Uncovering the Roots of Exhaustion—and How to Feel Like Yourself Again

The Dr. Hyman Show

Dr. Mark Hyman

Health & Fitness, Nutrition, Medicine

4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many people experience a deep, lingering fatigue that isn’t fixed by a full night’s sleep, and it often stems from real imbalances inside the body. When mitochondria—the tiny engines that power our cells—are stressed by poor diet, toxins, infections, or lack of rest, the whole system can slow down. Ongoing stress can also disrupt the adrenal system, leaving some people feeling wired and anxious while others feel drained from morning to night. The encouraging news is that steady habits like nourishing whole foods, balanced blood sugar, restorative sleep, and gentle movement can help the body find its rhythm again. With the right support, energy often returns, and a sense of hope does, too. In this episode, I dive into, along with Dr. Izabella Wentz and Dr. Elizabeth Boham, the real roots of chronic fatigue, showing how stress, lifestyle, and hidden imbalances drain our energy—and how practical, nourishing habits can help restore it. Izabella Wentz is an internationally acclaimed thyroid specialist and a licensed pharmacist who has dedicated her career to addressing the root causes of autoimmune thyroid disease after being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in 2009. She is the author of three books on Hashimoto’s: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Lifestyle Interventions for Finding and Treating the Root Cause, Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology, and Hashimoto’s Protocol, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Dr. Elizabeth Boham is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Albany Medical School, and she is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and the Medical Director of The UltraWellness Center. Dr. Boham lectures on a variety of topics, including Women’s Health and Breast Cancer Prevention, insulin resistance, heart health, weight control and allergies. She is on the faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine. This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers. Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN to save 15%. Full-length episodes can be found here:How to Reclaim Your Energy and Overcome Chronic Fatigue Tired And Wired: How To Heal Adrenal Fatigue Getting To The Root Causes Of Why We Are All Tired (0:00) Introduction to the episode with Dr. Izabella Wentz (1:34) Overview of health ingredients and functional medicine (2:41) Factors damaging mitochondria and lab testing for fatigue (6:27) Dietary changes and time-restricted eating benefits (9:10) Food as medicine and the impact of common drugs on energy (11:43) Exercise and optimizing nutrient levels for mitochondrial health (15:42) Stress management and sleep for better mitochondrial health (18:45) Red light therapy and key nutrients for mitochondrial protection (21:18) Dr. Izabella Wentz's personal experience with fatigue and adrenal dysfunction (28:13) Testing and types of chronic stress (36:04) Diet, blood sugar, and adrenal function (39:36) Functional vs. conventional medicine approaches to fatigue (43:40) Chronic infections and identifying the root causes of fatigue (47:34) Common drivers of fatigue and the role of heavy metals (49:11) Personal journey with chronic fatigue syndrome and functional medicine solutions (51:18) Personalized support, supplementation, and sleep quality

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show.
0:02.7	And they're like, well, people tell me to exercise, but I feel worse when I exercise.
0:08.0	People tell me to fast, but if I fast, I feel awful.
0:11.4	I'll try to sleep for 12 hours, and I'm still tired.
0:14.2	You know, they're really stuck in that state where their body, just every little
0:18.4	stressor can be so overwhelming.
0:22.6	Have you been feeling stressed or tired lately?
0:24.6	You might be low in one powerful mineral.
0:26.6	That mineral is magnesium.
0:27.6	Most people are, and most supplements don't fix it because they only include one or two forms.
0:32.6	I use magnesium breakthrough from bioptimizers because it has all seven forms of magnesium your body needs for sleep, stress, and recovery. It actually works. You can feel the difference. From November 23th through December the 3rd, you get 25% off. This is the once a year sale you do not want to miss. Go right now to bioptimizers.com slash hymen and use code hymen. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share a few ways you can go deeper on your health journey. While I wish I could work with everyone one-on-one, there just isn't enough time in the day, so I've built several tools to help you take control of your health. If you're looking for guidance, education, and community, check out my private membership, the Hyman Hive, for live Q&A's exclusive content and direct
1:12.1	connection. For real-time lab testing and personalized insights into your biology, visit
1:16.2	function health. You can also explore my curated doctor-trusted supplements and health products
1:20.8	at Dr.hyman.com. And if you prefer to listen without any breaks, don't forget, you can enjoy
1:25.6	every episode of this podcast, add-free with Hyman Plus. Just open Apple podcasts and tap try free to start your seven-day free trial.
1:34.2	Fatigue can get better. When we understand how our biology works, when we get rid of the bad
1:40.2	stuff, we put in the good stuff, when we hunt down and root out all the causes,
1:45.0	which are anything from toxins to allergens, to microbes, to microbiome, to poor diet,
1:49.7	to stress, or lack of things we need to thrive, like the right nutrients, the right food,
1:55.1	whole food, the right balance of hormones, light, air, water, sleep, movement, exercise,
2:17.9	restoration, deep relaxation, community, love, meaning, purpose. These are all the ingredients for health. And we don't have enough of those. We have too much the bad stuff. None of the good stuff. Then our body's dysfunction. And the goal of functional medicine is to get your body's functioning again, hence the name. So one of the things I want to dive into today is one of the key factors that's driving fatigue for most people. Now, it all starts with your
2:22.4	mitochondria. So what exactly are your mitochondria? And what is the meaning of these little things?
	...

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