Being tired isn’t a failure
My client said: “I’m sooooo tired.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. She lives with Long Covid. And no matter how much she sleeps, the exhaustion doesn’t lift. It hasn’t for years.
For a long time, professionals treated fatigue as a performance problem.
Push through. Sleep more. Try harder.
But what if that response pattern is exactly the problem?
With Long Covid, specific biological mechanisms are at play—so not every solution works. But when fatigue becomes this persistent, the first step is not to push harder.
It’s to understand where energy actually comes from.
Understanding your energy balance
At its core, fatigue reflects a mismatch between the energy your body needs and the energy it can produce.
That production happens in your mitochondria—the “powerhouses” of your cells.
Through a continuous biochemical cycle, mitochondria convert nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This molecule fuels everything: movement, thinking, immunity, hormonal balance.
When mitochondrial function is compromised—by viral load, chronic stress, poor nutrition, or unstable blood sugar—ATP production drops.
And when supply falls short, the whole system feels it.
That’s why someone with Long Covid can sleep fourteen hours and still wake up exhausted.
Your body chooses for survival
Emerging insights suggest something important: in persistent fatigue, the body doesn’t just fail to produce energy—it actively downregulates it.
Not a blown fuse. A dimmer switch.
Mitochondria have two core roles: producing energy and defending the cell. They cannot fully do both at the same time.
When the system detects threat—viral activity, inflammation, chronic stress, unstable glucose levels—it prioritizes survival. Energy production is reduced.
Fatigue, then, is not dysfunction.
It is strategy.
Your response patterns follow the same logic. At some point, they helped you deal with threat—external or internal. And your system kept them, because they worked.
So the question is not: Why am I so tired?
But: What is my system still trying to protect me from?
Blood sugar: underestimated and disruptive
The brain makes up only 2% of your body weight, yet uses about 20% of your energy.
It depends on a stable supply of glucose.
When blood sugar is stable, mitochondria can produce energy efficiently and calmly.
The problem is fluctuation.
After fast-acting carbohydrates, blood sugar spikes. Insulin follows. Then blood sugar may drop below baseline.
For the brain, that drop is a threat signal.
Mitochondria respond by shifting into defense mode:
less energy production, more protection. Oxidative stress increases. Mental clarity disappears.
Chronically high blood sugar creates another problem—it directly damages mitochondrial structure and function.
So the issue isn’t glucose itself.
Glucose is fuel.
The issue is instability—the constant peaks and crashes that keep your system in reactive mode instead of productive mode.
Your body is giving you data
Some signals are obvious: irritability, brain fog, the afternoon slump, persistent tension.
Others are measurable: poor sleep, elevated resting heart rate, low heart rate variability.
These are not inconveniences.
They are information.
Leaders who perform sustainably are not the ones who override these signals.
They are the ones who learn to notice, interpret, and respond to them.
Ask a different question
If you’re running on empty despite “doing everything right,” a different question is needed.
Not: How do I push through?
But: What is my system still defending against—and what does it need to feel safe enough to produce energy again?
Fatigue is not the enemy.
It is information.
Not superficial data, but deep data: the intelligence stored in your body, your intuition, your unconscious processing.
Often, your body knows before your mind catches up.
Your neurobiological dashboard
Take an honest look at your neurobiological dashboard. Ask yourself and reflect:
- Is it sleep deprivation?
- Chronic time pressure?
- Blood sugar instability?
- A work rhythm without recovery?
- Or a deeply ingrained response pattern?
- What ?
You don’t need to fix everything at once.
But the willingness to respond to what you notice—that is where recovery begins.
KPIs measure what you’ve done.
Biological signals predict what you’re still capable of.
Leaders who take both seriously are the ones who remain sustainably effective.
What is your body telling you?
What has your body been trying to tell you for a while—that you haven’t fully listened to yet?
The most persistent, energy-draining patterns often originate in relationships.
And it’s often within relationships that can shift this again to patterns that do not drain energy
That’s the work I do in supervision.
Would you like to explore or measure your “deep data”—for yourself or your team?
Welcome and schedule a session.
Sonja Vlaar — neuroplastician, executive coach, coach supervisor, originally educated as a nutritionist-researcher
Also personally familiar with Long Covid.
www.attune.nl
#LongCovid #deepdata #fatigue #neurobiology #bloodsugar
