对疲劳的新理解揭示如何恢复能量

jlee42 · 五月 13, 2026, 03:21 AM

Radical new insights from the science of interoception – how the body senses its internal state – explain the real reasons we feel tired all the time, and how to re-energise

There are many mysteries in science. What is dark matter? Why are we conscious? Are we alone in the universe? But none looms larger in the mind of the average adult than this: why am I so exhausted all the time?

It is a crucial question, not least because, according to a recent analysis of data from 32 countries, as many as 1 in 5 otherwise healthy adults complain of problematic levels of fatigue. Feeling tired all the time is one of the most common reasons to seek medical attention – so much so, in fact, that medical professionals commonly abbreviate it to TATT, perhaps to save their own energy. Often, there is no obvious medical explanation for what is causing the fatigue and not much the doctor can offer beyond blood tests to rule out any obvious deficiencies.

Now, though, scientists are taking a fresh look at what it means to feel energised – or not – and the research is revealing that how we perceive this state largely hinges on the brain's ongoing assessment of how much energy is available to our cells. This discovery is changing how we think about our general health, opening up possible new avenues to treat clinical levels of fatigue, and suggesting practical things we can all do to stop feeling like we are running on empty.

The fact that so many otherwise healthy people feel so tired doesn't seem to make sense. Many of us, at least in the West, have easy access to far more calories than we need. If feeling good were simply a matter of calories in, energy out, we would all be bursting with vim and vigour.

A sense of interoception

This feeling is an example of interoception, the ability to sense signals from within the body that tell us how well we are adapting to the world. When something is off – such as when the body feels like it is running low on energy – these signals motivate us to do something to fix the problem. As I outline in my forthcoming book Inner Sense, the study of interoception is revealing that our feelings, emotions and motivations are built from an ongoing, constantly changing conversation between body and brain.

Seeing energy as the output of such a process explains why boosting it isn't simply a case of eating more, or shelling out on whatever supplement is currently going viral. It is about figuring out where in the body-brain conversation the signal to conserve energy is coming from, and taking action to fix the issue.

It might be a problem with energy release in the cells, or that the brain is expecting a physical or mental challenge and wants to keep something in reserve just in case. Or it could be that something, such as stress or a fight against infection, is hogging the bulk of the body's supplies. Whatever the reason, the outcome is the same – you feel lousy – but the fix required depends on the cause.

Across large portions of the world, the idea that energy is central to well-being isn't exactly new. Eastern traditions founded thousands of years ago were built on the premise that the flow of energy around the body is key to health and vitality. Western medicine, on the other hand, grew from the foundations of anatomy and physiology – things that could be seen, measured and dissected, and could be treated with drugs or surgery. Invisible forces, not unreasonably, didn't get a look in.

The Western approach to medicine has done wonders for human life expectancy, increasing it by three decades in less than a century. But it has been less successful at extending the number of years we live in good health, our so-called healthspan. According to an estimate from 2021, globally, we are living an average of nine years beyond this, in poorer health.[font=宋体]夜色春藥網官網[/u][/url][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網線上網店[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥熱銷商品推薦[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]關於夜色春藥網[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網獨家資訊[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網半價購買[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網配送方式[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網全部商品[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網必買商品[/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体][font=宋体]夜色春藥網[/font]LINE[font=宋体]直購[/font][/font][font=宋体] [/font][font=宋体]夜色春藥網折扣活動[/font][/font][/size][/color]

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Mitochondria are energy-producing structures inside cells

Martin Picard at Columbia University in New York argues that it is time to change the focus of medical research away from treating disease and towards a better understanding of health. This, he believes, requires a better understanding of how energy flows through the body. "We have veered away from it because of the tools we have had with reductionist science: if you can't sequence it, if you can't see it under the microscope or measure it on an oscilloscope, then it's not an appropriate object of study," he says. "I think that's steered us away from things that are potentially useful and important."

Picard trained in a lab run by geneticist Doug Wallace, who pioneered the study of mitochondria, the cellular factories where molecules from digested food are transformed into a chemical form of energy that cells can work with. One thing that soon became clear from this research is that, when mitochondria aren't working efficiently, people feel lethargic and fatigued. Picard took this finding and ran with it, establishing a new field, mitochondrial psychobiology, to explore what energy release in mitochondria has to do with how energetic we feel, and vice versa. He and others have discovered there are many reasons why mitochondria might struggle, even in otherwise healthy people, some of which are almost certainly playing into the epidemic of TATT.

Perhaps the biggest drain on energy production in mitochondria is – surprisingly – a surfeit of fuel. Energy is released in the mitochondria gradually, in a series of small biochemical steps that can't be rushed and have to happen in a certain order to avoid causing a metabolic pile-up. If too much fuel arrives at once, the mitochondria have to take a break from releasing energy so that the cells can concentrate on storing the excess for later. This leaves us with less energy, not more – at least in the short term.

High-sugar diets are particularly problematic, with studies showing that they lead to inefficient mitochondria and people feeling moody and sluggish, rather than energised. Intriguingly, there is some evidence that challenging the mitochondria by drastically reducing sugar intake by adopting a low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet may have the opposite effect.

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对疲劳的新理解揭示如何恢复能量

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