How to stop crashing?

So im in the last year of A-Levels now and im just tired all the time!

so i wake up at 7 go to school and finish 3:30- then typically go to the gym until 5 o clock. Get home and eat and just fall asleep, everytime without fail, if i stay up i just fall asleep at my desk, from anywhere between 30 mins to an hour. Then revise and stuff until 10-11. The cycle repeats.

Important to note that I am doing intermittent fasting, so I dont eat anything until lunch time at 1 o clock. (also always feel very sleepy after lunch as well).

Any Tips?

Reply 1

patrycja2017

Hey,

I’m in my last year too! I feel like it’s the work overload - try to slow down on getting everything done and constantly working. I always try and do at least an hour per subject each day but if I can’t I’ll do more over the weekend. So say today I did an hour of French when I got home - had dinner so around an 1h break, then did an hour worth of English and now planning to do maths. So take longer breaks and try not to cram it all into one day. Also have a day where you literally do nothing - it helps. Get plenty of sleep too!!

Reply 2

G.Y

Original post by Anonymous

If you're napping from about 5:30 to 6/6:30 and then working properly until 10/11 that's a solid 4/5 hours of revision everyday which should be enough. I don't see anything wrong with taking a short nap. But you should probably accept that you are going to take a nap and include it as part of your routine. Nap in bed and make it comfortable so you regain your energy. Don't fall asleep at your desk. Also going to the gym usually boosts my energy levels so a bit unusual that it makes you fall asleep. But keep it up, looking after your physical health means you're mentally more agile.

Why do you intermittent fast?

Reply 3

Feastful

Original post by Anonymous

so i wake up at 7 go to school and finish 3:30- then typically go to the gym until 5 o clock. Get home and eat and just fall asleep, everytime without fail, if i stay up i just fall asleep at my desk, from anywhere between 30 mins to an hour. Then revise and stuff until 10-11. The cycle repeats.

Important to note that I am doing intermittent fasting, so I dont eat anything until lunch time at 1 o clock. (also always feel very sleepy after lunch as well).

Original post by Anonymous

so I dont eat anything until lunch time at 1 o clock. (also always feel very sleepy after lunch as well)

If you go too long without eating, then when you do eat the food will cause a large imbalance to your blood sugar levels (causing them to crash before they rise back up to normal levels, past normal levels, then plummet back down again to normal levels). All these blood sugar imbalances will cause very haphazard energy levels (lot's of post eating fatigue, bouts of energy followed by more tiredness etc). And the larger and more sugar-filled the meal after a long period of not eating, the worse the post-eating tiredness will be.

I don't know why you're doing all this "intermittent fasting", but if you want to quit this cycle of crashing energy levels, then you need to take a more responsible approach to diet.
Those who don't eat breakfast are much more likely to have problems with weight gain, cravings and unbalanced energy levels.

Reply 4

Kindred

Original post by Anonymous

Might be a good idea to touch base with your GP to make sure all your hormones, vitamins etc are at good levels. Especially if you're doing some fasting you could be deficient in something which can really drain your energy. If it seems centred around food or anything else, mention that cos you can also have issues with processing certain foods etc which can cause issues.
Check you're getting enough sleep (about 9 hours for a teenager) cos I'm not sure you are with those timings. Teenagers are doing a lot of growing and things behind the scenes so need more sleep than adults.
Sounds like you're doing quite a bit with your time so you might want to make sure you're not overdoing it and that you're getting enough food and drink to fuel you properly.

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

Original post by patrycja2017

Yeh true, just feel as if I've got loads of work to do, especially as I take 4 A-Levels but hey ho good practice for uni I guess!

Original post by G.Y

Yeh I guess maybe its not a bad thing to have a nap, maybe I'll just have to accept it, its only because its been happening a lot more in this past month or so, and I've been intermittent fasting for a few months now. Defo important I keep up the gym as it keeps me in a routine for the rest of my life as well and gives me a break from studies! I find sleeping in my bed leads to be sleeping for 2-3 hours instead of a controlled 30mins to an hour! I struggle so hard to get out of bed even in the morning haha.

I intermittent fast so my body is forced to convert its glycogen stores to glucose for energy, instead of it using more readily available energy from food youve just eaten. Ive been doing it for 3 months or so now but now possible my body is not responding to it as well as it did before, or maybe there is another factor such as increased workload, im not sure.

Original post by Feastful

You need to eat properly (regular nutritious meals etc) and exercise on a regular basis if you're to have decent energy levels. Stuck in a cycle of routinely starving yourself and long periods of inactivity, are you really that surprised that your energy levels are so poor?

If you go too long without eating, then when you do eat the food will cause a large imbalance to your blood sugar levels (causing them to crash before they rise back up to normal levels, past normal levels, then plummet back down again to normal levels). All these blood sugar imbalances will cause very haphazard energy levels (lot's of post eating fatigue, bouts of energy followed by more tiredness etc). And the larger and more sugar-filled the meal after a long period of not eating, the worse the post-eating tiredness will be.

I don't know why you're doing all this "intermittent fasting", but if you want to quit this cycle of crashing energy levels, then you need to take a more responsible approach to diet.
Those who don't eat breakfast are much more likely to have problems with weight gain, cravings and unbalanced energy levels.

Yeh I'm aware that digestion of a big meal, especially after not eating is going to cause an imbalance in my blood sugar levels, and I did feel it esp after my first week or so of intermittent fasting, but after that and for 2.5 months my body adapted to converting glycogen stores for energy instead of food, but nowadays I've been getting more tired, which is the issue! It may be the fasting or it may be another factor as I said, I'm not sure.

I exercise regularly and I eat enough, I'd like to say I am in good shape and I'd also say its down to intermittent fasting- if done correctly I would recommend it to anyone wanting to lose fat, in terms of cutting or just general weight loss. No cravings come with it for me atleast and definitely no weight gain came from not eating breakfast but these last few weeks definitely unbalanced energy levels. However as I mentioned in another reply is I'm terrible at getting out of bed so most mornings I would not have the time to eat breakfast anyway haha.

I do appreciate your reply tho and I think I may have to make an alteration to my diet or find another way to structure my meals in case it is the fasting that is affecting it.

Original post by Kindred

Im not cutting anything out of my meals that I wouldnt eat if i were not fasting, if that makes any sense! so I dont think i have a deficiency of anything, I think its down to maybe Im eating a big meal that takes a lot of energy to digest which makes my body go into the opposite of 'fight of flight' which is what i;ve been reading up anyway.

However sleep can be a problem, especially if Im bogged down with work I'm up late and I am defo guilty of not getting enough sleep some/most nights. Thing is I wouldnt say I spend my time to the best of my ability, when I'm sat down to do work maybe 40-50% of it is actually getting work done and the rest messing about wasting time...- which is why I end up staying late, a vicious cycle which is down to self control and only I can fix that one haha!

Reply 6

Kindred

Original post by Anonymous

I'll trust you on the diet thing cos I'm not great with what you actually need for a healthy diet and how things like fasting would affect that. Sounds like you've done some research into it too so that's good.
You can get deficient in things cos your body isn't good at absorbing it for whatever reason though so if things don't improve with other stuff it's still worth a trip to your GP.

Sounds like the main thing you need to look at right now is sleep. See what you can do to get yourself 9 hours sleep and to make that decent quality sleep. You sound like you're alright at doing a bit of independent research so have a look online for how to improve your sleep pattern.