I Felt Exhausted, Until I Ate

I was pushing through building our yurt, until exhaustion hit so hard I couldn't think straight. What happened next taught me something important about hunger, agni, and chronic fatigue.

It was Sunday...

and we’re still busy building the yurt. As it’s the weekend, we’re taking it a bit easier. We started late and it’s a hot day.

I was doing a few small jobs when I suddenly felt completely exhausted – so tired. I realised that I’d actually been pushing myself too hard for a while, and that yesterday’s rest day had only just revealed just how tired I really was from moving house and building the yurt.

It was nearly lunchtime too, so I thought: I’ll just have something to eat. I didn’t really feel hungry yet, but when I’m busy my appetite isn’t always obvious until I’m on the verge of collapsing.

I reheated yesterday’s lunch and sat down. As I sat there, I had this feeling – not exactly anxiety, but a sort of frantic, tired, nervous energy somewhere high up in my body.

And when I started eating, I felt my energy slowly come back. That restless, nervous feeling calmed down and the subtle tension that turned out to be present throughout my whole body gently eased away. I settled back into my body, a feeling of being grounded.

What surprised me most of all was that, after the meal, I didn’t feel sleepy at all, as I’d expected. On the contrary, I felt energetic again.

I know that appetite or hunger can manifest in different ways. Sometimes it’s weakness in my arms, sometimes a wobbly feeling in my legs, sometimes just an emptiness in my stomach or light headedness. This time it was exhaustion – but really intense exhaustion. And that made me think of various people: clients, fellow kidney patients, those struggling with chronic fatigue.

What I was feeling now...

was tiredness caused by a long period of doing too much and not having eaten yet. My digestive fire – known as ‘agni’ in Ayurveda – works well; I’ve worked hard on that over the past five years, so my body was able to absorb what I ate and that gave me energy again.

But for many people with chronic fatigue, it’s different. They eat – often things considered healthy – and yet the exhaustion persists. Not necessarily because they’re eating too little, but because their bodies can’t properly absorb and process what goes in.

A weak or sluggish agni makes it more challenging to extract energy and nutrients from your food, even if you have the healthiest meal on your plate. That, over a longer period of time, slowly depletes and exhausts your body and energy.

That’s why, with clients, I often don’t start with what they eat

but with when and how. Restoring your appetite through regularity, where your body – your agni – tells you it’s ready to receive food and can therefore process it properly.

And then something happens: the agni recovers, and with the agni, your energy slowly returns too. In Ayurveda, we have a term for this: ‘utsaha’, the subtle enthusiasm you feel when your body gets what it needs.

Your appetite is one of your body’s most important signals. It tells you how your body is doing.

Do you recognise the different ways in which your body lets you know it needs food?

With love,

Rianne