No one really knows why if you’re searching for a herb for fatigue, you’d have to exert some energy and go up to the mountains to find this one.

It’s official name is Rhodiola rosea.

You can find it in the Alps. In the mountains of Great Britain and Ireland.

In the Rocky Mountains in America. In Central Asia and Europe. And in Scandinavia and Iceland.

Everywhere you go you’ll find the same plant with yellow flowers in mountains up to an elevation of 2280 meters. The plant is also called Golden Root.

An Herb For Fatigue May Be An Adaptogen

Rhodiola rosea is one of a number of plant adaptogens that helps the body adapt in situations where the best action is to normalize body functions.

For example, if the blood sugar is a wee bit too high, an adaptogen could help bring the blood sugar back into the normal zone temporarily.

If the blood pressure is a wee bit too low, an adaptogen could help bring the pressure up and normalize it temporarily.

If the body is too cold – as it might be in Iceland, Scandinavia, or other mountain climates, it’s good to know that there’s an herb for fatigue that will also help you warm up. That’s how an adaptogen acts.

Generally speaking, an adaptogenic herb is an herb for fatigue. For example, Siberian ginseng, Chinese ginseng, Brazilian ginseng – and other ginsengs of other countries are always known as an herbs for fatigue.

Medicinal Constituents Of Golden Root

But today’s women and men want to know more than just that Rhodiola rosea is just an adaptogen. They want to know the medicinal constituents inside the plant that do something specifically for fatigue and tiredness.

Some of the other medicinal constituents inside this herb for fatigue include:

1. Rosaridin

This inhibits monoamine oxidase (MAO) A and B.

When this enzyme is inhibited it’s possible that issues such as depression may improve. And everyone knows that when someone is depressed, you can always expect tiredness and fatigue.

One clinical trial showed significant improvement for those with depression with a few capsules a day.

2. Rhodioloside, Rosin, And Rosarin

A polyphenol not yet connected with the prevention of disease or health benefit. However, many polyphenols are linked to reducing effects of free radicals and only time will tell us what these do.

3. Proanthocyanidins

This is a strong antioxidant found to be 50 times more effective than vitamin C. When you can quench free radicals you can expect at least a little bit more energy. This explains part of the anti-fatigue effect.

4. Quercetin And Kaempferol Ingredients

These can have positive effects on the immune system.

Let’s Do A Review Study, Say Modern Day Scientists

But as always, don’t expect scientists to agree with you that Rhodiola rosea is an herb for fatigue.

In one review study in May 2012, scientists wanted to give their verdict on this herb that many cultures have used for thousands of years.

This is the latest trend in medical science. Since there are thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of studies on almost any known medical topic, university scientists think that someone should evaluate all of them on a topic.

They felt the need to act as the ultimate say-so and tell everyone that what the peoples of all these mountainous cultures were doing for thousands of years was either right or wrong.

I don’t know about you, but to me this seems quite a bit haughty with a big dose of pride. If a culture found an herb beneficial over the years, they would keep using it.

On the other hand, if they didn’t find an herb beneficial over time, they would stop using it.

It’s really a simple process.

What The Researchers Discovered About The Herb For Fatigue

They found 206 research studies in the medical literature on this herb for fatigue.

Right there you know that if the herb was studied 206 times, the herb had quite a bit of value to the different cultures.

The scientists decided that most of these 206 articles didn’t meet their high standards. They discounted 195 of them.

Of the remaining 11 trials, two used healthy individuals and gave them the herb to see what would happen. The volunteers felt an improvement in physical fatigue.

Three other studies showed the herb effective for mental fatigue. But of course the haughty scientists warn that all these studies are biased.

After all, all the thousands of people who used this herb for fatigue over the centuries were living in a dreamland, you know?

You can read more about the scientists’ bias and their conclusions in the journal BMC Complement Altern Med, May 29, 2012.

If you’ve been searching for a solution for tiredness, you might want to check out the End Tiredness Program.

It’s a guide put together to increase your energy day by day.

Brain fatigue or mind fatigue is a feeling of mental tiredness.

More specifically, brain fatigue can result in these types of brain fatigue symptoms that are identified in different circumstances.

Mind Fatigue/Brain Fatigue/ Symptoms

Here’s a short list of some of the brain fatigue symptoms:

▸ You can’t seem to make decisions. Your head is spinning with too much information and your brain can’t clear out the important details from the non-important details.

▸ You’re sleepy, due to no real reason. Or on the other hand, you’re sleepy due to the alcohol you just drank. Alcohol causes brain fatigue by increasing oxidation.

▸ You find it difficult to read or ponder difficult topics.

▸ You feel that you are just spinning your wheels in life.

Brain Fog Is Not The Same Thing As Brain Fatigue

Brain fog is a little different. Brain fog is a feeling of cloudiness over the brain that makes one slow down the thinking processes.

You have to hear someone repeat what they’re saying four or five times to “get it.” You have to write down things so that you won’t forget them.

Brain fog can be due to food allergies, or mold exposure.

When the food allergies are gone, or the mold counts drop substantially, a person with brain fog due to these reasons can feel focused and have the ability to concentrate on any subject. It’s a life-transforming event.

Brain Scientists Learn About Brain Fatigue

Your brain is quite complicated, and can handle both simple and complicated activities. Simple activities would include things such as recognizing things.

For example, recognizing that a car is coming toward you at a high speed is a simple activity whereas getting out of the way of the car is considered a decision-making activity that involves a higher functioning of activity level.

When you have brain fatigue, the speed at which you do the simple activities slows down and the higher order thinking of more complicated activities can come to a halt.

You feel paralyzed to move on toward making a decision or move toward taking steps to achieve a goal.

In one University of Minnesota study reported in Scientific American, researchers found that the brain actually uses energy to make a mental decision.

What’s Behind This Brain Fatigue?

To answer this question, one has to go back to the basic brain anatomy and physiology. There are three ways you can overcome brain fatigue.

1. Consider Feeding Your Brain Right

What’s the number 1 fuel of the brain? Glucose.

Thus if you’re suffering from blood glucose fluctuations all day long by eating junk foods or incomplete meals, you can expect a lot of brain fatigue to occur.

Actually, you wouldn’t even be able to make the decision that this is happening to you since you have brain fatigue! Someone else would have to make the decision for you.

2. Dehydration Is Your Brain’s Enemy

What else does the brain need? Water.

Without water, hundreds of reactions in the body come to a standstill. The easy solution is to drink water and do it all day long. But how are you going to decide that if you have brain fatigue right now?

How can you sit down and map out a plan of what you’re going to accomplish and how you can get a few quarts of water into your body each day if you have brain fatigue?

Just in case you do have brain fatigue, here’s the easiest way to do that:

When you get up in the morning, drink 3 glasses water immediately.
This will reset your thirst mechanism for the entire day.

3. We All Need Rewards

What else does the brain need? Rewards.

Surprisingly, in one study, researchers in England found that cyclists who rinsed their mouth with carbohydrate drinks during cycling, they cycled faster and had greater cardiovascular efficiency than those who drank water.

However, their feelings about the effort they were expending were about the same as those who drank water.

The cyclists’ MRI scans found that they were perceiving the carbohydrate drink as a reward. And this allowed their muscles to do twice as much work.

Now this one finding makes a lot of sense. Why do we drag ourselves out of bed in the morning? It could be that we dread the day’s activities.

There’s no reward associated with another day of getting pummeled with new work projects, screaming kids, or problems at work.

On the other hand, what do we do if we know that at 5 p.m. our favorite show is coming on television? We suddenly start racing around the home at 4 p.m. to get our work done.

What caused the switch in fatigue levels? It was the hope of a reward.

It’s the same thing with mental fatigue. If you can give yourself rewards for doing things, you can beat mental fatigue.

Hate doing housework? Work in some type of reward for it and you’ll soon see how housework won’t be contributing to your mental or physical fatigue anymore.

Now that you have three examples of how to overcome brain fatigue, which one will you initiate first? Whichever one makes the most sense to you about your mind fatigue is the one to go with.