Throughout your lifetime, your body is exposed to a multitude of stressors such as illness, injuries, sleep deprivation, toxins, pollution, and more. Over time, this exposure can start to negatively affect your physical and mental performance at both work and home due to possible inflammation of the joints, pain, a lack of energy or fatigue, memory fog, and a general feeling of something being not quite right within your body.
Whether you are an athlete, a CEO, a homemaker, an employee, or a business owner, if your mind and body are not performing optimally, everything appears more difficult. Stairs become higher, packages become heavier, workdays become longer, and it always feels like you are running on a half empty tank of gas.
However, there are ways to improve your performance levels, and maintain them – and we at Marsden Centre can help you achieve your optimal performance.
When and Why Does Performance Diminish
There are many contributing factors that can add up to performance loss over time. To begin improving and maintaining your performance levels, you must first understand some of the causes that may have led to the decline.
Aging
As we get older, our skeletal muscle tissue naturally begins to decrease, this is called sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is triggered by a number of factors both within and outside of our control, with neurological decline, hormonal changes, inflammatory pathway activation, declines in activity, chronic illness, fatty infiltration, and poor nutrition all shown to be contributing factors.
After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3% to 5% of your muscle mass per decade which in turn affects your performance as you no longer have the physical strength to perform as you once did.
Hormonal Imbalance
Changes in your hormonal balance due to menstruation and menopause in women, a decline in testosterone in men, medications and treatments, the varied consequences of lifestyle and aging, and more, can have a dramatic effect on our body’s ability to perform at its optimal level.
Estrogen, for example, is the key regulator of bone metabolism in both men and women. Low estrogen levels are associated with a decline in bone mineral density which can lead to fractures, breaks, and a loss of physical strength and mobility.
Stress
Stress affects your physical body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behaviour which in turn affects your overall performance. Stress that is left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, depression and diabetes all of which can affect your daily performance mentally and physically.
Illness and Injury
Both illness and injury are often associated with pain, inflammation, and an overwhelming fear for our health and wellbeing. When we become ill or suffer an injury, our immune system goes into overdrive, rushing white blood cells to the area to remove any pathogens and repair the damage.
At times, our body does not recognize when the injury or illness is healed and perceives it is still under a consistent threat. This can be an underlying reason for chronic inflammation.
Nutrition
What you put into your body fuels your energy levels. Therefore, a diet that is consistently low in vitamins, minerals, proteins, healthy fats, and nutrients will cause a lack of energy and fatigue. It is comparable to putting dirty gas in your car… it will not be able to perform to the best of its abilities as it becomes bogged down with gunk.
A good example of an imbalanced diet is the dreaded 3 pm burnout. Whether working in an office or caring for children at home, when 3 pm comes around many people succumb to feeling tired and are unable to think clearly due to a lack of stored energy in the body. This leads to cravings that are all too often satisfied by empty calories such as sweets, putting you straight into a vicious cycle of sugar highs and crashes without addressing the true underlying craving for nutrition.
What Are The Tell-Tale Signs of Performance Loss
Loss of performance often goes unrecognized until long after signs and symptoms have begun. Life can become more stressful or chaotic as we get older, and we tend to blame our lack of energy or cognitive function on current stressors alone with the hope that ‘it soon will pass’.
However, there are clear signs and symptoms to watch for so that you can address long-term issues faster and protect your performance levels from entering the slippery slope of decline.
Signs & Symptoms of Performance Loss
· Lack of restful sleep, insomnia, or feeling excessively tired even after sleeping for 7-8 hours
· Inability to think clearly
· Chronic pain and/or inflammation
· Lack of motivation
· Feeling exhausted at the end of the workday leaving no energy for family or social engagements
· Loss of strength due to skeletal muscle deterioration
· Your usual physical activity leaves you feeling depleted
· Work or personal life is being affected negatively
· Not being able to comfortably perform your usual tasks without pain, fatigue, stress, or anxiety
· Lack of energy despite not changing diet or exercise routines
Is it Possible to Improve & Maintain Performance Levels?
The answer to that question is a definitive yes! Although performance loss can be attributed to a multitude of factors including aging, injury, stress, etc., there are also a multitude of natural options and individualized plans available to support your body, help it to heal and get you back on track.
Here at Marsden Centre, our goal is to not only help improve your performance capabilities but to discover the underlying issues affecting your optimal health that have led to the decline.
A Naturopathic Approach to Performance
By looking at the whole body using an approach and laboratory tests based on naturopathic medicine in Vaughan, we can get to the root of the problem and address it on a personalized basis for each of our clients. We look to improve energy, blood sugar control and metabolic function as well as working to reduce inflammation. The approaches we take not only support your mental and physical performance, but they also help contribute to disease prevention.
Uncover the Underlying Reasons Your Performance is Suffering
Whether you are a professional athlete or just looking to increase your overall health and physical activity without feeling exhausted daily, we can help investigate why your body is not performing at its peak. Discover the underlying reasons your body composition has changed, despite no modifications in exercise and diet patterns and analyze disease patterns in your family history to create a proactive prevention plan.
Natural Treatment Modalities for Optimal Performance
The Integrative and Naturopathic Doctors and support staff at the Marsden Centre are dedicated to providing each patient with quality, compassionate, personalized care based on their individual needs. Our treatment plans are designed to help you succeed and achieve your performance goals through a natural approach to uncovering, diagnosing, and treating the underlying conditions and may include the following:
Nutritional Supplements & IV Nutrition
Nutrition plays a key role in your overall body health and performance levels. Individualized testing will give us a complete view of your current nutritional status and allow us to make strategic decisions based on your personal needs.
Our nutritional supplements focus on building and maintaining muscle mass and reducing inflammation without the need to stick to fad diets or unrealistic meal plans. This strategic approach allows us to make the least recommendations with the highest amount of targeted impact, allowing you to reach your performance goals faster.
Acupuncture, Anti-inflammatory Supplements, and Herbs
Old injuries, exercise, strain, and pulled muscles can cause inflammation and create a longer healing time thereby limiting your performance levels. These conditions can also lead to the inability to get a restful sleep, negatively affecting your performance capabilities during the day.
Using acupuncture, anti-inflammatory supplements, and natural herbs, we work to reduce pain and inflammation, allowing your body to repair and recover faster, helping you to achieve restful sleep, and increasing your overall health and wellbeing.
Bioidentical Hormones
Hormonal irregularities commonly play a role in diminished overall performance, while also potentially putting you at an increased risk of bone loss, migraines, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and more.
We at Marsden Centre are leaders in safely prescribing bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as part of a comprehensive naturopathic/integrative performance support plan, based on your blood test results, your individual needs, your health history, and your initial assessment. All treatments we prescribe are designed to safely and holistically ensure you achieve and maintain your top performance levels.
Ready to Start Improving Your Performance?
Performance is something we all strive for, whether it’s on the athletic field, at work or playing with our kids or grandkids. Marsden Centre is here to support you with the expertise, experience and tools that can help you achieve your goals, increase your productivity and protect your overall health.
Prevention and health management are the keys to a healthy, productive, long life. Get in touch to start discovering your unique path to optimal performance today!
References
Jeremy D. Walston – Sarcopenia in older adults – Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2012 Nov; 24(6): 623–627. doi: 10.1097/BOR.0b013e328358d59b
Harvard Health Publishing – Harvard Medical School – Preserve your muscle mass – February 19, 2016
Jane A. Cauley 2015 Jul;99(Pt A):11-5. doi: 10.1016/j.steroids.2014.12.010 National Library of Medicine – National Centre for Biotechnology Information – Estrogen and bone health in men and women
Mayo Clinic – Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior – March 24, 2021
Harvard Health Publishing – Harvard Medical School – Understanding acute and chronic inflammation – April 1, 2020