Always tired? A different way to think about and combat constant exhaustion

Are you always tired? Does the thought of simple tasks like carrying groceries, booking an appointment or returning an important email overwhelm you? If this sounds familiar, it might be time to explore a new way to think about exhaustion, what this is telling us and how to resolve it in your daily life. This article aims to provide a different approach to understanding and tackling everyday tiredness by determining the type, cause, and purpose of exhaustion in daily life. Recognising exhaustion as information makes it helpful and able to be used for good.

What does tired feel like?

Being constantly tired is a significant drain on daily life. But to many people, tiredness and exhaustion are simply associated with feeling drowsy. Tiredness is more than just this physical sensation; it affects many different aspects of your body and mind, can change how you act and can significantly impair your ability to function. The symptoms of feeling tired, across various types and causes, can include:

• Fatigue – feeling physically and mentally run down, lack of energy
• Cognitive impairment – brain fog, forgetfulness, poor memory, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, vision issues, dizziness
• Pain and discomfort – body aches, headaches, muscular pain, sore joints
• Emotional responses – mood swings, irritability, anger, sadness, feeling tearful, anxious or stressed
• Sleepiness – trouble staying awake or alert
• Impaired function – clumsiness, slow reflexes, poor coordination
• Poor motivation – apathy, lack of interest in work, hobbies and social activities
• Body function disturbances– digestion issues, changes to appetite, heart palpitations

If you are experiencing a number of these symptoms regularly, it may be worth asking yourself if there is something in your life contributing to these symptoms which you can address.

Many of these symptoms are also present with mental health conditions such as anxiety, depressive disorders and other diagnoses. The information presented below is intended as assistance for managing underlying causes of exhaustion, NOT as a replacement for other treatments of these conditions. Always consult your medical health care professional for guidance if you have or think you may have a condition like this.

What is tired telling you? Reframing your understanding of exhaustion

Exhaustion is often seen simply as a symptom of failing to get enough sleep. Although this is sometimes true, it is rarely the whole story. Feeling tired all of the time can indicate something else entirely.

It is time to reframe our understanding of tiredness and recognise it for what it is: an indication of an unfulfilled need. Tiredness and exhaustion are biological signals, the body’s way of telling us something needs attention. It suggests that something isn’t right or that we are approaching our limits, which is beneficial information. Once we have this information in hand, we know to look for what is wrong and find a way to rectify it.

Types and causes of exhaustion

Physical exhaustion

The human body is a complex machine capable of amazing things. If we treat our bodies well, it can lead to peak performance. Otherwise, sluggishness and underwhelming results will occur if we neglect or mistreat them. Think of this like a car – you use appropriate fuel, service it often, and use high-quality oils and paints. This ethos should be the same for your body. The choice of what you put in it and how you look after it will determine the output it is capable of.

Various lifestyle factors can cause physical tiredness. The most common triggers for physical exhaustion include lack of regular exercise, poor sleeping habits, poor diet leading to lack of nutrients, substance use, or not drinking enough water.

Emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is caused by facing situations or events that have an emotional cost or that cause emotional stress. Common causes of emotional exhaustion include:

• Dealing with conflict in relationships, 
• Bereavement and grief,
• Bearing responsibility for others’ safety or wellbeing (such as being a caretaker),
• Work overload,
• Burnout from high-pressure jobs, and
• Financial difficulties

Mental exhaustion

Mental exhaustion occurs when your brain has been overworked. This is usually caused by a combination of factors, including long-term stress, anxiety, mental health disorders, extended work or study hours or having to make many decisions. All of these things, and many others besides, require mental energy to be expended. When you use all of your mental energy, you experience mental exhaustion. This effect can be cumulative and is a significant factor in burnout for most people.

Social exhaustion

Social exhaustion occurs when you have been socialising so much that you feel you can’t do it anymore. Everyone has a different tolerance for socialising, often correlated with introversion or extroversion.

So which is it?

If you are feeling tired all the time and experiencing symptoms of exhaustion, it likely has more than one cause. To determine which of the types you are experiencing, here are some things you can try:

Keeping a journal

When you feel exhausted, record what you did and what you are about to do next in your day. Look for patterns over time. If things like work meetings pop up all the time, it may be more mental and socially based. If you see conversations with loved ones, lean towards emotional exhaustion as the primary cause. If there aren’t any patterns over a significant period, at least a month, perhaps you should investigate all four further.

Performing a life audit

Take an hour to dig into what is happening in your life and how you feel about it. Consider your close relationships, work life, financial state, and inner life, such as self-talk and self-esteem. Determine how satisfied you are with each aspect of your life. You can do this in a mind map, a list, or any other form that works for you. Rate each area out of 10 based on your satisfaction. Think more deeply about the category with the lowest satisfaction rating. Why has it received this low of a score? What is it about this aspect which leaves you dissatisfied? The results of this train of thought may lead you in the direction of the type of exhausted you are.

Strategies to combat exhaustion

Once you have figured out which types of exhaustion affect you, you can begin to plan how to best combat it. Where you have identified different types, take strategies from both categories.

Resolving physical exhaustion

Trying to combat physical exhaustion with stimulants such as caffeine can be tempting. While this may work for some people, it is a short-term solution only and acts as a band-aid for the problem, which likely goes much deeper. Consider taking a different approach: resolving physical exhaustion by understanding and addressing its root causes.

Consider each of the following aspects of your physical self-care:

• Sleep duration and quality – Are you getting quality rest? Being in bed, or even asleep, for a certain number of hours isn’t enough.
• Diet and nutrition – Are you giving your body everything it needs to function well?
• Exercise and body composition – Do you move enough? Do you have adequate muscle mass for good bodily function?
• Substance use – Could you reduce alcohol, tobacco or other substance use for a healthier body?
• Hydration – Are you drinking enough water to allow your body to function and repair itself?

Evaluate each of these in turn. If you find an aspect of your physical care wanting, develop a plan to change your habits.

Often other types of tiredness manifest as physical tiredness. In this case, improving your physical care may not improve your fatigue since it is not the root cause. Once you are sure your physical care is good enough, look to other types of exhaustion for an answer.

Resolving emotional and mental exhaustion

How you can relieve emotional or mental exhaustion will depend on its root cause in your own life. As the reasons can be so different, the remedies are different, also. However, here are some guidelines to follow:

• Where possible, eliminate or reduce the stressor – If one particular thing weighs on you, try removing that cause or lessening your exposure to it. This is not always possible, of course. If you cannot remove it, move through the next few steps to reduce its effect on you.
• Practice mindfulness and gratitude – Reframe how you think about your life and train your brain to see the good things. Mindfulness activities and gratitude practice have been shown to improve mood, mental and emotional wellbeing and positivity when practised regularly.
• Share the load – Choose a trusted confidant and tell them what is happening and how you feel. Opening up like this can make you feel far more supported and less alone in your struggles, and they may also have some good advice for reducing the pressures you are experiencing. If someone can help shoulder the burden, such as a colleague who can help you with a project or a life partner or family member who can assist at home, this can also reduce the pressure you feel.
• Take a break – Sometimes, to manage exhaustion, you must just take a step away. Where you can, put a plan in place which will allow you to take a step back from your responsibilities and disconnect from the source of your stress. Go for a weekend trip away, and don’t take your work laptop. Turn off your phone, and spend an afternoon reading a novel with a hot drink; no interruptions allowed. Whatever this looks like for you, factor in breaks from your stressors when you can.
• Stay connected to your core values – Recall the core principles you want to live by, be this honesty, reliability, friendship, altruism, kindness or any others that resonate with you. Ask yourself if what you are currently doing lives up to those ideals. If not, consider how you can adjust to align your life more closely with these values.

Managing emotional and mental exhaustion, especially when you cannot remove the root cause from your life, is about building resilience and coping strategies. Everyone will come across sources of these stressors they cannot avoid, but we can all work to manage our responses.

Resolving social exhaustion

Here are some strategies to use when you are feeling socially exhausted:

• Schedule some time alone – This is the most apparent strategy; if you’ve had enough of being around people, spend some time away from them. Make this quality time where you can enjoy a hobby or activity you love, like reading, singing along to some music, listening to a podcast, driving somewhere, visiting a park, going for a walk or any other solo activity.
• Set boundaries – Learn how to say no. This can be easier said than done. If you don’t want to attend an event, you don’t have to! If you want to or feel like you need to go, you can leave early when your social energy is spent. Learning to look after yourself this way may feel selfish at first, but it is essential to put yourself first when possible.
• Ensure your self-care is up to scratch – Looking after yourself in other ways builds up your tolerance and resilience to tackle more daily events and special occasions.
• Speak to someone – This strategy is counterintuitive but can be very helpful. Choose a friend or speak with a therapist about your feelings. Being honest about what you feel and talking it through can be cathartic and help you identify or clarify why you are feeling this way.
• Try journaling – Like when you speak to someone, journaling can crystallise how you feel and make the way forward more evident. If you are new to journaling, this article may help you get started “How to start journaling and the many benefits you can expect”.
• Practice mindfulness and gratitude – These practices can also help you refill your social energy, alongside their many other benefits.

Developing your plan

Some key things to remember when developing a plan to tackle tiredness and exhaustion:

1. Make sure your planned changes are reasonable and achievable
2. Make changes incrementally
3. Form new habits rather than making massive changes at once
4. If your plan isn’t working, reassess the causes and try other techniques

Reducing tiredness and exhaustion from deep-seated causes will not happen overnight, but it can happen. If what you are doing isn’t working, try something new. Continue to think, develop plans and implement them until you feel better. If you need further guidance on doing so, or if your attempts through this process have not helped, consider speaking to a therapist, mental health or medical professional about other strategies.

Conclusion

Constant tiredness and exhaustion, in most cases, are not just a lack of sleep. There are so many potential layers to exhaustion; understanding them is to be better prepared to tackle them and feel better sooner. Treat the cause rather than the symptom, and you are more likely to succeed.