"Why Am I Always Tired?" - Free Resource For Ending Tiredness

Personally, I’m a huge fan of technology.  I listen to my iPod every single day when I run.  I run a website and therefore spend quite a fair amount of time in front of my computer screen editing and posting new articles each day.  However, there are several ways in which using technology can contribute to constant fatigue and tiredness.  Now I’m not telling you not to use technology, but if you’re looking to get more energy into your life and avoid tiredness, these are some good tips to live by.
 

Tip #1)  Power down early (just a bit!).  This first tip pertains to using screens, like your computer, TV, or ebook reader, late in the evening.  You may or may not know this, but the level of darkness in a room actually contribute to how easy or hard it is to fall asleep on a chemical level.  When the light around us begins to fade into evening, our brain releases melatonin, a chemical that makes us drowsy and signals that its time to lay down. 
 

However, staring at bright screens of artificial light can throw the brain off and it will have trouble knowing when to secret the melatonin.  When you turn off the lights, you’ll find that there isn’t much of the chemical circulating yet and your mind will likely still be racing with thoughts.  Many people have trouble falling asleep after evening screen time.
 

Tip #2)  Face that alarm clock the other way!   I thought that this one was a bit odd when I started it, but it actually makes a lot of sense now.  When you get ready to go to bed, set your alarm and then face your clock the other direction.  Not only does the alarm clock emit light, but it can induce anxiety laying awake and watching the minutes tick away.  It can be much more calming to let yourself slip off to sleep naturally than to worry about the timing.  Just try this one, trust me.
 

Tip #3)  De-stress, people!  Stress is a major factor in most peoples’ tiredness level.  While technology IS a vehicle of convenience, it can be exasperating obsessing over when an email is coming, or checking a bank account, or trying to fit in enough time for reading every article, website, and blog that you want to.  Try choosing just a few of your most important online tasks each day, and tune the others out to give you less to worry about.

 

If you want to take steps towards eliminating tiredness from your life and getting more energy then don’t forget to grab my free ecourse before you take off.  It’s got a ton of great information and compliments the End Tiredness Program (you can find my full review of it HERE) very well.

            People, it’s time to quell the outbreaks of bad advice I’m hearing on a day to day basis.  I answer tiredness related questions on Yahoo Answers (trust me, the “why am I tired?” question gets asked all the time), I read popular health blogs, and I even run my own website… and I’ve got to say I’m a little disappointed with the people spreading misinformation to those desperately in need of tiredness help throughout the internet.  A lot of times they don’t even mean to do it, they’re just passing on what they heard (which, unfortunately, was wrong in the first place!). 


It stops here.


I’m going to bust open the truth right here and now, by the most common myth spread about the internet in regards to tiredness.  Ready to learn?  Let’s go! : )
 

The Myth: “You need to get more sleep!”
 

            Now in all honesty, this one DOES make intuitive sense.  One would think that sleeping more would be the obvious solution to tiredness.  However, usually sleeping 8 hours in a night won’t leave you feeling much better than sleeping 6.  By the same token, a lazy person who sits at home and sleeps the majority of the day should be all charged up for anything right?  Nope, lethargic people have the least energy of anyone around, and they get much more sleep.  Why?  It’s all in the sleep cycles.
 

            Sleeping cycles are the 90 minute chunks in which our body groups the 5 stages of sleep.  Every 1.5 hours, we progress through all 5 of these stages, and allow ourselves to recharge/regenerate.  However, many of the recommended sleep amounts don’t correspond with our sleep cycles at all!
 

            Sleeping 8 or even 10 hours is a mistake because these numbers are not divisible by 1.5.  This means that sleeping these amounts you will wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle.  Your body will then purposely make you feel drowsy as the day progress in an attempt to get you to lay down and complete that cycle.
 

            Another reason those who oversleep will feel tired is because they have built their body into the habit of sedentary life.  In other words, your body budgets for energy based on your needs; if you never exert yourself or maintain an active lifestyle, your body doesn’t think it needs to budget much energy for you and you’ll end up feeling tired all the time.


             If you want to take steps towards eliminating tiredness from your life and getting more energy then don’t forget to grab my free ecourse before you take off.  It’s got a ton of great information and compliments the End Tiredness Program (you can find my full review of it HERE) very well.

Ok so you finally got to bed early one evening.  Better yet, you actually got to sleep in too!  You’re anticipating a nice, restful night and to build some energy for tomorrow.  And yet, you wake up tired?  In fact, getting out of bed is just as hard as usual and by the mid afternoon your body is begging you to lay down and catch some shut-eye.

 
Why does this happen?  If you haven’t experienced or realized this anomaly, you probably know someone who has.  To tell you the truth, this whole aspect of the human sleep cycle is a pain in the butt… but I’m here to tell you that I can shed a little light on why this occurs and (better yet!) what you can do about it.  So let’s learn about waking up tired and why it happens.

 
Sleep cycles:  Learn ‘em, live ‘em, love ‘em.  You may or may not know this already, but our sleep is made up of 5 distinct stages.  Ranging from barely dozing off to R.E.M. (rapid eye movement) sleep, the one in which most bodily reparations and energy building occurs, these 5 cycles are ALL necessary in recharging your body.

 
Now, when humans beings were evolving (or were created, if you prefer), the world was a much more treacherous place.  It would be difficult for say, a cavemen, to lie down and be undisturbed for 9 hours at a time, with all of the wild animals and flimsy shelters that characterized early human development.  Instead, our bodies evolved to cram these 5 sleep stages in 90 minute cycles.  These cycles allow us to rebuild energy in smaller chunks.  Think about it, we wouldn’t last very long if you couldn’t get rest unless you staid perfectly asleep for an entire night.  In fact, most parents would die within the first year of having a child (what with all the nighttime crying) if this were the case, because they’d never get a solid night to recharge.

 
Enough of the history lesson…  Why does MORE sleep make us feel tired?

 
It isn’t more sleep per se that makes us tired, but the fact that sleeping for numbers not divisible by 1.5 hours result in “broken” sleep cycles.  For example, many people sleep 8 hours per night.  At 7 and a half hours of sleep you would have just completed your 5th sleep cycle, but at 8 hours you are in the middle of another cycle.  Waking up in the middle of your sleep cycle is a big no-no because your body will be trying to get you to go to sleep and complete that cycle the entire day.


            If you want to take steps towards eliminating tiredness from your life and getting more energy then don’t forget to grab my free ecourse before you take off.  It’s got a ton of great information and compliments the End Tiredness Program (you can find my full review of it HERE) very well.

 

                                                                                                                                        - Angela Daniels

Tired of being tired?  Alrighty then, the ball is about to be in your court.  Tiredness affects billions every single day and we take it as a given.  That is, we accept tiredness for what it is and no matter how tired of being tired we become, most of us don’t realize that there’s something we can do about it.


            When was the last time you were actually able to wake up, jump into action, and keep going throughout the entire day?  I bet it’s been a while.  And even if it hasn’t, it’s sure as heck hard to have more than one of those glorious days in a row!  However, as someone who learned to completely dispel tiredness from her life, I’m going to let you know that there are a whole lot of things you can do to help boost your energy level AND chip away at the feelings of tiredness that plague you throughout the day.


            First of all, you need to identify which factors are affecting you most.  The next step is to get yourself some resources and information regarding those factors, and put them into action.  This article is going to focus on diet and eating habits, while future articles will cover other factors.


           

            Your diet.  You may not know it but what you eat (not to mention when and how much you eat) has a huge impact on your energy level.  For example, sugary, fatty foods are metabolized quite quickly, and you usually aren’t getting any benefit from them after about 2 hours.  However, if you can stalk up on some high-protein foods, you will have energy slowly released for a longer period of time for 3-4 hours.  This can be the difference of making it to your next meal bright-eyed and ready to go vs needing a nap just to get through the afternoon.


            Also, our societies in the modern day for some reason preach this whole “three square meals a day” regimen that ultimately contradicts our body’s natural digestion system and energy needs.  Eating smaller meals/snacks every 3-4 hours is much more beneficial than trying to cram in giant meals.  Think of the energy in your body like a small cup or container that funnels out the bottom.  Eating just the right amount of food will leave you full and energy will funnel through at an even rate for several hours.  However, stuffing yourself with a lot of food will overflow the funnel and some of the energy gain will be wasted as it overlaps with other food from that meal.

 
          To learn more about tiredness (and some nifty resources for getting more energy) make sure you read through all of the useful content on my homepage.  Also, make sure you grab my FREE ecourse on getting more energy (I'm very proud of it!) before you go, you'll find that in the sidebar to the right.

                                                                                                                   - Angela Daniels
 

Every felt like day-after-day you would start to lose steam as you entered the afternoon?  Maybe you didn’t even make it that far and wished you could get back to bed as soon as you has taken your morning shower.  While for most people these “I am always tired!” feelings of fatigue and weariness are a normal, everyday occurrence… and that sucks.

 
            My name is Angela Daniels and a while back I decided to put my foot down and start working actively to get tiredness out of my life.  While there was effort involved, I emerged miles ahead of wear I was before, and I’ve now compiled some simple steps from my own journey that contribute to the way I can now wake up and face each day with alertness and confidence (and stay that way throughout the WHOLE day).

 
            So let’s get down to business.  As per the title of this article, I want to help identify what areas of your life might be causing your tiredness.  This is an important first step (and one I talk about early on in my own homepage) because different people are tired for different reasons.


            I Am Always Tired – The Evaluation


Factor number one, let’s look at your sleep habits.  The average human has a sleep cycle of about 90 minutes, meaning that in 90 minute chunks our bodies progress through all 5 stages of sleep and recharge.  The problem is we’ve been force-fed these silly notions of sleeping 8 or even 10 hours; neither of these are divisible by 1.5 hours, meaning you are interrupting a sleep cycle when you sleep for 8 or 10 hours.  Waking up in the middle of a cycle is a big no-no (though most people do it every day) because your body is going to make you feel drowsy the entire rest of the day in an attempt to get you to lie and down and complete it.


            Next, you need to take a good, hard look at your meal and eating habits.  Another misconception running rampant in our society, is that we should eat just 3 meals per day.  In fact, our body metabolizes many foods in 3-4 hours… but there are usually 5, 6, or even more hours between lunch and dinner.  We begin to build up an energy deficit after those initial 3-4 hours and we run out of energy.  Eating smaller meals every 3-4 hours is good way to avoid this problem (try it!).  Also, make sure that your meals consist of protein rich foods, as stockpiling on fatty, sugary foods (which expend their energy potential after 1-2 hours) don’t do a very good job of keeping you energized.

 
          Other factors of tiredness that could be weighing you down can be found HERE on my homepage.  After you're done reading through that, be sure to check out my review of the "End Tiredness Program" (about halfway down the page) for an innovative approach to tackling tiredness that I personally used.
           

Chronic fatigue syndrome, otherwise known as just feeling really freaking tired all the time, is the “silent epidemic” of today.  In my opinion, its overcome a lot of the more “serious” conditions we are faced with for two reasons:

 
1)  Because (as far as we know) we’ve only got one life to work with.  Nobody wants to spend their days dragging around their body and feeling like they don’t have enough energy to do everything they want.

 
2)  Because it’s curable!  This is what really gets to me.  So many of us needlessly suffer from feeling tired day after day but in all honesty, we could all have this whole issue beat if we had the right tools. 

 
            Today, I’m going to go through 5 easy little things you can do to boost that energy level of yours, and even point you towards some more advanced resources for abolishing tiredness altogether and learning to have more energy for good.


Step 1)  Drink up!  Well, water, that is.  Hydration is key in tiredness and energy level because our blood is made up of primarily water.  If our water levels drop, the blood thickens and we place more stress on the heart because its harder to pump thick blood.  In turn, our body begins to wear down from the extra work and we feel tired.


Step 2)  Sleep smart.  Unfortunately, some silly people decided to spread the word that just getting more sleep will solve our tiredness problems.  Actually, their logic does make sense, but health researchers have known for decades now that this logic is flawed… it’s just hard to convince people they’re wrong when something makes so much intuitive sense.  What it comes down to is sleep cycles; a 5 stage process that our body completes once every 90 minutes.  The key to feeling rested is hitting numbers divisible by 1.5 hours, giving you COMPLETE sleep cycles (6 hours. 7.5 hours, and 9 hours are ideal).  If you sleep 8 or ten hours, you are waking the body up in the middle of a sleep cycle, and will carry that drowsiness around with you all day.
 

Step 3) Let it go, just let it go.  Stress is a huge factor in tiredness.  Most people overlook it, but if you truly want to formulate a way to get more energy and get to the bottom of your tiredness, be warned that this factor is very important.  Just like dehydration, excessive stress wears your body down.  In this case, your heart-rate and blood pressure rise, leading to eventual exhaustion.


Step 4)  Do some good!  Those looking to learn how to have more energy ofter overlook this little known mental factor of tiredness:  You know that good feeling you get when you genuinely help someone else?  It’s a very real, psycho-physical response.  Factors often enhanced by those who regularly do charity work include happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, sense of control over their life, physical health, and mood.


Step 5)  Tune out!  Personally, I like electronics.  I listen to my son’s ipod and watch ‘24’ with the family each week.  However, the bright screens of TV’s and computers can throw you out of kilter!  Because the screen is bright, it can suppress the release of melatonin (a chemical in the brain that tells you its time to sleep when it gets dark).  You can left with a brain that is overly active and alert when you want to fall asleep, meaning it takes you longer to fall asleep and don’t get as good of a rest for the next day.

      Learning how to get more energy isn't all that difficult, folks!  But you have to take it a step further than reading articles... You have to take ACTION.  How do you do that?  I've got some excellent resources for you right here on this site.  For those of you that haven't, please grab my free Ecourse in the sidebar to the right.

     Also, a major step in my own journey to eliminate tiredness was purchasing the "End Tiredness Program".  You can find a full review about halfway down my homepage.

The average human sleeps about 8 hours per night.  Now honestly, sleeping 8 hours in and of itself is a mistake when it comes to having more energy (but we’ll get to that later).  What this ultimately means, given our 24 hour days, is that you will spend about 1/3 of your life IN BED.  What’s worse, is that most people find that even during their waking hours, they are tired and lethargic because of a handful of factors ranging from sleep habits to diet, from exercise to hydration, to stress level, etc.

 
But what if you could learn not only how to sleep less, thus giving you more hours in the day to work with, but also learning how to feel MORE energized, awake, and productive during those waking hours so that you could take full advantage of every opportunity thrown at you?  Wouldn’t that be cool?!

 
I’m here to tell you that you can indeed learn how to sleep less, while actually gaining more energy throughout the day… but it’s going to take a little bit of work on your part.

For examples, there are hundreds of small things you can do to get more energy, but they all require YOU to take initiative and actually do it.

 
Here are just a few things you can do to sleep less and have more energy throughout the day:

 
Eat a REAL breakfast.  If that sounds cliché, it’s for good reason.  Breakfast is your body’s first (and usually only) morning opportunity to power up.  Skipping up or skimping out on this wonderful meal is a mistake that will leave you lethargic and useless by the time the afternoon rolls around.  Try to include high protein and vitamin foods with your first meal, make it a good one!


Keep hydrated… no really!  Your blood is made up mostly of water, and not drinking enough of it will cause your blood to thicken.  While this is also a health risk, it causes your heart to have to work harder and, in an effort to conserve energy, your body will make you feel tired.


Stay active!  One huge mistake that people make is think that exercising more is going to make them tired.  The fact is that exercising releases large amount of endorphins and usually will actually leave one feeling more energized after 15 minutes or so of working out.  Also, your body budgets energy based on your lifestyle.  This means that if you are usually sedentary and lazy, your body won’t store much energy.  However, someone with an active lifestyle will find themselves ready to face each day head on!

 

Tiredness affects millions of people across the globe.  In fact, many, many adults have experienced long periods of day-after-day-after-day exhaustion that seems unbeatable.  If you’re dealing with tiredness, your mood is often affected as well, and dealing with the issue as a whole can seem discouraging because so many factors go into tiredness and energy level.  However, there is hope for those trying to learn how to get more energy and in this write up I’m going to share with you 3 of my favorite techniques for increasing energy levels over time.  While there are no “quick fixes”, you can do several simple things to start seeing a boost in your energy level over time.  Remember, there’s a first step in every great journey, so let’s get started!
 

Water to the rescue!  One of the most overlooked factors of energy level and tiredness is hydration.  Water accounts for the majority of your blood content, meaning that your heart is used to having and easy, lubricated system to work with.  However, when your water levels begin to drop, the blood becomes thicker and requires your heart to pump more and more just to keep up a flow of circulation.  This extra stress on your internal organs diverts energy from your external ones and your body will (not so nicely) tell you to lay down at the next opportunity.  In summary, drink lots of water throughout the day!
 

You ARE what you eat…  And your energy level is going to reflect it.  In fact, most of those yummy foods that can be detrimental to other aspects of your health also can have an adverse affect on your efforts to learn how to get more energy.  High fat foods have the nasty side effect of releasing serotonin in the brain when consumed.  Serotonin is the chemical associated with drowsiness.  This is why after a giant thanksgiving meal everyone starts to feel tired.  No, it isn’t the turkey itself, it’s usually the gravy and stuffing that put you over the top and into sleep mode.

 
Sleep SMARTER, not longer.  That’s right, sleeping 10 hours a night is likely to leave you getting less energy for the day than if you had slept 9 hours instead.  How can this be?  Because we used to be living out in the wild, in danger of being hunted by other animals with larger muscles and sharper teeth (bear with my for a second, I have a point, I swear!).  Because of this, we evolved to sleep in short, 90 minute CYCLES.  This way, we could recharge in small bursts, rather than trying to sleep for say, an 8 hour cycle, where we might be interrupted and therefore get no real benefit from our rest. 
 

You have to adapt to your own sleep cycle if you ever want to have effective rest.  For example, because 7.5 and 9 hours are evenly divisible by 1.5 hours, they are ideal sleep amounts because you are getting complete rest cycles in.  When sleeping 8 or 10 hours, you are interrupting your body in the middle of such a cycle, and you’ll pay for as your body makes you feel tired throughout the day in an attempt to make you complete the last stages of the sleep cycle you deprived yourself of.

Tiredness can be a complicated issue and if you're truly dedicated to getting more energy then WHY wouldn't you want to give yourself the best opportunity possible?

My homepage (found HERE) has a nice overview of tiredness and potential solutions for it, including a look at the incredibly effective "End Tiredness Program".  Also, don't forget to grab my free newsletter/ecourse (found in the sidebar to the right) before you go!

                                                                                                                        - Angela Daniels

Ok people, the power is about to be in your hands.  So many people already HAVE the tools and knowledge they need to truly eliminate tiredness from their lives, but they lack to motivation and end up chasing hours of crappy sleep with coffee, energy shots, and other “quick-fixes”.  However, what if someone was to tell you that making simple, non-obtrusive changes to several of your habits could leave you more alert, awake, productive, and not to mention in a better mood, every single day.  Now what if that person also mentioned that you could sleep LESS and accomplish this?  It might sound crazy, but I’m a person telling you exactly that.


First of all, let’s look at eating and diet, and how you can use them to have more energy.  While I could rant about healthy eating habits, it’d be just a little bit hypocritical as I myself indulge in the eating of the kind of fatty, sugary delights from time to time that can sap your energy right out from under you.  However, there isanother crucial mistake that many of us make:  We eat 3 meals a day.


“Wait, what’s wrong with THAT?” you might be asking yourself.  To put it simply, we evolved (or were designed, if you prefer) to eat frequently.  Our ancestors were foragers and would be constantly snacking on small portions throughout the day, maintaining a steady stream of energy.  Nowadays we have 3 pre-defined meals and snacking in between them can be problematic to our health, weight, and appearance because we eat so many calories at each of those meals.  As a result, many people experience energy dips, especially between lunch and dinner where six or more hours may pass without eating.


To address this, try and eat ever 3-4 hours or so.  Snacking on high protein foods in between your larger meals (you’ll also want to cut down your portions a bit at the 3 main ones).


Alternatively, another way you get have more energy is by sleeping SMARTER, not longer.  Because our body sleeps in cycles of 90 minutes, you can easily sleep just 6 or 7.5 hours and get several FULL cycles of sleep (because these hours are divisible by 1.5) and wake up more rested than if you had slept 8 or ten hours because you wouldn’t be waking your body up in the middle of a reparative cycle.

Tiredness is a complex issue that can affect your life in many ways.  For completely free advice on dispelling tiredness and the like, be sure to check out my newsletter (located in the sidebar to the right).

Also, don't forget to check out the End Tiredness Program as well!

Wouldn’t we all like to get more energy and have more time in a day?  If you could go to bed LATER than usual and/or wake up EARLIER and feel more awake than ever, just imagine what you could do with those extra hours!  In fact, I think we’d all love to have more hours in a day and, if you know what you’re doing, this really isn’t all that difficult.  This article is going to outline a few easy ways in which you can be on your way to getting more energy and having more time to do the things you enjoy throughout the day.


First of all, take power naps.  A power nap is actually a fairly specific thing, and needs to be done right to really give you a boost of energy.  Because the average human being has a sleep cycle of around 90 minutes, you are going to either nap for an hour and a half or 3 hours.  However, 3 hours is enough to throw your body off (so that falling asleep at night can be difficult) and for this reason I recommend going for the 1.5 hour nap.  Having a full sleep cycle injected into your day can go miles towards giving you more energy.


Now you might be thinking, “why would I sleep more to get more time in a day… isn’t that using time too?”.  While the time gained from sleeping for an hour and a half will be greater than the actual time spent napping, you DO have a point; so let’s look at some other things you can try…


Swap out your fatty foods.  I know, I know, it SUCKS that it’s always the stuff that tastes so good that is oh-so-bad for you but foods tat are over the top in fat and sugar content suppress chemical reactions in the brain for things like endorphins, which are necessary in giving you a feeling of alertness.  Without this, your body feels tired.  A few days after eating healthier, you will notice massive changes for the better in both mood and energy level.


Lastly, make sure you’re moving and staying active.  A body that isn’t used to exerting itself will NOT budget energy for physical activity and you’ll be constantly running low on energy because, physically, you haven’t been demanding it of yourself.  Getting your heart rate up will actually release massive amounts of endorphins, so a quick workout will actually leave you MORE awake and alert for a while afterwards.


  To find out about an amazing program to help rid yourself of tiredness I strongly suggest you check out the 'End Tiredness Newsletter'.  Or, if you're not wanting to commit, grab my free newsletter (in the sidebar to the right) for a flow of great information you can start putting into use THIS WEEK.

                                                                                                                                    - Angela Daniels