levels. And so, I went and I started looking up what are the foods that are richest in vitamin B2, started eating

Starting point is 00:02:14 those foods, started taking higher doses of ribofloven. And you know what happened for me? Within days, all of a sudden my energy came back online and everything changed. And my energy went from being tired constantly all the time to completely normal to where I felt like I had energy all day. And think about how crazy this is, there's all these different nutritional deficiencies, but because I did the right blood work and I found this one nutrient. Again, every other nutrient I had was normal and optimal range. But one nutrient was off. And when I started supplementing with it, everything got fixed.

Starting point is 00:02:50 And so most people don't realize how if you just have one single nutritional deficiency, how that can affect every cell in your body. It can affect all of your different pathways for methylation, for mitochondrial function, your Krebs cycle, which is producing cellular energy and ATP to run. all your organ systems. And this is true for a lot of things, by the way. If you're struggling with depression, if you're off by one nutrient, it can be causing your depression.

Starting point is 00:03:15 You can take certain other supplements, but if it doesn't have the right amounts of one nutrient, you might be off. You might be having serious inflammation. It might be an issue like PCOS or insulin resistance or one of those issues. And by missing one nutrient, your body can't function properly. This is also true with detoxification. If you don't have enough glutathione because you have a deficiency in something like selenium, well, now you're entire, you have a bottleneck in this detoxification pathway.

Starting point is 00:03:46 And even though everything else is imperfect, if one thing is off, now you can't detoxify properly, so you feel sluggish, you feel tired, you struggle with constipation or it could be headaches, but you stay sick. And so getting to the root cause of your issue and discovering what that is is so critical to healing. and this is true with fatigue as well. Now, listen, I'm going to walk through some of the bigger things that help everybody with fatigue, but also there's such great value in being able to pinpoint. What is that one thing that's really causing you to have lack of energy and addressing that?

Starting point is 00:04:24 And sometimes you can do it by taking certain supplements as we'll get into in a minute. But for me, in my case, and by the way, this isn't true in probably 80% of cases. I found that about 80% of the time, if I have somebody to take certain supplements, supplements, certain dietary changes, and lifestyle modifications, their energy will completely normalize. But for some people, and let's say you have long COVID as an example, or a very specific nutrient deficiency, if you don't discover what that one thing is, if you may be doing some sort of blood work or testing or knowing what your diagnosis is, then oftentimes you're trying things but never actually getting to the root of the problem. And if you're constantly tired, here's the thing you need to know.

Starting point is 00:05:05 your body isn't broken. It's sending you a message that you shouldn't ignore. And the root cause of fatigue can include dozens of things, not one, often dozens of things. And sometimes there's two or three things contributing. But many of these things do come down to poor cellular health. And so I want to walk you through exactly what this means and how to fix it. Number one thing is this. Cellular and mitochondro dysfunction is the single greatest factor of people having low energy today. Every cellular, in your body makes energy through tiny powerhouses called mitochondria. These are the powerhouses in the engines of your cells. And when those mitochondria slowed down, you feel it everywhere. Your brain doesn't function as well, so you get brain fog. You have mood swings, body aches,

Starting point is 00:05:52 exhaustion, of course, is the biggest warning sign. And mitochondrial damage also raises oxidative stress, creating a vicious cycle that accelerates fatigue and inflammation. And there is a a study that showed this, those with chronic fatigue have been shown to have lower mitochondrial ATP output in the range of 25% less or more than healthy people. And 25% less ATP, that's sort of energy to run all of your organs, that is a major, major deficiency. So the number one warning sign you have mitochondrial defunction is chronic fatigue syndrome or general fatigue. Here are some of the biggest causes of cellular dysfunction in mitochondrial damage. One is toxin exposure, if you've been exposed to heavy metals or mold, pathogens like parasites or viruses

Starting point is 00:06:42 like Epstein bar, these can start to bombard your cells wearing out your ATP. Also, nutrient deficiencies. That is probably the single biggest one, followed by inflammation, poor sleep and chronic stress. Okay. Poor sleep and chronic stress are big, big factors when it comes to wearing out your mitochondrial energy. Now, I want to walk you through something called the methylation cycle and how this actually impacts your energy production. And so for many of us, in order to create energy, one of the things we need functioning properly in our body is our methylation cycle. And some of you have heard of something called the MTHFR gene variant. And I have those methylation genes where I don't methylate very well. And so this is why I personally am very conscious of the vitamins and minerals I'm taking

Starting point is 00:07:30 to support my methylation cycle. And in order for your body to methylate properly, there are very specific nutrients you need in specific forms to help run methylation. And the first one is folate or methylfolate. That is the first nutrient you need in order to methylate properly. And this is where it goes wrong for most people is in folate or methylfolate.

Starting point is 00:07:53 And there are certain foods that are high in folate. We knew green leafy vegetables. Many others are high in folate. organ meats like liver. And so you do want to be getting folate in your body that's also known as vitamin B9, which is critical for, it's also very important for pregnancy and a number of things. Right. We've saw the study where women who take acetaminophen or Tylenol start to get depleted in

Starting point is 00:08:21 issues like folate and then also glutathione. And when glutathione gets depleted, that may increase the risk of autism in offspring, right? So there's issues there with having low folate, low selenium, low glutathione via taking things like Tylenol during pregnancy and maybe even before leading up to. So we have to be very careful with those sort of things. But part of that is also how this might impact the methylation cycle is very important. And so if you are low in vitamin B9, you can be doing all the other right things. You can be exercising, getting proper sleep. And you're still going to wake up exhausted every single day. And I've noticed this when women are pregnant

Starting point is 00:09:03 and then post-pregnancy, oftentimes they suffer with postpartum depression and low energy. Sometimes, I believe part of that reason is their body has used up so many nutrients like B-9, B-12, iron, B-6 during pregnancy, that now they have a deficiency. And so they're exhausted, and that's part of actually what causes some of that postpartum depression is just exhaustion. being so tired and then you throw lack of sleep on top of it. It's, again, that can lead to those symptoms of depression and low energy you have post-pregnancy. But when we look at this methylation cycle as a whole, you must have folate. You also must have amino acids like serene.

Starting point is 00:09:44 You need vitamin B6. You also need vitamin B2 and vitamin B-12. And then another vitamin that sort of falls in the B-vitamin category called Colleen, which is found in egg yolks and organ meats and just meat in general. And if you're deficient any one of those, your body is not methylating properly. Well, for myself, I was taking a vitamin, a B complex that had vitamin B2. But actually the levels were very low. It was only like two milligrams.

Starting point is 00:10:15 And I realized, well, I need a lot more than that. I started supplementing with around 60 milligrams a day. And all of a sudden, my energy went through the roof. And so for me, it made total sense. to me when I'm looking at this methylation pathway knowing I don't methylate well, but knowing on my blood work, I had normal levels of B9, folate, normal levels of B12, in fact, they were a little bit high because they weren't recycling properly, normal levels of B6, but B2, that one nutrient for myself was off.

Starting point is 00:10:42 And because of that, my entire methylation pathway was thrown off. And I wasn't able to create enough cellular energy in ATP from my mitochondria because my vitamin B2 was off. I simply supplemented with that one nutrient and bam, all of the sudden now my energy levels became normalized. And for many people, it's that simple. If we can discover what is that nutritional deficiency that you're suffering with and then go and address it, now your energy can come roaring back.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Okay, now I want to take some time and walk you through what some of the ideal dietary changes are if you're struggling with low energy and how to fix this. the first thing that you need to know if you are going to support your body and producing more cellular energy is we need to keep insulin levels balanced right if you are suffering with insulin sensitivity issues insulin resistance issues you're going to have low energy so we need to make sure that you are getting foods that keep your blood sugar balanced that primarily comes from protein fiber healthy fats and certain nutrients or those are going to keep your blood sugar level levels balance. So you want to make sure you're getting plenty of protein, maybe around 30 grams

Starting point is 00:11:53 per meal, organic chicken and turkey, grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish, those sort of things, eggs, healthy protein powders, bone broth, but you want to get a lot of healthy quality protein in your diet. The next thing you want to focus on is eating foods that are very rich in nutrients like antioxidants. So pomegranates, berries, green apples, green leafy vegetables, steam cruciferous vegetables, those sort of foods. So those antioxidant and nutrient-rich foods, you want to get a lot of those. The next thing I would say is you want to focus on high fiber foods. That's going to be that similar category. It's going to be berries. It's going to be greens. It's going to be nuts like walnuts and flax and chia seeds. And then you want to get some healthy

Starting point is 00:12:38 fats. Extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil are going to be the two best for you to consume for cellular energy in terms of some of those fats, along with the omega-3s, you're going to fine in things like salmon and walnuts. And if you focus on those foods, high protein foods, high food, high in nutrients and foods that have good fatty acids, that's going to help your energy levels tremendously and staying away from processed sugars, refined grains. Even those healthier carbs like oatmeal and rice, if you have them have small servings, not large servings, and I'm not talking about going low carb. I'm talking about normal carb to where your diet is full of meat and vegetables and then you're supplementing with some berries, some apples, some sweet potato,

Starting point is 00:13:26 those sort of things. That's sort of the ideal diet for supporting energy. And then you want to make sure your mitochondria has what it needs to create cellular energy, like B vitamins that we talked about. Coenzyme Q10 magnesium and al-carotene are critical. The other thing you want to do is get daily movement, 30 minutes a day at least of walking, Ideally, though, you're exercising at least three days a week. You're walking at least 30 minutes to an hour a day around your meals is the best.

Starting point is 00:13:55 That's going to help cellular energy as well. And then limiting your alcohol intake and other forms of toxins that are going to build up in your body. All of these are dietary strategies to improve your cellular energy. Now, I want to talk to you about maybe the single greatest reason, along with diet of why people are tired all the time. And that has to do with poor sleep. Now, I can share with you that I've experienced as a parent. You know, we've got an almost two-year-old. She's one still.

Starting point is 00:14:23 And a five-year-old. And myself and Chelsea, even more my wife, Chelsea, has got less sleep at night because our girls have not been good sleepers, especially our one-year-old. She's constantly waking up still at night. And, you know, listen, it's gotten a lot better. Maybe it's only a couple times a night. But even a couple times at night where your sleep is disrupted, that can really throw off your energy. And so there are things we want to do to maximize our sleep as much as possible.

Starting point is 00:14:51 Listen, and there are only certain things within your control, but you do want to maximize those things. And listen to this step. The average night's sleep decreased from about nine hours in 1910 to less than seven hours in 2025. Six and 10 American adults do not get the recommended amount of sleep. Think about that. The average person now gets two hours less asleep at night than they might have over 100 years ago. That's crazy. And the biggest reason is we're not living in tune with God's creation with nature. Listen, when the sun goes up, we should be getting up. When the sun goes down, we should be going down. Now, somebody might say, well, what if you live in Alaska in the summer? Okay, listen, there are exceptions to every rule. But,

Starting point is 00:15:41 generally, we at least use that a sign of notifying us when we should be waking up, when we should be going to bed. But the ideal amount of sleep that most people should be getting a night is closer to nine hours, but at the very least eight. Every study shows that eight hours is the best. And if you get less than seven hours, that's when your body really starts to tank. You know, I wear an o-ring at night. And honestly, it's one of my favorite tests I've ever done, if not my favorite,

Starting point is 00:16:08 because it's also testing something called HRV, heart rate variability. which is a really great indicator for longevity, stress, and how healthy I am in that moment. And part of that is my sleep score. But I look at this regularly because I know that sleep is one of the single greatest factors for longevity and healing. And if I am not sleeping well, then I'm not well. I'm not healthy. And so being able to do everything you can to maximize your quality of sleep is what you want to be doing. And sleep deprivation dampens the secretion of thyroid stimulating hormones.

Starting point is 00:16:41 hormone and increases blood levels of cortisol. And poor REM sleep and deep sleep also reduce mitochondrial repair. So if you are not sleeping enough, your mitochondrial energy goes down because these engines start to break and they're not repaired. And so if you want to have energy, if you want to reverse hypothyroidism, if you want to reverse chronic fatigue syndrome, if you just want to have energy, generally speaking, you have to get good quality sleep. Did you know, cutting back from the standard eight hours of sleep down to four hours of sleep, night produce striking changes in insulin sensitivity like glucose tolerance and hormone function changes that resemble the effects of advanced age or early stages of diabetes after less than one week.

Starting point is 00:17:26 So do you hear that? If you cut your sleep down to about four hours, if you did that for one week, the signs, you're aging yourself 20 to 30 years and throwing off every single hormone in your body. So it is critical that you get enough sleep at night. And the things that help sleep the most are, number one, having regular bedtime. Like for myself, I get my girls to bed and I'm getting myself in bed closer to, I mean, it's pretty close to 9 p.m. Okay. And then I'm waking up around 6 a.m. So I'm in bed for at least nine hours. And then as soon as I wake up in the morning,

Starting point is 00:17:59 I recommend you go and get outside. Okay. I get outside first in the morning. I tend to do a prayer walk. I go outside, say everything I'm grateful for, but I do that gratitude walk while in prayer walk while first thing in the morning to get the sun. shine exposure that starts to get my cortisol up. And then I wear blue blockers later in the day to keep that blue light from affecting me. And then one hour before bed, no screens whatsoever, even with my blue blockers on. I'll read, I'll listen to an audio book, something like that where that's not disrupting my melatonin in cortisol production. And then exercise during the day is fantastic as well. Movement. And then also you want to make sure your room is dark. You want to

Starting point is 00:18:40 make sure it's dark. You want to make sure it's cold between 60 and 60 degrees. And don't drink caffeine after lunch. Really, you can do it mid-morning, but you really don't want to do it after lunch. And those things alone make a massive, massive difference in your sleep and your body's ability to create energy. Because think about this, your body is sort of plugging in. Imagine you're recharging your phone or an electric car or golf card or something. Your body's plugged in and re-energizing when you're sleeping. That's when it's doing it. Okay. And if you are not plugged in, it's going to lead to disease in your cells and your entire body. Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss, resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when

Starting point is 00:19:27 you know something isn't right? Well, get my at-home testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. The truth is your doctor's probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. This new testing flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually test for the right things and just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of your results. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. Number three, major root cause of fatigue today is related to stress overload, which then impacts your adrenal glands.

Starting point is 00:20:20 There is a study published in the American Psychology Association. Here's what it said. 27% of Americans report that most days they are so stressed, they cannot function. 76% of adults report they experience at least one symptom in the last month as a result of stress such as headaches, fatigue, feeling nervous or anxious, or feeling depressed. or sad. So 76% that's almost 80% of adults say okay stress this month negatively impacted my health. And when you're a go, go, go, go nonstop person, your body overproduces cortisol. That's your body's main stress hormone. And when cortisol gets up, that impacts your thyroid function. It impacts your sex hormones. It impacts insulin. So your blood sugar. And these are all

Starting point is 00:21:06 drivers of low energy. And the symptoms of high cortisol include poor sleep, salt cravings, brain fog, carb cravings, anxiety. And at first you feel wired, but later on you crash, feeling even more tired. And then you can't even sleep. And so it creates this vicious cycle in the body. Now, I want to go through sort of what can help stress. Number one, stop being so busy, start saying no more. Stop saying yes to everything and trying to pack your schedule from the moment you wake up

Starting point is 00:21:38 to the moment you go to bed. That's what we do. if there's an open spot in our schedule, we just cram something into it. You want to have these blocks of margin in your day where you can have a level of self-care and just a level of just thinking and being and relaxing. One of the other issues we run into today because social media, it used to be where, okay, you're standing in line at the bank and you just stand there and you're not doing something. That's good for you. You know, one of the things we tell our kids sometimes is my daughter and she'll say, I'm bored.

Starting point is 00:22:07 And I'll say, that's good, honey. It's good to be bored. You don't need to have something every moment of every day. Okay. So say no more. Have more margin in your schedule. Schedule things in that you love to do. Like, hey, I have one hour here where I'm just going to take a walk or read a book or do

Starting point is 00:22:28 lunch with a best friend or go on a nature walk, something like that. So even if you are plugging things in your schedule, allow it to be sort of, I don't have to do this, but if I want to, I can go on a walk. And you're not spending that time on social media. Social media, you know, one thing I know, I mentioned this to Chelsea other day. Like my battery on my phone went down really fast that day. It was because I was using my GPS a lot. You notice when you use certain GPS apps when you're driving, your battery decreases more

Starting point is 00:22:58 on your phone. And when you're spending time on social media, your battery, in your battery, in your your body, your mitochondria, they deplete so much faster. So just imagine every minute you're spending on your cell phone, looking, scrolling, doing something, Instagram, TikTok, anything like that, your energy is going down five to ten times faster. It's absolutely just sucking the life out of your mitochondria out of your engine. And hey, maybe your body can handle doing it 30 minutes a day. But if you're doing it for one hour, two hour plus a day, you're absolutely destroying your cellular health and destroying your cellular energy. And so that is one of the single

Starting point is 00:23:37 worst things you could do for your mitochondria and for your energy. And so if you want to start to fix your cellular energy first, remember, you got to say no more. You've got to have some margin in your day. Number two, social media detox. Okay. Maybe you give yourself 30 minutes a day, no more. And then schedule things you love to do. And then here's some other things. You want to take some adaptogenes. Adaptogenic herbs are really great for supporting cortisol, ashoaganda, Rodeola, holy basil are some of the absolute best in clinical studies for lowering cortisol. There's one study in particular on a type of ashriganda called KSM-66, and it reduced cortisol by 27 percent and improve focus and energy over the course of eight weeks in stressed adults.

Starting point is 00:24:21 You know, one of the reasons why ashriganda is maybe the single greatest herb for hypothyroidism is because ashriganda impacts cortisol, lowers cortisol. And when you lower cortisol, that actually improves all your thyroid hormones. So it's not necessarily directly impacting on your thyroid hormones. It may do that a little bit, but way more than that is it helps lower cortisol. When cortisol is lower, now your body can detoxify estrogen more. Your insulin is more balanced. But pretty much every hormone in your body becomes more balanced when you take these correct adaptogenic herbs.

Starting point is 00:24:56 And rhodiola in particular is maybe the greatest for mitochondrial function. But again, Aschaganda, Rodeola, Holy-Bondola, Holy-Bes. basil, medicinal mushrooms like Rishi, cortispses, these are really, really fantastic adaptogens for your cellular energy. Now, I want to go back to talking about this sort of excess busyness because it really is one of the greatest factors depriving us of cellular energy. And the average person checks their phone between 150 and 200 times per day. 43% of Americans admit feeling addicted to their phones. 70% of people check their phone within five minutes of waking up.

Starting point is 00:25:38 I have it proven to lower morning focus in your mood. So a few simple things you can change. Number one, wait about 30 minutes or an hour before you check your phone ideally. Don't spend time on your phone in the morning. The first thing we should do is go and connect with God. Go and connect with our family. Go and just spend some time. Just being still, eating, relax.

Starting point is 00:25:58 I mean, you shouldn't wake up in the morning with boom, rush, getting busy. you should focus every morning on the things that matter the most. Can I tell you one thing I did in college? I read this book by Tony Robbins. And he had this quote in there. Something like, when the morning, when the day. And he had something in the morning called your hour of power. And so what I started doing every morning rather than to kind of jumping into busyness is I would spend an hour in the morning in prayer, reading my Bible, reading a personal growth book, going on a walk. Then I would get my exercise in. So my, my, My first hour to two hours every morning was spent on growth, growing, connecting with God,

Starting point is 00:26:40 doing those sorts of things. And honestly, I would get to, you know, let's say I'd wake up at six and I would get to when I would start, you know, school or whatever I'd have around eight or nine in the morning. I would feel like I'd already won my entire day, win the morning, when the day. I mean, literally, there were times where I felt like, if I don't do anything else today, I spent time growing and connecting with God. I did personal growth time. I went and exercised, had a great breakfast.

Starting point is 00:27:05 I feel like I've already won my day. Let me ask you this. Do you feel like you're winning your day? Or you wake you up in the morning and you're scrolling on your phone and it's busy and it's hectic because you didn't prepare the night before and then you're out the door and you're to work or to, you know, take care of the kids or whatever it is, whatever you have going on in your life. When the morning, win the day.

Starting point is 00:27:29 Here's how you do it. Connect with God and focus on. on personal growth, eat a great breakfast, get some movement in. None of those involve your phone. Okay? If you can start your day like that, you will win the day. And it sets you up to win the rest of the day. It set you up for being energized. You know, I found that when I am doing things connected to personal growth that are connected to my life purpose, I believe I'm called to love God, love people, make earth a heavenly place. And part of the way I feel like God wired me to do this is by helping people heal naturally using God-given wisdom from the Bible and, you know, and the things that we learn from modern medicine today,

Starting point is 00:28:09 functional medicine that align with the Word of God and creation. And so I'm spending time doing those things and also helping other doctors do the same. So you may not know this, but I train a lot of other doctors and help a lot of other doctors in becoming better practitioners and learning and growing themselves. So for me, if I wake up in the morning and I can spend time getting downloads from God, reading my Bible, just getting my mind right, and then I can pass what I've learned along to my kids and to my peers and to my patients and do that, wow, I'm full of purpose. Now, that's energizing. But a lot of us wake up without a sense of purpose and without spending that time focusing

Starting point is 00:28:57 on growth. And so we kind of get off to a bad start of the day and that kind of feeds into the rest of the day. Okay. And we're just, we're just busy, busy, busy. And then we're sort of numbing out on social media and we feel unfulfilled. And that actually causes a greater lack of energy because when you're unfulfilled and you don't have a purpose, it's depressing. And in Chinese medicine, by the way, they believe that part of the way that you increase your cellular energy, is by having a purpose and knowing what that purpose is and going after it. And so that's an important thing to consider as well. You know, there's a study that was published at the University of South California.

Starting point is 00:29:39 And adults now consume information equivalent of 174 newspapers every single day. So we have information overload. And now with chat GTP and AI and all these things, we have so much information. And our brain is on constant fight or flight mode because of this. And this leads to dopamine burnout, decrease attention span. So ADHD is worse than ever. And our energy starts to plummet. So this sort of mental fatigue causes this physiological fatigue in our body.

Starting point is 00:30:10 Now, I also want to mention there are other causes of fatigue that are unrelated to these first four things I mentioned. Another big one is this, hidden infections and inflammation. I can tell you, I've taken care of so many people with chronic fatigue that came from Lyme disease, Epstein bar, mold toxicity, gut dysbiosis like candida or H. Bilori that's then causing, you know, bloating and this kind of sluggishness all day. These infections drain mitochondria and keep the immune system switched on, which then causes systemic inflammation. So again, mold and mycotoxins in these viruses also trigger an ongoing inflammatory response, raising oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is like, imagine this sort of like constant stress on an area that eventually causes it to crumble and

Starting point is 00:31:01 fall apart. That's what it's doing your cells in mitochondria. And there was a 2021 meta-analysis combination of studies that found that gut dysbiosis was discovered in 70% of people with chronic fatigue syndrome and other related conditions like fibromyalgia. When gut inflammation rises due to parasites and mold or leaky gut syndrome. This causes an inflammatory cascade, which can lead to what we call leaky gut, leaky brain, or leaky gut autoimmune disease. Okay, it causes autoimmune disease in the body and chronic inflammation.

Starting point is 00:31:40 And Lyme disease now impacts nearly 500,000 Americans each year. That's more than breast cancer or HIV. Think about that. More people suffer with Lyme disease than breast cancer. Celebrities like Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, even Chris Williamson have come out saying that they had Lyme-related exhaustion that was impacting them in a really major way. And so sometimes if you're struggling with fatigue, you know, you can be taking all the vitamin B12 in the world and prioritizing other things. But if we don't get to the root of healing that hidden infection, you're going to stay tired. This is why I recommend sometimes getting blood work and testing done for different types of infections, mold, heavy metals, doing a GI map to see what's going on in your gut microbiome has great benefits.

Starting point is 00:32:27 Also, for many people, again, there's blood work to look at, hey, what are your gluteothion levels at? What is your level of oxidative stress? And then being able to incorporate things like sweating and hydration and infrared sauna and certain vitamins and minerals to support detoxification can help. And if you are struggling with the hidden infection, one of the first things you want to do is get tested, you know, and look at what is your toxicity profile? What is your, do a GI map? See what's going on in your body. And that will then let us know, do you need more glutathione? Do you need infrared sauna?

Starting point is 00:33:02 What dietary protocols the best? For instance, if you have parasites, you want to be doing things like papaya and garlic and pumpkin seeds because those can help kill off a parasitic infection. versus if you have candida, there might be a slight variation there in diet for killing that type of infection. But learning what's going on internally and then doing the right things for detoxification pathways can be very helpful for helping you kill those hidden infections. That's absolutely zapping and draining your energy. And then the last root cause of fatigue for most people is related to nutritional deficiencies. Even if you eat healthy, modern soil depletion, processed foods and your unique genetic makeup can really drain certain levels in your body. And I'll

Starting point is 00:33:47 share it for myself, I mentioned earlier, for me, it was vitamin B2. That's probably not for most people. There's way more people out there that probably have a B12 deficiency or some other nutrient that's causing their fatigue. But that's why it was so valuable for me to do blood work and say, what nutrient was I deficient in? And when I saw it was vitamin B2, which was extremely, which, By the way, the reason why that probably happened was when I, by the way, I remember, I did blood work back when I was, how old was I, 25 years ago, 19 years ago, actually. And I remember the number one thing I was deficient in then was vitamin B2. And I don't know exactly why I'm deficient in B2.

Starting point is 00:34:28 Again, it's different for everybody in terms of what you might be deficient in. There's a number of things there. It might be my level of sort of like strategic thinking and bookwriting in certain things. and maybe there's a level there of stress that depletes that one particular nutrient for me. Or it might be my gut microbiome, some of the bacteria. I have a lot of good bacteria that are absorbing certain things well, others not absorbing things well. There's a number of things. My point is this, is that there with knowing that it was vitamin B2 for me was so valuable.

Starting point is 00:34:57 So now I'm eating a lot of steamed spinach because that's high and in certain other foods that are supportive of vitamin B2. and then I'm taking a B2 supplement. But knowing your root cause of what are those nutrients that you're deficient in is incredibly valuable. But generally speaking, most people can correct this, even without blood work and just eating a diet that's very high in the right nutrients. Now, the number one nutrient that most people are deficient in and that causes fatigue is iron or ferretin, okay?

Starting point is 00:35:29 And I can tell this with people, sometimes without even looking at blood work, I have them go to a mirror, stick their tongue out, and look to see, is their tongue pale? Okay, your tongue should be a bright, a bright, vibrant pink color, really strong pink color, pinkish red. If it is pale and it almost has like a whiteness to the tongue, not the coating, because that's candida, that's another issue, or yeast overgrowth. But if your tongue itself is a little pale, that tends to be in what's called a blood deficiency in Chinese medicine or your iron or ferretin levels low. You can also do this some blood work to see, you know, is your iron or ferritin levels low? So that's one thing to look for. That causes energy, many more women than men have iron deficiency. But if you notice, again,

Starting point is 00:36:18 around your cycle, if you're really tired afterwards, if you lose a lot of blood, then there's a good chance you're deficient iron or ferretin. The next most common one is vitamin B12. This is a lot of people today. And this causes low oxygen delivery and brain fog. So literally your body does not have enough oxygen if you're low in iron and B12. So you're literally almost suffocating your cells. And by the way, the risk of getting other diseases, even like cancer go up when you're not getting enough oxygen delivery in your cells. So iron and B12 are the most common. Number three is vitamin D. Studies show that vitamin D increases the risk of depression. Low vitamin D increases the risk of risk of of depression, inflammation, oxidative stress, and of course fatigue is a hallmark symptom of depression,

Starting point is 00:37:09 but vitamin D is big. And then in addition to that magnesium, you know, up to 60% of Americans don't meet the daily magnesium requirements. And magnesium is critical for so many cellular functions in the body, including supporting your body and going to sleep at night. And a few others are coenzym Q10. If that's low, that disrupts methylation. Omega-3 fatty acids can impact the cell membrane and inflammation. And then the other big ones are vitamin B-2, B-5, B-6, and B-9. There was a 2021 meta-analysis study that found that a B-vitamin complex supplement improved energy and cognitive performance and adults with depression and fatigue.

Starting point is 00:37:52 So there are studies saying, even without blood work, most people that took a B-complex vitamin experienced an improvement in their energy levels. there's a supplement that I take that is focused on mitochondrial function and has these methylated B vitamins that I found really supports me, that that's something I take because I have the MTHFR gene that I knew is important for me to get those sort of nutrients as well. And so again, if you are dealing with fatigue and you're getting good sleep at night and your stress levels are optimized and you're eating a clean diet, well then it might be that you're just deficient in B-12 or iron or another B vitamin or magnesium or some of these nutrients that we're talking about and generally speaking if you have low energy it is a

Starting point is 00:38:38 good idea to take a B complex would be one thing that would help most people and also taking a probiotic because probiotic support the absorption of all those nutrients there's a study out of Stanford that showed that if you take a probiotic supplement a high quality one often Oftentimes your blood levels of B vitamins double. It's that big of a deal. So I would also put a probiotic supplement at the very top of the list when it comes to supporting cellular energy and overall health. Are you interested in functional nutrition tips to burn fat, reduce inflammation,

Starting point is 00:39:15 improve your brain and energy levels, and heal naturally? Then I want to encourage you to listen to my friend Dr. Dave Jocker's podcast, the Functional Nutrition Podcast. This podcast is designed to help you with easy, actual steps to improve your nutrition and lifestyle, understand your lab work, and address the root cause factors that may be driving up inflammation in your body. Now, I've been friends with Dr. David Jockers for 20 years, and he's truly a world expert in functional nutrition, cellular healing, and so much more. If you want to learn the best nutrition and natural healing tips, tune in to the Dr. Jockers' functional nutrition podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you're you can listen to podcasts worldwide.

Starting point is 00:39:58 And as we talk about supplements, I want to talk about just going a little bit more in depth on supplements for energy and the ones that move the needle the most, along with the B complex, which I think is really important because it has B12 and everything else. And if you have an iron deficiency, of course, doing something to support building your blood,

Starting point is 00:40:15 those are two of the biggest that people really need for energy. Those B complex and sometimes methylated B vitamins. the blood-building supplement that might consider iron and also things that support iron absorption, like B-12 and vitamin C and probiotics. In addition to that, NAD plus or N-R or N-M-N, these NAD-plus precursors have many, many benefits for supporting ATP production and fueling your mitochondria. Today, you can do NAD plus as a sort of vitamin injection. or you can take an NR supplement, which supports it as well.

Starting point is 00:40:56 This is something I took. So if you ever do a blood work and you have mitochondrial dysfunction, taking about 300 milligrams of an NR supplement, which is supporting NAD plus in the body, which is critical for mitochondrial function in creating cellular energy, is also going to be at the top of the list. So if I'm thinking about ranking, okay, you have low energy.

Starting point is 00:41:17 What should you take? Be complex, probably a methylated to be complex, blood building, NAD plus like supplement like NR, those are probably going to be my top three. And then after that, I would probably say depending on the person, probiotics are going to be high on that list as well.

Starting point is 00:41:34 And then certain nutrients are also important. Coenzyme Q10 improved cellular energy. In fact, there was a 2022 meta-analysis of 13 different studies. And they found that co-inzym Q10 supplementation significantly reduced fatigue scores compared to placebo groups. And this is really important if you have heart issues. If you have low energy and if you've ever been on a statin drug or you've ever been on a drug like metformin. So any sort of blood sugar issues or heart issues and if you've taken any drug for those, coenzyme Q10 is going to be a nutrient.

Starting point is 00:42:08 You're going to want to absolutely take to support those cellular energy levels. And then the other thing I would say is taking the adaptogenic herbs. Rodiola and Ashwaganda are probably the top two on my list for supporting mitochondrial function and boosting energy napal. And there's other great ones like ginseng and don quai, which is important, especially if you need to build your blood and the mushrooms like reaching cortisps. But I would say that rodeo and Oscephal, and Aschralogandia, you're like there's two. Those are probably my two favorites. And then for many people, what's just as important as supplements is having the right mind in spiritual health. the nourishment when it comes to boosting your energy levels. I really think actually it's just

Starting point is 00:42:56 as important, if not more important than diet. I'm going to come back around with just a few more really key dietary things for mitochondria and foods here at the end. But I do want to mention, I want to dive into this because this is really critical for our overall energy levels. And I love this quote by John Orteberg. He says this. If the enemy can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. Business is such a killer today of mitochondrial. O'Condra. It's such a killer today of true productivity and doing and leaving a meaningful life and living a life that we love. Both sin and constant busyness can have the same detrimental effect. They cut off one's connection to God, other people, and one's own values and our purpose.

Starting point is 00:43:38 I think about this. Those mornings when I wake up and go right to my phone first, somehow I'm sucked into my phone and computer and work the rest of the morning. If I can operate within my true priorities and I don't open my phone and I go right to my Bible first and write to prayer first. There's a sense of peace. There's a sense of calmness, meaning my entire day is better and more purposeful and my health is better. And I found this, by the way, I've tracked this with my, with my, with my, uh, oaring, looking at my HRV scores. It is radically better when I start my morning off Bible prayer growth than phone and computer. So one of the things we want to be able to do is create space, especially in our mornings,

Starting point is 00:44:23 create space from chaos and screens and practice stillness. Sometimes it's just, listen, sometimes it's five minutes. It's not 50. It's just five. Okay. And you get there and you crack open your Bible or you sit there and pray and you just sit there and it's, God, thank you for this day. Be with me today.

Starting point is 00:44:43 Thank you so much for my family. Thank you so much for my wife. Thank you so much for just the blessings I have that I have a purpose. that you gave your son for me. Thank you so much. And just getting grounded and centered and then opening the Bible, reading a couple of verses and then meditating on one, put on the full armor of God. Do not be anxious about anything, but with everything through prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds and cry Jesus. That was one I was reading this morning. So just sitting there and just meditating on

Starting point is 00:45:13 and thinking through, okay, I'm anxious, God. What do I have that's heavy today? Okay, I've got this, of this, I'm giving it to you. It might only be five minutes. But that five minutes of stillness or that five minutes of time with God rather than time with artificial intelligence, I mean, really in reality, here's what's happening so often. We're taking God and we are literally having this God of technology, this AI, this other, it's a God, it's a spirit in a way. And we are spending time with that rather than Jesus. And so it makes such a big difference. So I want to encourage you to rethink how you want to spend your time. Replace I'm busy with I'm focused on, okay, as well. Focus on and block out time in your day to spend on the relationships that matter the most, on prayer, time outdoors,

Starting point is 00:46:01 getting true rest. And let me say this as well, a Sabbath rest day is so beneficial. One day a week, listen, God made all of creation and took one day off then. It's a very least we should do is take one day, whether it's Saturday or Sunday, and just rest. not work the entire day. Spend time with family, spend time with God, just spend time recharging. That's what we want to focus on. And it's so beneficial in doing that. And as proof, there was a study that was done on prayer and meditation. And in the study, they focused mostly on gratitude and appreciation. And the people in the study felt grateful, who felt grateful and practiced this, showed a reduction in their levels of cortisol. They had stronger cardiac function and were

Starting point is 00:46:48 more resilient to emotional setbacks and negative experiences, over the years, the studies have established that practicing gratitude allows us to handle stress better and makes us more mentally and physically resilient. And so that's such a powerful practice of starting off the morning and just for one minute saying what you're grateful for. That's all it takes is one single minute. And that practice can change your entire life and your health. People who practice gratitude, by the way, also they sleep better. There are numerous studies on that. So there are numerous studies showing that living in a state of gratitude,

Starting point is 00:47:23 it's the exact opposite of entitlement. By the way, one of the worst character qualities a person can ever have is feeling entitled like you owe me. I can tell you in having a clinic in an organization where I have a lot of people that work on my team that I look to work with people and partner with people, only that have a level of very high level of, gratitude. Working with entitled people, it's not fun. It's not the way we're wired. It's the opposite of living in a state of absolute gratitude and Thanksgiving. And so we all want to cultivate a spirit

Starting point is 00:47:58 of Thanksgiving and praise and gratitude. And in addition, the greatest part of gratitude is living with a sense of purpose and meaning. There's a Harvard study that showed that showed a 33% lower rate of fatigue and depression among those people with a strong sense of purpose. I do want to mention one other thing diet-wise, one of the greatest things you can do to support mitochondrial function and energy is support blood and blood flow and oxygenating your blood. So consuming foods that increase nitric oxide in your body are very good for blood flow. And some of those things include pomegranate, beetroot or beetroot juice. And then things like Roybo's tea. But those things that are sort of red in nature that move the blood, but pomegranate and beetroot juice. So you can do

Starting point is 00:48:45 beetroot powder, eat pomegranates, those are also very good for that as well. Now, I want to touch on a few books that talk about energy. These are books that I've read that I really enjoyed that really, I think are great for naturally boosting energy levels and dealing with some of the things we talked about. The first book is by John Mark Comer. It's called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And it teaches that constant busyness and distraction drain our spiritual, emotional, and physical health and that true peace and purpose come from slowing down, practicing Sabbath, and living at the pace of Jesus. You know, I love the TV show The Chosen. I had Dallas Jenkins on the show. If you didn't watch that episode, it's a great one. And Dallas shared a lot about the show and about,

Starting point is 00:49:32 we talked about health, of course, but also more spiritual health. And one of the things I love about the show is just watching Jesus, he was never in a rush. And yet he was the most impactful person that ever lived. And you didn't see his apostles rushing around. they were acting with just meaning and intention. And listen, when you're busy, it's hard to notice certain things. I was in church this Sunday. And our pastor, Darren, was sharing some things about him and his wife were in an airport. And there was a woman sitting next to them who was older.

Starting point is 00:50:07 And his wife felt led spiritually by the Holy Spirit to pay for the woman's meal. And she did it. and picked up the check for the woman and paid for it. And the woman turned to them and said, thank you so much. And she said, you know, God always takes care of me. I'm a missionary. I don't have much money, but everywhere I go, God takes care of me.

Starting point is 00:50:26 And it was so moving the way he shared this is that his wife, because she wasn't rushing or busy and they were just, you know, they were taking their time. They're living with meaning. And they were just in constant communication with God, she was aware enough to hear the voice of God to be able to then take care of that woman. but when you are living at a pace of constant busyness, it is incredibly hard to hear from God and to be able to hear that well enough to then be able to do that thing that is, that had

Starting point is 00:50:54 eternal significance and meaning. Paying for that one meal for that person might have been more meaningful than what a business exec could accomplish an entire year in building a billion dollar business. That had eternal significance and what she did. And so I say that all to say, I love this book. This would be a great one for energy because it really teaches you how to be still and how to live in a way to live with meaning and impact in alignment with the Bible. The second book is called Margin. It's by Dr. Richard Swenson. And it's the prescription for sustainable living and creating a space for health and joy. A lot of times we're so packed out, we're not creating space for joy and happiness and deep connection. And so this

Starting point is 00:51:41 book helps you reevaluate your priorities, determine the values in your life, and also see where your identity truly comes from. And it's a really great book for physical health, financial stability, fulfilling relationships, and availability for God's purpose. It's a great book. And he says this in the book, we do not rest because our work is done. We rest because God commanded it and created us to have a need for it. And the last book is by this. This is by another person we've had on the podcast, John Gordon. He's a good friend of mine. It's called the energy bus. And energy isn't something you have. It's something you create through gratitude, faith in your mindset. And he has 10 rules for energy on the energy bus. And that's covered in the book, everything from how to fuel your vision, invite

Starting point is 00:52:35 others into the journey, remove your energy vampires and so much more. And so that's a great book as well by John Gordon. And you can check out the podcast we did together as well. But again, those are three books I would recommend. If you aren't saying to yourself, I really want to take my energy to the next level and especially do that with mindset, spiritual awareness, and those things that are going to make that impact. Those are three books.

Starting point is 00:52:59 I would highly recommend you read and go through in that way. Here's the thing to know about fatigue. Fatigue is a signal. It's not a life sentence of just being tired. It's not poor genetics or you're getting. older, it's a signal. You were designed to have steady energy throughout work, connection, purpose, and joy throughout your day. But rest is also needed. And when you honor your body's need for nourishment, movement, and stillness, you align with how you were designed to function by God.

Starting point is 00:53:29 So remember, you want to focus on eating a really healthy diet, right? We talked about high protein, fiber, healthy fats, and a lot of nutrients from things like pomegranates and berries and in steam vegetables. You want to carve out time for sleep that nine hours. You want to go for a walk in the morning and around your meals. You want to schedule a Sabbath day. You want to spend way less time on your phone and way more time reading things for spiritual growth and connecting with people. And also, you want to consider getting the right testing done to make sure there's no major nutritional deficiencies. And if you can take care of those things, your energy will start to build and get better and better and better to where you have lifelong, high energy, constantly and consistently.

Starting point is 00:54:15 I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Jack show. Each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. Don't forget as well that we've had some episodes here, Shadow Band, because we've talked about things that are really controversial, like Can't. cancer and in certain remedies, like everything from peptides to stem cells. And sometimes, you know,

Starting point is 00:54:47 the people at some of these social, you know, whether it's YouTube brothers, don't love that. And so if you're subscribed, it will always show up in your feed. If you're not subscribed, you might miss some of these really impactful episodes we have. So don't forget to subscribe. Also, thank you for liking and sharing this. Thanks for being on mission with me. There are so many people that don't know the truth about how to build good energy. And there are people out there that are going to go and just take a drug or medication because they're tired, and they don't know there are simple vitamins and practices that can help heal them at a cellular level. Thanks so much for watching.

Starting point is 00:55:19 I can't wait to see you on the next episode.

The Dr. Josh Axe Show - 6 Reasons You're Always Tired & How to Boost Energy Naturally

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