Muscular fatigue can hinder your progress in a weight loss or exercise program. Otherwise known as 'burnout,' such fatigue is not limited to the muscular system. With a host of nerves and neurotransmitters involved in the healthy functioning of muscles, nerve burnout could also prevent you from reaching your exercise goals.
Muscle vs. Nerve Burnout
Muscular burnout occurs when your muscle tissue does not adequately recover from damage sustained during a workout. While your nerves do not go through the same damage-repair cycle during and after workouts, nerve burnout occurs for similar reasons. As certain muscle fibers are controlled by certain groups of nerves, overuse of these muscles, a lack of sufficient recovery time, and a poor diet all may contribute to suboptimal nerve functioning.
Neurotransmitters and Nerve Burnout
Several neurotransmitters are involved in the effective functioning of your muscles, including ephinephrine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin and dopamine. A taxing weight loss program may affect the levels and action of these neurotransmitters in a number of ways. Examples include a decreased volume of available neurotransmitters, decreased ability of the neurotransmitters to bind at the muscle site, and a greater tolerance for these neurotransmitters. By abstaining from an overly demanding exercise routine and allowing yourself adequate time to rest between workouts, these potential causes of nerve burnout can be avoided.
Dietary Factors
Diet is a very important part of both healthy nerve function and a healthy weight loss program. In order to avoid diet-related nerve burnout, you need to ensure that your diet fulfills all of your body's nutritional needs. As neurological health is affected by the amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals in your diet, the healthiest diet for an effective weight loss program should not restrict of any of these nutrients.
Prevention and Treatment
With causes similar to those of clinical depression, nerve burnout could result in a number of negative side-effects beyond those associated with weight loss. These include rapid changes in mood, depression, restlessness and sexual dysfunction, all of which may then limit your motivation to continue your weight loss program. While exercising comfortably, allowing yourself adequate recovery time and eating a proper diet may help prevent nerve burnout, natural antidepressants may be used to supplement this protection.
St. John's Wort, for example, acts in a manner similar to over-the-counter antidepressants by decreasing your body's ability to reuptake or eliminate monoamines, which include epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin. This was supported in a 2010 study by Siegfried Kasper of the Medical University of Vienna and colleagues, who found an extract of St. John's Wort to rival the effectiveness of over-the-counter antidepressants for treating depression. Though similar in their ability to increase available monoamines, St. John's Wort was found to have almost no risk of the adverse side-effects common to over-the-counter antidepressants.
References
- Truly Huge: Is Over Training Getting on Your Nerves?
- "International Clinical Psychopharmacology"; Better Tolerability of St. John's Wort Extract WS 5570 Compared to Treatment with SSRIs: A Reanalysis of Data from Controlled Clinical Trials in Acute Major Depression; Siegfried Kasper, et al.; July 2010
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