3 Unexpected Reasons Why You're Always Unwell

Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? Here are three unexpected reasons why you might be feeling vaguely unwell, but have been unable to pinpoint why.

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You’re chronically stressed

We all know the feelings of stress in the short term- low mood, anxiety, heart palpitations and an inability to focus. However, if you’ve been experiencing low levels of stress for a long time, you might not even recognise that’s what’s causing your issues. Things like pressures from family, financial stress, work problems and more can all contribute and leave you feeling frazzled over time. If you’re not sleeping well, your mood is low, you can't think clearly and you’re experiencing appetite changes (eating too much or too little) then stress might be the underlying factor. We can never fully eliminate stress in our lives, most of us will always have something going on that we will need to overcome that’s just the way it is. What we can control is the way we respond to things, we can find ways of relaxing and reducing stress rather than adding to it. If you have a bit more money to spend, a spa day complete with pampering massages and treatments could be a great option. Otherwise, a hot bath at home with some nice products and a massage from your other half would do the trick. Try journalling, meditation or find a relaxing hobby. On top of the negative feelings of stress, it can lower immunity opening us up to opportunistic infections and illnesses.

You have a food intolerance

Food intolerances can be tricky things. While they’re not life threatening like allergies can be, if you have a food allergy you’ll almost certainly know what it is. The effects are severe and come on quite suddenly after eating or drinking a certain thing. With intolerances, the effects can take hours, sometimes even a day or more to full come on. They’re not severe symptoms to the point that you’d see a doctor, but they can make you feel generally unwell. You might be tired, achy, bloated or feel nauseous. Because in the time it’s taken for the effects to show, you could have eaten lots of other things since then making it hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. However, if you have your suspicions that it’s food related, there are some things you can do. Certain ingredients like wheat, dairy and gluten are badly tolerated by lots of people so you could start by keeping a food diary and cutting out one thing at a time. Otherwise, you could have a food sensitivity test done by a company like Everlywell who will be able to get to the bottom of which ingredient (or ingredients!) are aggravating you.

You have an underlying medical problem

Lots of medical issues present symptoms that are vague and aren’t necessarily things you’d worry about on their own. But if they’ve been causing you to feel slightly unwell or tired for some time then it’s worth getting checked over by your GP. It could be something as simple as a vitamin deficiency which can be resolved with vitamins and lifestyle changes in your diet. But either way, it’s best to know.