Why Am I So Tired?

Posted on June 26, 2014

"Tired" is a slippery word. There's physically tired: heavy limbs, moving through metaphorical mud, or drowsy eyes. But there's also emotionally tired: lack of motivation, feeling unable to deal, and the most common: "I just don't feel like it."

To round out the possibilities, we'll look at fatigue from psychological sources. We'll use 3 perspectives: diagnosable disorders, exhausting situations that may be sapping your energy, and tiring states of mind.

Tiredness Culprit #1: Depression

Depression results in both physical and emotional fatigue - you not only have no energy, you also have no motivation. Either way, it feels like both mind and body are slogging through knee-deep sludge. Everything is an effort, perhaps even getting out of bed or taking a shower.

Depression is particularly tricky, because sleep, even lots of it, doesn't relieve the fatigue. On the flip side, depression can also mean sleeping too little - trouble falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, or waking hours before the alarm goes off, with only crickets and the occasional siren for company. Either way, feeling tired - often a hopeless, meaningless exhaustion - is the result.

Tiredness Culprit #2: Anxiety

Worry is exhausting! Vigilance is strenuous. All that tension is draining. Even the classic leaking of anxiety from the body - the jumpy leg - is tiring. Worrying about things all the time - a constant, draining buzz of worry that gets in the way of living your life - is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Key symptoms are being easily fatigued, tense muscles, feeling on edge, and disturbed sleep: in short, a recipe for exhaustion.

Anxiety is nature's way of telling you something might not be safe, but it is often wrong. The cure for anxiety, counterintuitively, is to do the very thing you're afraid of.

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Category(s):Anxiety, Caregiver Issues / Stress, Depression, Workplace Issues

Source material from Quick and Dirty Tips