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Feeling tired and exhausted all the time can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. Not knowing the cause of the fatigue can create an extra layer of concern. This is when we might turn to Google and ask questions like ‘Why do I feel so tired?’ or ‘Why am I feeling so tired all the time?’
I’ve personally struggled with tiredness and fatigue for most of my life. It’s gotten better through the last couple of years, since I’ve developed an understanding of why I feel so tired as well as taken steps to overcome it.
One of the things I’ve been working on is curing my chronic insomnia, which you can read more about right here if you’re interested.
Working as a therapist and having struggled with tiredness and fatigue myself, I understand how chronic tiredness can feel truly debilitating. Chronic tiredness can have a negative impact on both our physical, mental, social, and financial life. This makes it really important to find the root cause of any prolonged fatigue we may be experiencing.
If you’ve struggled with feeling tired and exhausted for a long time, you may have already consulted your doctor about it. If you haven’t, I strongly advice you to do so since tiredness can be due to several physiological reasons (such as vitamin deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, as well as more serious conditions).
However, tiredness can be caused by a number of psychological reasons as well. So if you’ve been to your doctor and all your tests are good, there’s a chance that the tiredness you’re experiencing has a psychological explanation.
This post is all about possible psychological explanations for feeling chronically tired. So, if you’ve Googled something like, ‘Why do I feel so tired’ or ‘Why am I feeling so tired all the time’, this post will hopefully help you to gain some clarity.
I’ve included a free worksheet at the bottom of this post to help you raise your energy levels, so make sure to download it once you’re finished reading! Anyway, let’s get into it:
Why Do I Feel so Tired? 10 Psychological Reasons
Below, I’ll walk you through some of the most common psychological reasons that can cause us to feel tired all the time. Our minds and bodies are intrinsically connected, which means that if one suffers the other will usually follow suit. This is why psychological conditions can cause a number of physical symptoms, including extreme tiredness.
Once again, if you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to first consult your doctor to rule out physiological explanations for feeling tired. That being said, common, more psychological explanations for feeling tired all the time include:
1. Bad sleep hygiene
“Sleep hygiene” basically refers to the habits we have around our sleep. Good sleep hygiene includes going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, having a calming routine (with no screens!) to wind down before bed, and establishing optimal conditions for sleeping at night.
Bad sleep hygiene, such as not having a set sleeping schedule or engaging in stimulating activities before bed, can interfere with our sleep, and in turn cause us to feel tired throughout the day.
Many of the things I’ve been during to fix my chronic insomnia have been about establishing good sleep hygiene. – Establishing good sleep hygiene is also the primary focus in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which studies show is just as effective in treating sleeplessness as sleep medications are.
2. Insomnia
Another common reason behind chronic tiredness is insomnia. “Insomnia” describes difficulty falling asleep and/or difficulty staying asleep.
It’s pretty self-explanatory, but not getting enough quality sleep throughout the night can leave us feeling exhausted throughout the day.
If you struggle with insomnia, I highly recommend “The Insomnia Workbook” by Stephanie Silberman. Reading this book and implementing its’ principles is honestly the only thing that’s helped my insomnia, and believe me, I’ve tried all kinds of things.
3. Stress and anxiety
Stress and anxiety really take their toll on our minds and bodies. With stress and anxiety, our sympathetic nervous system (= our ‘fight-or-flight’ response) takes over. This is great if we’re in a highly stressful situation that needs to be dealt with here and now. But prolonged stress and anxiety results in excess stress hormones in our bodies, and in an overall dysregulated nervous system. Prolonged stress and anxiety can also cause inflammation in our bodies.
All of this, in turn, can cause all kinds of symptoms, including tiredness and fatigue. Therefore, stress and anxiety are also probably the most common psychological explanation when we ask, ‘Why do I feel so tired?’
If you want to know more about how stress and anxiety can affect us, I have a whole post dedicated to explaining strange anxiety symptoms, where most of them are due to a dysregulated nervous system.
4. Depression
Depression is another possible psychological explanation behind tiredness and fatigue. Fatigue and exhaustion are some of the key symptoms of depression along with low self-esteem and feelings of guilt and emptiness.
Depression can interfere with our sleep, have a massive effect on our lifestyle, as well as cause stress in our bodies. Studies show that more than 90% of people suffering from depression report experiencing fatigue.
If you’re experiencing any psychological symptoms of stress, anxiety, or depression, it’s really important to consult your doctor or a mental health professional. There are effective treatments for all of these conditions, so please don’t hesitate to seek help.
5. Why do I feel so tired? – Burnout
Burnout is a condition caused by high levels of prolonged stress. It’s not an official medical diagnosis like anxiety is, but it has similar effects in terms of how it affects our minds and bodies.
With burnout, symptoms are often quite severe. Symptoms can be dramatic and include extreme and prolonged fatigue.
6. ADHD (including “quiet”/inattentive ADHD)
In Denmark right now, there’s a lot of focus on adults receiving a late ADHD diagnosis. In contrast to popular belief, ADHD isn’t always discovered in childhood and it can have a huge impact on how we function as adults.
ADHD comes in three forms: Inattentive ADHD (/ADD), hyperactive-impulsive ADHD, and combined ADHD.
With inattentive ADHD or ADD, symptoms are usually centered around difficulty concentrating, being easily distracted, forgetfulness, and a tendency to procrastinate.
With hyperactive-impulsive ADHD, symptoms are centered around difficulty sitting still, fidgeting, being impulsive, and seeming to be driven by “an inner motor”.
And finally, with combined ADHD, symptoms from both of the above-mentioned forms of ADHD are present.
Regardless of the type of ADHD, our brains are working at a much higher pace if we have ADHD than if we’re “neurotypical”. With ADHD, our brains are also taking in more stimuli than if we’re neurotypical. Working at a higher pace combined with processing more stimuli than neurotypicals are some of the reasons why people with ADHD can tire out faster and feel fatigued in their everyday lives.
7. Lifestyle habits
You probably know this already. But seriously. Our lifestyle habits have a huge impact on our energy levels. Even the tiniest day-to-day habit can have major explanatory power in answering our questions of ‘Why do I feel so tired?’ or ‘Why am I feeling so tired all the time?’
I already talked about sleep hygiene, which is all about our sleep habits. But habits regarding how much we move our bodies throughout the day, what we fuel our bodies with, what time during the day we consume caffeine and alcohol etc. are important as well. These habits affect our brains and bodies much more than we may be aware of on a daily basis.
Another factor regarding lifestyle habits is how we rest. We may think we give our minds and bodies the rest they need, when what we’re really doing is scrolling on our phones. If you want to rest and relax effectively, make sure to be intentional about it. Put on some comfortable clothes, make your favorite drink, and actively choose how you’ll be resting.
8. Excessive worrying and mental overload
Excessive worrying and mental overload can make us feel tired as well. This is mostly because excessive worrying and mental overload can make it hard for us to relax. But it can also put our nervous system into overdrive, thereby causing some of the effects mentioned under “Stress and anxiety”.
If you find yourself worrying a lot, I highly recommend you read my recent post on beginner-friendly exercises in mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice that helps us to connect with the present moment and quiet our minds and it’s been shown to be really helpful in decreasing symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression.
9. Trauma and attachment trauma
Having experienced trauma during our lives can affect our energy levels as well. Trauma affects our nervous systems and our levels of “basic trust”, which is a psychological term referring to our sense of feeling safe with others and in the world.
When we lack basic trust, we don’t feel safe in the world, and we might be suspicious of other people. This, in turn, can make us more susceptible to overthinking, stress, anxiety, and depression and, as mentioned, it can take a toll on our nervous systems.
Trauma can be a result of experiencing either multiple or a single traumatic event (such as being involved in an accident or being the victim of assault). But trauma can also take form of “attachment trauma”. This happens when our caregivers weren’t capable of providing us with adequate care and affection.
10. Chronic fatigue
The final psychological explanation I’ve included to answer ‘Why do I feel so tired?‘, is chronic fatigue syndrome. The key symptom in chronic fatigue syndrome is extreme fatigue that doesn’t go away with sleep and rest.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is not necessarily a psychological condition, but it is believed that psychological factors such as stress could play a role in the development of chronic fatigue syndrome.
You can read more about chronic fatigue syndrome right here.
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I hope this post helps you to answer the question of ‘why do I feel so tired?’. I asked that same question for years, so I know how important it is to find clarity, since clarity can help us take action and provide the foundation for changing our situation.
I personally still have some work to do to combat my own low energy levels completely. But I’ve come a long way through therapy, lifestyle changes, and learning the psychology of tiredness as well as about the mind-body connection.
To help you get started on your own journey to combat tiredness and fatigue, I’ve created a free worksheet that you can download below. All you need to do before downloading is to either 1) Like my new Facebook page by clicking right here, 2) Follow me on Pinterest by clicking here, or 3) Leave a comment on this post down below.
You can then download your free worksheet right here!
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