[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Survey any adult nowadays and odds are that the answer to “are you tired?” is an emphatic “yes”. Whether it’s physical, mental or emotional fatigue, it’s one thing modern humans can relate to. We’re all a little burned out on the news, the daily grind, the challenges of life. It’s normal to get tired from busy days, stress and lack of sleep, and there might be innumerable things draining your energy. But supplements shouldn’t be one of them!
Supplements, by design and intent, are supposed to work. Whether or not you feel them immediately, the benefits of dietary supplements are kind of the point. You might take a daily
multivitamin or a few solo vitamins or minerals for maintaining general health. Or you might have a cabinet full of every trending herb that’s promoted for optimal wellness on your social feed.* More is more, right?
Not always.
When your supplement’s not a daydream
With the abundance of options out there, it's easy to approach the supplement aisle like an all-you-can-eat buffet. A little of this; a little of that. Or maybe a plateful and a few extra helpings. But what if approaching supplements cafeteria-style is cancelling out their rewards?
Supplements tend to be the last thing we consider when something feels off. While in some rare cases individuals can react strongly to certain ingredients or formulas, most of the time any complaints from the body are much more subtle. One possible, but little-discussed response is drowsiness.
The 3 p.m. slump is a familiar adult experience and natural effect of our
circadian metabolism. But nonstop yawns are not normal. If your diet is well-rounded, your day includes some activity, and your overall health is good, but the afternoon crash starts after breakfast, have you checked your supplement stack lately?
Can vitamins make you tired?
It’s far from common knowledge that supplements can indeed make you tired. And not just the ones that are known to help you sleep. We know that
B vitamins are central to daily energy production and nerve function, iron is a non-negotiable for oxygen delivery, calcium helps our muscles go, and
vitamin D is at the center of active minds.* So how could taking these daily essentials have the opposite effect?
Scientists call it
hormesis, but it’s often referred to as the “Goldilocks” principle: both too little and too much can be detrimental. There’s a “just right” zone where supplements can support optimal health – avoiding “not enough to bother” on one end and loading your body down with unnecessarily high doses on the other.
† Either extreme can have symptoms, from mild digestive upset to day-stopping fatigue. Regardless, feeling bad is probably not what you’re going for when you take a supplement.
Don’t sleep on supplement symptoms
In most cases, feeling a bit zapped doesn’t indicate irreversible harm, but in other cases, the urge to snooze round-the-clock shouldn’t be ignored. Some common but covert issues behind fatigue include hormone imbalances, autoimmune antagonism, environmental allergies and food sensitivities. Or it could be rooted in a fundamental cause like not consuming enough calories or fluids, or from dietary restrictions that avoid meat, energizing carbohydrates or fats.
If after ruling out these major suspects you’re still napping on the hour, it could be time to turn the light on your Supplement Facts. In the busyness of modern life, it’s easy to add or subtract things from your diet haphazardly. Then, when a new symptom pops up, you might forget about these minor changes, least suspecting that a capsule or two of a new supplement could be behind it. Or maybe you’ve been on the same supplement regimen for years, but your diet has suddenly or slowly taken a different turn.
There could be multiple factors putting the brakes on your day-to-day, but there are a few notable ways that supplements could be one of them. If there seems to be a clear and predictable pattern of fog and fatigue after you take your daily dose, run your regimen through these potential reasons:
1. Excessive ingredients
Some vitamins are hard to overdo, but the list is smaller than you might think. It’s generally true that
the body flushes out excess water-soluble vitamins after it uses what it needs, but even this adage isn’t always true. It’s also possible to inflate your intake of minerals such as calcium and selenium, and fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A and E.
The fortification of cereals, breads, nondairy milks and more with B vitamins, vitamin D and iron can make it tricky to track when you’re
exceeding your essentials. It’s also easy to unknowingly be doubling up on your
DRIs with protein powders, sports drinks and other functional foods on top of your daily multivitamin.
†
2. Interacting ingredients
Considering the vast variety of products available, and looking back upon decades of use across consumers young and old, the overall safety profile of dietary supplements is impressive. Since it’s not mandatory for supplements to be proven safe before they hit the market, the industry largely holds itself accountable for making products that help, not harm. But that doesn’t mean that all supplements are a big happy family that always gets along.
Since the
body metabolizes some vitamins and minerals in supplements more directly than foods, isolated nutrients can compete for absorption, or interact in ways that subvert the use of other ingredients. In other cases, nutrients need each other to pair up in producing energy or fire up your mind by making neurotransmitters.
† Missing one or the other could mean hitting the snooze button more than usual.
Calcium and zinc are a well-known example of interference. It’s easy to load up on calcium from a few different supplements plus fortified foods but forget about zinc, potentially blocking the
pep in your step that zinc provides. The complex interaction of folate and B12 in cellular machinery allows the possibility that a B12 deficiency can go undetected when folate is consumed in abundance. The right balance of
folate and B12 is critical for keeping minds and muscles sharp.
†
3. Missing ingredients
Although public health experts have established a specific
list of vitamins and minerals that we need every day to stay healthy, that doesn’t mean that supplements are required to cover all the bases. For various reasons, a brand might choose to skip a nutrient or two in their product that might be found in a similar formula from another brand.
Ideally, our diets provide enough of our essential nutrients, so some formulators take a minimalist approach to making supplements that fill gaps and target the most common deficiencies.
† Other times, products are made to target a niche customer. Multivitamins designed for men often omit iron, for instance (since
men need much less). It’s not unusual to see iodine skipped since taking too much is risky, and watchful consumers can find sufficient amounts of this trace mineral in seafood and iodized salt.
Theoretically, these decisions are sound, but the truth is that the nutrient quality of food is often less than assumed. If you’re like many individuals, it’s likely that you’re not getting as many nutrients from food as you think. Even though magnesium is found in an abundant array of foods, deficiencies in this metabolic mineral are being cited more and more.
†
4. Enigmatic ingredients
Some ingredients, even essential nutrients, can have different effects in different individuals, or varying influences at different times (remember that circadian rhythm?). Vitamin B6, as a prime example, is considered both an energizer and a key part of healthy sleep. That means you’ll find B6 in brain-boosting formulas and your sleep supplements in combination with well-known calmers like
theanine and tryptophan.
†
Adaptogenic herbs are an amazing discovery that have taken the supplement space by storm in the past decade or two. Ashwagandha, rhodiola, maca and more have an uncanny ability to support the body in unique and various ways, depending on an individual’s needs. Amazingly, that means that
ashwagandha is appreciated for promoting energy and sleep. For you, an adaptogenic ingredient might be inducing a little more
zen than
zing.
†
A wakeful way to supplement
A key takeaway on the topic of tiredness with supplements it that there’s no hard and fast rules. Your age, your health status, your diet, your stress levels – so many things factor not only into your feelings of fatigue, but even how the interaction of your body and supplements plays into those symptoms.
† But don’t let that discourage you. There are certainly steps that you can take to ditch the unwanted daydreams.
First, the standard supplement disclaimer holds true in every case – talk to your doctor, and maybe a
registered dietitian, before you start or change your supplements. The ubiquity of supplements can lead us to believe that there’s no risk in taking them roulette style. But since many supplemental nutrients play critical roles in your health, making sure you’re taking them rightly is just as vital.
† Only a qualified professional can assess your needs through bloodwork and other diagnostic techniques.
Along with consulting your physician, assessing your diet is foremost. Use a
nutrition calculator to track your essentials for a week. Not only is this a fun learning exercise, you might be surprised to find you’re getting a lot less (or more) of some energizing nutrients. Plus, you can impress your doctor or RD if you come prepared with a general report of your eating patterns.
Next, do a spring-clean on your supplements. If you’ve been mindlessly swallowing the same handful for a while, it’s always a good idea to give them a “performance evaluation” every year or two (especially since most supplements have a 2-year shelf life and you can check the expiration dates while you’re at it!). Using what you’ve learned here, what you might have found from your own research, and the recommendations of your doctor, simplify your stack to what you truly need and what is helping you feel your best every day.
†
Life is short. Don’t lose half your day fighting a head-nod, and take control of what’s holding you back. If you’re a supplement-taker, you likely care about maximizing your health and getting the most out of life. So make sure your supplements are a supportive sidekick, not a speedbump, on that journey.
†
†These statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title="Featured Products" border_width="2"][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" gap="35"][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="184806" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1747423160095{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/megafood-vitamin-b12-energy-gummies"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="184808" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1747423175933{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/country-life-metabolism-reboot"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="184807" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1747423193024{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/garden-of-life-organics-womens-once-daily-multivitamin-30-vegan-tablets"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
