Always Tired? Daisy's Mental, Emotional and Physical Fixes

You eat well, sleep seven hours, exercise and your lab reports look fine. Yet you are tired every single day. Daisy says this is one of the most searched health problems today, and that it is not a failure on your part. She sees fatigue as a puzzle with a mental, an emotional and a physical piece, and most people only work on one. Here is how she explains it and what she does about it.

Why do your tests look normal when you feel exhausted?

Daisy says standard lab tests are built to find physical damage. They are not built to find a body whose rhythms are out of step. The nervous system, gut, hormones, immune system and cell energy can stop working together long before a report shows anything wrong.

Her good news is that much of this can be changed by what you do every day.

Is stress really the problem?

Daisy’s view is that stress itself is not the problem. Human beings evolved to face short, real danger and then recover. Today the danger is constant, and there is no recovery.

She describes a typical day for an imaginary “Mr Now”. He checks his phone on waking and switches between messages, news and work apps. By Daisy’s count his brain has made around 50 attention shifts before breakfast. She says each shift and each decision costs the brain energy, especially the prefrontal cortex, the planning part of the brain.

Add polite smiles when you are drained, background worries about money or health, low-nutrient food, coffee crashes, bright screens and noise. Daisy says the body never fully powers down.

A quick self-check. Imagine the deadlines, rewards and praise are gone. Would you still enjoy the work? If yes, it is stimulation. If not, it is stress. Daisy says flow happens when challenge meets meaning, and stress happens when challenge meets fear.

Six kinds of fatigue

Daisy says tiredness shows up differently in different people, but it is one underlying problem:

• Mental: brain fog, forgetfulness, low mood, poor focus, irritation.
• Nervous system: feeling wired but tired, or anxious for no clear reason.
• Hormonal: thyroid-like symptoms with normal tests, PMS, irregular periods, low libido.
• Cellular: the “tiny power plants” in your cells (mitochondria) not making energy well, so exercise feels hard and recovery is slow.
• Digestive: bloating, reflux, food sensitivity.
• Adrenal: Daisy says the glands are usually not damaged. The brain’s stress system is stuck in danger mode.

Her message: supplements and medicine only go so far. The fix has to work on all three levels, and she says that does not mean working less.

Fix 1: Calm the mind (nervous system hygiene)

• Mental fast on waking. For 30 to 60 minutes, no phone, no news, no unnecessary decisions. Drink water, get daylight, shower, walk, stretch or sit with family.
• Cut small decisions. Automate meals, workouts, bill payments and repeat orders. This frees the prefrontal cortex, which Daisy calls the CEO of your brain, for decisions that matter.
• Review your interactions. Ask whether a connection is real or an obligation. Daisy says being reachable is not the same as being responsible.
• Build in gaps. Take a few quiet minutes between meetings. Try one evening a week without productivity, hustle or scrolling.

If skipping that evening brings guilt or panic, Daisy says it points to a real habit, and that you probably need the break most.

Fix 2: Let emotions move through

Daisy says suppressed guilt, anger, grief, resentment and jealousy take real energy to hold down. She cites neuroanatomist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, who describes the first chemical surge of an emotion as lasting about 90 seconds. What lasts longer, Daisy says, is the resistance and the retelling.

Her practice is to feel the emotion in the body without feeding the story. She recommends Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight, and also Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment.

Fix 3: Fix sleep and morning light

Sleep. Daisy says early to bed and early to rise does not suit everyone. Each person has a natural body clock, and you can stay in step with it if sleep is long enough, steady and unbroken. She says repair follows sleep depth, not the wall clock. She suggests yoga nidra, a guided rest, and says even 20 minutes can feel like hours of rest. Her test for enough sleep is waking naturally, feeling good.

Sunlight. She calls morning light essential, and much more than vitamin D. She says the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking matter most, even on a cloudy day.

Breathing, humming and nature

Daisy shows three desk-friendly practices:

1. Long-exhale breathing. No breath-holds. Inhale through the nose for 4 seconds and exhale for 6 to 8, slowly.
2. Brahmari, the humming bee breath. Inhale, then hum on the exhale, with thumbs pressed on the ear flaps. Do 5 to 10 rounds.
3. The double inhale. Inhale through the nose, top up with a second short sniff, then sigh out through the mouth. Up to 15 rounds, for anxiety in the moment.

She adds a phone-free nature walk of 5 to 10 minutes, and points to her separate video for more vagus nerve methods.

Ayurvedic herbs Daisy mentions

Daisy calls these adaptogens, gentle herbs that help the body adapt to stress. She says they do not create energy, they remove what blocks it:

• Ashwagandha for the stress hormone system.
• Shatavari for women’s hormonal health after long stress.
• Guduchi (giloy) for immunity and inflammation.
• Amla for energy at cell level.
• Brahmi for brain fog.
• For sleep: jatamansi, tagara (Indian valerian) and reishi mushroom.

She advises a certified vaidya or Ayurvedic doctor for the dose, and patience. If you take medicine for thyroid, blood pressure or any other condition, keep your doctor in the loop.

What research says

Research on these herbs is modest. In a 60-day trial, 64 adults with long-term stress took ashwagandha root extract or a placebo. The ashwagandha group had lower stress scores and lower cortisol, with only mild side effects (Chandrasekhar et al.). A review of Bacopa (brahmi) trials found some evidence for memory recall, but little for other mental skills (Pase et al.).

For the habits, a review of slow breathing found higher heart rate variability and more relaxation and alertness (Zaccaro et al.). A Japanese study of 280 young adults found lower cortisol after forest walks than city walks (Park et al.). In 14 men, an hour of morning light raised the morning cortisol peak, while evening light did not (Scheer and Buijs).

Daisy’s tips

• Try giving up coffee. Daisy says it may be the most sensible step. She has made a coffee-free blend that tastes like coffee.
• Keep meals balanced and move daily, as the herbs work alongside these basics.
• Be patient. Fatigue builds over time, so recovery takes time too.
• If tiredness is new, severe or comes with other symptoms, see a doctor.

Daisy covers every practice in the video above. It takes about 34 minutes.