About feeling tired all the time

Sometimes we feel like we have no energy whatsoever. Like doing anything takes an infinite amount of effort and we have pretty much none left to give.

And so we ask ourselves what's the point. What's the point of doing anything if I'm exhausted. And tired. And ill. And lethargic. Why push myself to do something if I don't feel like it, and if I can't see the point in doing it anyway.

Because in those moments nothing really does seem worth it right? Every reason why quickly becomes irrelevant and you'd rather just not do anything at all.

And then there's the pressure, from friends, from family, from everyone for you to be a certain kind of person, by a certain age, that you've already hit, which adds to the ever growing feeling of tiredness and exhaustion which all equates to 'I cannot be bothered'.

These feelings are very real, and they are very valid. And the reason we have an issue with them, is because we think they're an issue in the first place, when really, they're very valid signals from your body, that something is not working.

We equate feelings of tiredness and lethargy with the idea that 'I am not working well', which translates to your brain as 'I am not functioning well', which results in more coffees, more sleeping pills, more snacks, more whatever, whilst never actually getting to the bottom of the issue.

But in reality, you do work. And you are functioning. And you are functioning well. You've just been taught to ignore your signals which has led to a kind of confusion.

So you ask, if I listen to my signals which are saying I don't want to do anything, and do nothing, then I'll lose my job, won't be able to pay bills, and get fat from all of the snacks I want to eat, so how can that make any sense?

That's a valid response, but it's only part of the picture.

Our signals speak to us in feelings, and we interpret the messages. But because we've spent so long ignoring them, we've become pretty bad interpreters. So more often than not, we're wrong. Or rather, we haven't got the full picture of what they're trying to say.

We assume tiredness means that we want to sleep for the next week. That hunger means we want to buy a whole shop. That feeling exhausted means that we want to stay in bed for the next century. But these aren't really the case, these are just dramatic assumptions.

And because they are so dramatic, we decide to avoid them. To shut them up. And continue as we will. Popping coffee shots and energy bars. Up until we get sick. Or something else.

Instead, what we should do, is listen. Listen, proceed as we were, and drop our expectations.

If you're feeling exhausted, let yourself be tired. Let yourself have breaks. Let yourself do work a bit worse than usual, and plan to have a break or more sleep. Listen to what parts of work make you more tired, because more often than not, that part that is making you feel exhausted is actually a part that you're sick and tired of. In other words, it's time to switch it up and try something new.

We don't have to keep doing things as we initially planned, because we didn't have the full picture to begin with. And as our signals start chiming in along the way, they're trying to give us hints as to how we need to proceed.

Our feelings can help us focus our energy in better ways, work smarter instead of harder and get the perfect amount of rest that will help us get the job done, but we can only follow them if we understand what they're trying to say.

And the way to get better at anything, is through practice.

So lets practice.

Let's practice listening to our signals. Understanding why we feel tired and low on energy, and why we'd rather do other things than the tasks we've set.

In time, we'll get good at it, and we can finally start living lives that we want, with a whole lot more energy.