Feeling sluggish? It’s common for women over 40 to struggle with energy levels. Here’s how to fix it so you can feel better than ever.
Struggling with your energy levels as a woman over forty is completely normal.
When ageing, many women find they are tired when they wake up. This is less than ideal when you have a demanding career, on top of being responsible for keeping a home and family life in order.
Many women end up relying on caffeine or sugar as pick-me-ups to get them through the day. They find themselves crashing on the sofa every evening, feeling completely exhausted… and that’s often when the crisps and wine come out!
To make things even worse, those poor food choices then impact energy levels even more. This leaves you even more tired and more likely to eat and drink the wrong things as a coping mechanism.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way.
We’ve worked with thousands of women in this exact situation. We’ve helped them go from struggling with their energy levels every day, to feeling decades younger – in just a few short weeks!
So in today’s blog we’re going to go reveal why most women over 40 struggle with their energy levels. We give you our top strategies to boost your energy levels and feel fitter and healthier.
You can also listen to this blog on our podcast.
Why does this happen?
Age is just one of the factors which can impact energy levels. It isn’t under our control, but luckily it plays only a small part.
Lifestyle is a much more significant factor – and one you can control.
We consistently get reports of massively increased energy levels from our clients every week by changing their lifestyle and habits.
Let’s dive into ways you can change your energy levels.
Hormones
Menopause and perimenopause play a huge part in energy levels for women over forty. Your body, and hormones, change as a woman in your 40s and 50s – even years before you hit menopause. You need to work with your changing hormones to ensure you’re on the right path for success.
The foods you consume and the exercise you do can all help to maintain balanced hormone levels.
For those going through menopause, we recommend considering HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) to help your energy levels too.
Hormone-disrupting foods
Certain foods and extreme dieting approaches actually make hormonal changes worse, not better.
These hormone disrupting foods are what we call the WADS foods:
- Wheat
- Alcohol
- Dairy
- Sugar
It’s very common to experience intolerances to these foods, which can lead to inflammation and therefore poor energy levels. We often see clients give up wheat, and then feel miles better within a few weeks!
It’s also common to be on a sugar rollercoaster, constantly chasing a sugar high to get you through the day.
Instead, cutting out WADS foods for just a few weeks can help women over 40 who struggle with energy levels.
We do this inside our Fit Over 40 program using a process called the Diet Makeover.
Sleep
Renowned sleep expert, Matthew Walker, says the following in his book Why We Sleep:
“Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours.”
It can be hard to sleep well when you get older, especially around menopause. And you still actually need 8 hours a night. The idea that older adults simply need less sleep is a myth. Older adults appear to need just as much sleep, but are simply less able to generate effective levels.
You need to do whatever you can to improve sleep quality and quantity. Whether it’s through lifestyle factors – avoiding working late and doom scrolling – or nutrition – avoiding eating too late and sugary foods before bed – you can definitely see quick results by implementing better sleep hygiene.
Alcohol
Just like sugar, alcohol is like pouring petrol on a fire when it comes to hot flushes and broken sleep.
People think alcohol helps them sleep, but this is a myth. Firstly, alcohol fragments sleep, littering the night with brief awakenings. Alcohol-infused sleep is therefore not continuous and, as a result, not restorative. Unfortunately, most of these night time awakenings go unnoticed by the sleeper since they don’t remember them.
Second, alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep that we know of. REM sleep affects your mood, memory, and learning efficiency. Lack of REM sleep will make brain fog worse if you’re struggling with it.
The solution? Cut out alcohol entirely for a short period of time to feel a big energy boost. Aim to then have it in moderation, such as 1-2 drinks for 1-2 nights a week.
Caffeine
Caffeine blocks the feeling of tiredness by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain. Adenosine is released throughout the day, and if it binds to these receptors, the result is you feel more tired throughout the day.
However, caffeine has a half-life of 6 hours, so if you drink it later in the day – lots of it is still in your system and blocking the feeling of tiredness.
Therefore it can make it very hard to sleep, reducing energy the next day. This can create a vicious cycle of getting worse and worse sleep and needing more and more caffeine.
If you’re looking to increase energy levels, avoid drinking caffeine later in the day.
Doing no exercise
There’s a sweet spot with exercise. Over do it or do the wrong things, and you’ll end up exhausted. But, a lack of exercise also leads to tiredness.
The less you do, the more sluggish you become. But if you do it right, exercise:
- Releases endorphins (happy chemicals)
- Helps with quality of sleep
- Helps manage stress
- Trains the heart to work more efficiently, getting more oxygen to the brain and other organs
- Gives you a change of scenery (keeps life interesting)
Make sure to do regular exercise to help reduce feeling slugging. We recommend you do something that’s effective for women over 40.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you – like we have thousands of women over 40 – you can find out more here.
