Fall is an excellent time to spend personal time with family, show appreciation, and change up your everyday routines. Unfortunately, it might also be a moment when you are really tired.
There are several causes for this, ranging from returning to work and your typical busy life after the summer to not spending as much time exercising and receiving vitamin D outside.
While you may have more days where you simply want to slumber the afternoon away, Functional Medicine Los Angeles has put up a list of incredibly simple techniques to combat weariness and get things done during the season.
1. The Importance of Hydration
Everybody needs water to live, but during the fall your need for it may increase. If you feel your mouth is dry and you feel a bit light-headed, then there’s nothing better for quenching that thirst than plain old H2O.
Not only is it important to continue drinking water throughout the fall, but when the weather cools down, don’t assume you don’t still need to hydrate. It is just as important now as when you were dealing with triple-digit Summer heat.
Avoid things like sodas and artificially sweetened juices because too many carbohydrates can cause a sugar crash. If you find yourself bored with the neutral flavor and feeling of still water, a functional medicine Studio City provider recommends sparkling mineral water. It has all the bubbly feeling of soda without all the sugar.
If you need a little bit of flavor to liven it up, try a tablespoon each of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar.
2. Take Your Vitamin D
Vitamin D is a crucial nutrient that regulates your body’s absorption of other equally crucial nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, and phosphate. Calcium and phosphorous are important for strong bones and teeth, and magnesium regulates hundreds of different parts of the body from the central nervous system to the immune system to the muscles, heart, and bones. Without it, you would be more susceptible to debilitating diseases such as rickets, brain disease, osteoporosis, cancer, and heart attacks.
Why You Need Supplements in the Fall
As long as you do not stay out until you start to get sunburn, sun exposure is a good way to get the vitamin D your body needs. However, with the days getting shorter, you need to find a way to compensate for the loss of sunlight. Depending on your age, you may need anywhere between 600 and 800 IUs of Vitamin D every single day.
Foods with Vitamin D
You could always try a vitamin D supplement and see if that helps, but the best way to do this is to increase your vitamin and mineral intake the natural way: with food. Foods that are high in vitamin D include beef liver, cheese, eggs, fish, and whole milk.
3. Energy-Boosting Superfoods
Fall is the time of the year when many of our nation’s hard-working farmers harvest their crops of fresh fruits and vegetables. There is never a wrong time for eating healthy food, but fall is one of the best times to start eating several superfoods because this is the time of year when they are in season.
Our functional medicine Burbank experts believe it is a good idea to switch up what you eat in the fall. This is going to keep it interesting. Plus, this encourages you to use more superfoods. There are many superfoods to eat year-round, but here are some of the best ones specifically for the fall season:
Apples
One of the best fall superfoods is an apple. The old saying that goes “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” probably became so popular because a single medium-sized apple has fewer calories and carbs than a single 12-ounce can of cola. In addition to that, unlike cola, an apple gets some of its carbs from dietary fiber; it also has no cholesterol or sodium, but it is a good source of potassium, vitamin C, and vitamin B6.
Sweet Potato
Another fall superfood that is rich in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients is the sweet potato. It is more nutritious for you than the more common white potato because, in addition to being an excellent source of fiber, it also contains calcium, iron, phosphorous, riboflavin, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, vitamin E, and vitamin K.
They are also a good way to add a little splash of color to your daily eating regimen. If you want to have fun with it, why not try some sweet potato fries? You can usually find them in the vegetable section in a microwaveable plastic bag.
Butternut Squash
Yet another superfood that comes into season in the fall is butternut squash. Not only does it offer a huge number of nutritional benefits, but you can cook this tasty treat in a lot of different ways.
Lower in carbs than either a sweet potato or a white potato, it’s similar to a pumpkin in its taste and texture, but a cup of it gives you more potassium than a whole banana and vitamins A, E, and B-6 in addition to folate, manganese, niacin, pantothenic acid, and thiamine. You can eat it cubed or make it into soup, whatever your imagination can think of.
Other Fall Superfoods
While the ones above are the best for reducing fatigue during the season, our functional medicine Los Angeles doctors have enumerated some others to enjoy as well:
a. Carrots
b. Parsnips
c. Leeks
d. Pumpkin
e. Pears
f. Brussels sprouts
g. Cranberries