Even though I get enough sleep, does anyone know why I feel "tired" all the time?
Question:
Answers:
hmm.. are you eating before you go to bed? that might cause you to feel tired, though i don't know why.
it used to happen to me, but i stopped eating before i went to sleep.
so .yea.
Other Answers:
Maybe you get too much sleep.
Sleep apnea (sp?) is a possiblity. matress problem
too much sleep.can make the body even more tired
maybe your tired
you're lazy could be low iodine which affect your thyroid gland. many people have this and doctors do not look for it much. are your heels dry and cracked? this is a clue too.
Try some Vitamin Water it's great!
No enough exercise, B vitamins and water. I know that's why I'm tired all the time, but do i ever fix it? No.
Drugs maybe, over sleep? Either not enough or too much. Also you might be wearing your body out throughout the day. Could be too much caffeine. Can't really say because I don't know your sleeping, eating, work habits. If it persists and becomes a worse problem maybe talk to your doctor. I was tired ALL the time, I started consuming more caffeine during the day, and now I go to bed at a normal hour, little groggy in the morning but nothing a cup of coffee doesn't cure.
do u like what u do, do u live the life that u would love too, u have a question but u r the answer too.
sometimes stress can be the cause of that. its the body's natural reaction to a hard situation
Stress, diet, depression, different illnesses, the list could go on and on. If you are constantly feeling sluggish and worn out, and never have periods of energy, I would go see your doctor or holistic practitioner. my brother was always tired even tho he got A TON of sleep and then he went to the doector and found out he had lyme disease.i would ask your doctor
Pooped, shattered, knackered, buggered. Being fatigued is an everyday experience that for most of us is the trigger to put on your PJs and get a good night's sleep. But what about when you just can't seem to get going in the morning? When you run out of puff half way through the day? When you're zonked all the time?
Tiredness seems to be on the rise. No official data exists on the rate of people reporting to their doctors with persistent and unexplained lethargy. But Sydney GP Alf Liebhold says: 'It is a very common presentation. Very common.'
Invigoration products are also on the increase. Sales of 'energy' drinks - caffeine and sugar-loaded soft drinks - have grown by 23 per cent over the last year. Vitamin manufacturer Blackmores sells $22 million worth of energising supplements annually. And guarana, a herbal stimulant, exploded onto the Australian market around four years ago and can now be found in everything from chocolate bars to tea bags. Clearly Australians feel as though they need an extra boost to get them through the day.
So what is it that is making us so tired? Liebhold's theory is that the rat race is sapping our vim. 'I think that much more is expected from some people than used to be,' he says. 'There's an epidemic of people who are financially on a treadmill. I see people who haven't had a holiday in three years. I see people who don't want to take time off when they've got the 'flu. They're afraid of losing their jobs.'
He says the constant pressure means we are not relaxing properly and are always running on half-charged batteries: 'The sort of thing that people used to do in order to regain their energy - which was have a bit of fun, have a holiday - they're even too tired to do that!'
top
A question of sleep
If you're feeling fatigued, it's important to establish the most basic of issues: Are you getting enough sleep? While everyone is able to function on less sleep than they prefer, if you are consistently under-sleeping, ongoing tiredness will be the result.
Dr Darren Mansfield at Melbourne's Epworth Sleep Centre specialises in sleep disorders. He says insomnia often arises when people are going through a stressful life period, or are suffering from depression or anxiety. Even when these triggers have been resolved, the insomnia can linger, having become ingrained in the individual's sleep routine.
'People almost forget how to go about getting off to sleep,' Mansfield says. They need to be re-educated. He teaches relaxation techniques before bedtime and says that if you find yourself wide awake at 3 am, you should forget about trying to continue sleeping. Instead, get up, read a 'trashy novel' - entertaining, but not over-stimulating - until you become naturally tired again. Only then should you return to bed. Having a strategy like this helps dissipate the frustration, he says.
He also recommends keeping your body clock regular by going to bed and rising at similar times every day, and 'not guzzling too much caffeine.
'People find themselves in a vicious cycle where caffeine contributes to a sleep disturbance, but because of the sleep disturbance, they feel tired and want more caffeine,' he warns.
A bit of vigorous exercise earlier in the evening and a warm shower before bed also help send you to the land of nod. The slight fall in body temperature that follows these 'warming' activities can trick the body into feeling sleepier. And don't discard the old wives' tale of a glass of hot milk before bed. Milk contains the amino acid, tryptophan which has been shown to help induce sleepiness.
Why do we sleep?
'The simple answer is no one really knows,' says sleep expert Darren Mansfield, 'although it certainly seems to have a restorative function.' He says the easiest way to understand why we sleep is to look at what happens when we don't. Sleep deprivation experiments have shown that after 14 days without sleep, rats will keel over and die. Three days of no shut-eye sees humans get confused, forgetful and start having hallucinations. Whatever sleep does, it seems to be important. Says Mansfield: 'All animals sleep. Their survival strategies have been adapted around that requirement for sleep, rather than sleep being in some way adaptive for survival. My view is that there is some molecular prerequisite for sleep.'
top
Medical solutions
Sometimes, tiredness is the result of a treatable medical problem like sleep apnoea, which can be definitively diagnosed only through overnight monitoring in a sleep lab. In sleep apnoea sufferers, the muscles holding open the airways become too relaxed and collapse. The person wakes, their muscles re-tension, and they can continue breathing normally. The trouble is, the brief but frequent awakenings prevent them from reaching the deep, restful phase of sleep. And often, the person falls asleep again so quickly, they have no memory of the event and therefore, no idea why they feel so exhausted in the morning.
Nonetheless, if you are slumbering a deep, relaxing, uninterrupted sleep each night, and still feel like a zombie during the day, then the cause of your tiredness may be something else altogether.
Some of the suggested causes are (take a deep breath here because it's a long list): stress, low oxygen levels in offices, poor diet, thyroid gland problems, infection, parasites, hormonal changes, allergies, poor spinal adjustment, anaemia, boredom, weight problems, depression, anxiety, heart valve problems, lupis, and environmental toxins.
However, it is most likely that the cause is not one of these but a combination of two or more. The problem is that tiredness is a symptom of just about every kind of illness. Even the common cold makes sufferers feel lethargic. When it is such a non-specific problem, it makes tracking down the culprit all the more difficult.
top
Enduring fatigue
If ongoing or persistent tiredness is present, a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome might be considered. This poorly-understood illness affects up to one in 100 people who are struck down with a lethargy that just doesn't seem to go away. It often follows an infectious illness such as glandular fever and is accompanied by other symptoms like muscle and joint pain, concentration and memory difficulties and general irritability. Worst of all, even the experts are not sure what causes it.
'We know a fair bit about what chronic fatigue is not and not too much about what it is,' says University of NSW expert Professor Andrew Lloyd. By a process of elimination, researchers have tracked the site of the problem to the brain and Lloyd believes it is a problem with the proper functioning of the brain, rather than any structural abnormality.
The news is not all bad, however, with most chronic fatigue sufferers making a full and spontaneous recovery within six months of being diagnosed. For those that do not get better by themselves, a range of management techniques and support groups ease the burden of the disease.
top
Dietary issues
Dr Liebhold says when he sees someone complaining of tiredness he looks for the obvious causes first. 'There are certain things that are much more likely. Just say a person is menopausal and is having heavy irregular periods, and is a vegetarian, it's much more likely they are suffering from a simple nutritional anaemia [inadequate dietary intake of iron]. So you hone in on that.'
For many people however, a practitioner of alternative medicine, rather than a GP, will be the first port of call when persistent fatigue strikes. Poor posture, old injuries to the joints and muscles, and emotional issues are all possible explanations to be explored, says Sydney-based naturopath Leonie McMahon, who also has training in chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, psychological counselling and acupuncture. Acupuncture is useful for diagnosing and treating 'energy blockages', McMahon says. She also believes inadequate breakfast is a common cause of tiredness and for an energy boost, she may recommend increasing the consumption of protein at breakfast.
Trent Watson, spokesman for the Dietitians Association of Australia, is dubious about the latter point, however. 'The body doesn't really like to burn protein as a fuel so it doesn't really contribute to energy levels as such.'
The fuel the body does like is carbohydrates - found in fruit, breads and pastas. This means the current craze for low-carbohydrate diets can cause energy levels to drop. 'Anyone following a rigidly high-protein diet with low carbohydrates, even if they are operating at low intensity during the day, could subject themselves to fatigue because they just don't have the carbohydrate stores,' Watson says.
In general, a good way to stay energised from a dietary point of view is to eat red meat, green leafy vegetables and whole grains. These foods give red blood cells the building blocks for optimum performance in their role of delivering oxygen to muscles.
Dehydration is another factor: 'If you become dehydrated, you reduce your blood volume so your heart's got to work harder to pump the same volume around.' Similarly, Watson says, being overweight puts a lot of strain on your heart. And as a nation, we are the fattest we have ever been.
Tiredness can be an immensely frustrating condition, not least because the very generalised nature of it makes the cause difficult to pin-point. Nonetheless, some solution - be it lifestyle, psychological, or physical - can usually be found. And if all else fails, it's a really good excuse for a holiday.
More Questions and Answers
- Does what a guy eats effect the condition of the his sperm?
- Is it normal to have bumps on your penis?
- Sensitive skin shaving help..?
- Is having Warts a problem for the selection into the armed forces?
- Had a bump or some sort of thing on my inner thigh?
- has ne 1 experienced ear drainage with odor? If so do you know ne remedeies and the cause?
- What actually CAUSES a wet dream?
- I have acne which is quite bad and I've tried everything to get rid of it but nothing helps, any suggestions?