Every summer, I take two weeks off of work and go on a trip with my best friend, visiting countries we’ve never been to before.
It may be a “vacation” from work, but I come back home looking like a grizzled war veteran with the amount of walking and other physical activities we do.
There is one problem though, and let me know if you have the same issues, whether during traveling or just in your day to day.
When we travel, he is like the energizer bunny that never runs out of energy, whereas I feel like a generic no name brand battery that you buy from the dollar store.
We eat the same things, do the same activities, and you can even make the case that he does more because of his overly extroverted personality.
And yet, I’m the one feeling tired.
So last year, I wanted to get to the bottom of my issues.
Here’s what I discovered about how to improve your energy.
Finding Your Energy Solution
Usually in my health endeavours, I dive into SelfDecode and it helps me really understand the genetic causes of my issues.
In this case, I just wanted a solution.
I want to hop from place to place in Barcelona and still feel like I can run a marathon, so just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll learn why later, okay?
Obviously there’s a caveat to this approach – you don’t want to be blindly diving into a recommendation given by a health guru or a practitioner that knows nothing about your health.
With SelfDecode, you’re able to do this by going into your “Recommendations” tab and filtering by Health Category, which is exactly what I did.
One of the top supplement recommendations on my list is CoQ10.
Of course, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to have a quick peek at why this was being recommended:
Within a week, I could already feel the difference in my day-to-day.
I followed my same daily routine but wouldn’t feel mentally drained by the end of a workday or a little too exhausted after a workout.
When you get this newfound energy, you start to find yourself looking to engage in extra activities, social and physical, as if you’ve activated the innate drive to do more.
I thought that I just had some energy issues during my trip, but that I was fine on my day-to-day.
I was definitely wrong.
Sometimes, what you think is normal is actually far from it.
You might assume you’re good on energy because you’ve never actually experienced what good energy levels feel like.
And SelfDecode is great because you don’t need to be a scientist to discover what works for you to start feeling optimal.
Everything you need is already in you, in your DNA.
Later, I did want to figure out exactly why CoQ10 helped, and here’s what I found out.
CoQ10 and the Mitochondria
Coenzyme Q10 is a key player in how our cells produce energy, especially in the mitochondria, which are often called the powerhouses of the cell.
CoQ10 is found in the inner membranes of these mitochondria, where it helps transfer electrons.
This electron transfer is a critical step in a process that ultimately creates ATP, the main energy currency of our bodies.
By helping to produce ATP, CoQ10 ensures our cells have the energy they need to function properly, from powering muscles to supporting brain activity.
I carry the negative genetic variants for a handful of genes that decrease CoQ10 levels.
By supplementing with CoQ10, I was able to give my body the resources it needs to produce energy!