Many cases of tiredness are due to stress, not enough sleep, poor diet and other lifestyle factors. Try these self-help tips to restore your energy levels.
If you feel you're suffering from fatigue, which is an overwhelming tiredness that isn't relieved by rest and sleep, you may have an underlying medical condition. Consult a GP for advice.
A good way to keep up your energy through the day is to eat regular meals and healthy snacks every 3 to 4 hours, rather than a large meal less often.
Read more about healthy eating.
You might feel that exercise is the last thing on your mind. But, in fact, regular exercise will make you feel less tired in the long run, so you'll have more energy.
Even a single 15-minute walk can give you an energy boost, and the benefits increase with more frequent physical activity.
Start with a small amount of exercise. Build it up gradually over weeks and months until you reach the recommended goal of 2 hours 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, such as cycling or fast walking, every week.
Read more about starting exercise.
Find out the physical activity guidelines for adults.
If your body is carrying excess weight, it can be exhausting. It also puts extra strain on your heart, which can make you tired. Lose weight and you'll feel much more energetic.
Apart from eating healthily, the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to be more active and do more exercise.
Read more about how to lose weight.
Many people don't get the sleep they need to stay alert through the day.
The website of the Royal College of Psychiatrists has information on sleeping well.
Tips for sleeping well include:
Stress uses up a lot of energy. Try to introduce relaxing activities into your day. This could be:
Whatever relaxes you will improve your energy.
Read more about how to relieve stress.
There's some evidence that talking therapies such as counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) might help to fight fatigue, or tiredness caused by stress, anxiety or low mood.
See a GP for a referral for talking treatment on the NHS, or for advice on seeing a private therapist.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends that anyone feeling tired should cut out caffeine. It says the best way to do this is to gradually stop having all caffeine drinks over a 3-week period.
Caffeine is found in:
Try to stay off caffeine completely for a month to see if you feel less tired without it.
You may find that not consuming caffeine gives you headaches. If this happens, cut down more slowly on the amount of caffeine that you drink.
Although a couple of glasses of wine in the evening can help you fall asleep, you sleep less deeply after drinking alcohol. The next day you'll be tired, even if you sleep a full 8 hours.
Cut down on alcohol before bedtime. You'll get a better night's rest and have more energy.
The NHS recommends that men and women should not regularly drink more than 14 units a week, which is equivalent to 6 pints of average-strength beer or 10 small glasses of low-strength wine.
Try to have several alcohol-free days each week.
Read more about how to cut down on alcohol.
Sometimes you feel tired simply because you're mildly dehydrated.
A glass of water will do the trick, especially after exercise.
Read about healthy drinks.
Feeling tired from work is common and can be caused by many different factors. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to reduce fatigue and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Work can wear you out, whether your job requires physical labor or not. There’s more than one way to feel tired, and the daily demands of your job can leave you physically and emotionally weary, even if you spend your days behind a desk.
Other stressors — such as relationship issues, financial worries, or health concerns — can intensify the strain. And then there’s COVID-19.
If you’re still going in to work, you might find that you feel extra-exhausted from the added stress of worrying about potential exposure to the new coronavirus on the job.
If you now work from home, you might feel slightly safer — at the cost of greater pressure to blur the boundaries between work and home.
Long story short, it’s all too common to feel tired from working, especially during times of crisis and difficulty. You may not be able to quit your job completely, but you don’t have to watch your energy reserves slowly dwindle away, either.
There are several ways to recognize burnout.
A few of the most common symptoms of work fatigue include:
If you experience any of the symptoms listed above, it may be time to start identifying any factors that may contribute to your fatigue and consider making changes to your routine maintain a healthy work-life balance.
If work has you feeling a little more exhausted than usual, a good first step might involve taking a look at any habits potentially contributing to your fatigue.
Maybe you feel too worn out after your shift to do anything except relax in your favorite chair with your phone.
You regularly stay up late to give yourself more time to relax, but you find it hard to drift off when you finally make it to bed.
Even though you want to get out for a hike, see your friends (safely!), and make time for meal planning and cooking, you just can’t seem to find the energy.
Small changes can be key to reducing fatigue and preventing burnout, including:
Regular exercise can also make a difference, as backward as this might sound. If you aren’t up for a full workout, no problem. Even a brisk walk around the block can help boost your energy levels and mood.
You might feel more informed and prepared to deal with challenges when you leave work devices on throughout the evening and weekend or if you continue check your email after clocking out for the day.
When coworkers or customers know you can always be reached, however, it often becomes close to impossible to fully “leave” work, especially when you’re working from home.
If you’re always on the clock, you’ll never find the time to recharge.
If you’re expected to handle work concerns outside of your scheduled hours, talk with your supervisor about setting some clear boundaries around times you aren’t available.
Perhaps your heavy workload often requires you to work late. Sometimes, this is just part of the territory.
But consider whether you tend to volunteer for extra work to keep others happy or avoid guilt trips. If so, polite refusals when you’re at capacity may serve you better in the future.
It’s also a good idea to discuss options for workplace support with your supervisor or human resources office. It’s tough to be productive when you feel drained or burned out.
When you show up rested and energized, on the other hand, everyone benefits.
When you have too many tasks to realistically complete without support, it never hurts to ask for help.
You might worry that requesting support suggests weakness or incapability, but remember: Your employer likely wants you to do the best job possible.
They can’t support you in achieving that goal unless they know how you’re really doing.
Here are a few other tips:
After a long workday, you might lack the energy for anything beyond a night of Netflix. Still, challenge yourself to do something different from time to time, particularly when you feel the most drained.
Watching TV or playing video games might feel relaxing, and there’s nothing at all wrong with catching up on a show or two. Yet more purposeful hobbies can often feel more rewarding and leave you with a sense of deeper satisfaction.
To feel more rejuvenated by your time off, consider starting a garden, picking up a book, or doing one thing to improve your living area every day.
Other possibilities might include:
Prioritizing physical and emotional needs is an important part of creating balance between your work and personal life.
Taking good care of yourself can improve resilience and strength, making it easier to manage challenges as they come up.
When you feel physically and emotionally sound, it usually becomes easier to maintain a positive outlook and fend off the feelings of irritability, hopelessness, and pessimism that often accompany persistent exhaustion and stress.
While getting enough sleep and eating well do have an impact, self-care goes beyond these basic needs. It might involve:
Learn more about identifying your needs and creating a personalized self-care plan here.
Keeping stress to yourself can isolate you and make you feel worse.
You might worry you’re burdening others by talking about what’s going on, but think about how you’d feel if a loved one were in your position. You’d probably want to help them however you could, right?
Friends and family might not have the ability to directly relieve your fatigue, but they can still offer support by listening and helping out in small ways, especially if you’re vocal with them about what you need.
Your roommate, for example, might motivate you to get up and make dinner by inviting you to help them out with a new recipe.
Your mother might drop by with a bag of groceries when she knows you’ve had a long week.
Simply knowing you have support from your loved ones can increase feelings of belonging and connection, making it easier to detach from work when the day is done. Feeling less tethered to your job can, in turn, help you relax and recharge more successfully.
Just as repetitive tasks can lead to yawning and zoning out, an easy but monotonous workday can leave you feeling drained and mentally numb. Changing up your typical routine can make a big difference.
Some things to try:
You’ve taken steps to address your tiredness, but workplace circumstances continue to drain you, and your employer has been less than supportive of efforts to create change. What next?
It may be time to consider another job or career, one that allows you to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Without this essential balance, the situation will likely only get worse.
You might find it hard to “show up” mentally even when you’re physically present, and you may take little pride in your work.
Your emotional well-being and relationships with family and friends may bear the burden of your exhaustion, too.
Sometimes, lingering tiredness is just a normal outcome of working, but exhaustion — physical or emotional — can have other causes, too.
If you have other unexplained symptoms, including pain, changes in appetite, or stomach distress, it’s a good idea to talk with your healthcare provider to rule out other concerns.
A therapist can help you explore reasons behind tiredness accompanied by mental health symptoms, including:
If you’re thinking of a career change, your therapist can offer career guidance and counseling as you make the switch. At the very least, they can direct you toward helpful resources.
You don’t need to wait to recharge until you’re running on empty. It’s usually harder to recover your strength after you burn out.
Making time to recharge and drawing a darker line between work and home life — visualize this line in Sharpie, not pencil — can help you manage stress before it knocks you down completely.
If your exhaustion begins to affect your relationships or quality of life, it’s best to talk with a healthcare professional right away.
Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.
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full of energy
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Even if you work sitting at the computer, this does not mean that by the end of the day you will not die of fatigue.
Fatigue appears not only from physical work. And not only because of the large number of cases. It may also indicate that you have not replenished the resources of the body, have distributed the load incorrectly, or do not see much point in what you are doing.
Life in constant stress and work in emergency mode is harmful to health and leads to burnout. Let's talk about how to save energy.
Psychologists have a hypothesis about why mental work is so exhausting. If a task doesn’t particularly excite us, the brain has to put in a lot of effort to focus on it. And there is a lot of interesting things around - from news and Internet discussions to new collections of your favorite brands. This constant struggle with temptations exhausts a person. But without it it is impossible - otherwise the work will not be done.
This version is partly confirmed by a study conducted several years ago in Canada. Scientists monitored the condition of 156 students for a week: they constantly asked what they were doing, how they felt, what they really wanted at the moment, how much effort they had to make in order not to follow these desires and continue to study. It turned out that the more temptations the students had to resist, the more tired they felt.
/no-willpower/
How can the weak-willed and lazy survive? Molecular biologist Irina Yakutenko answers
According to one of the authors of the study, psychologist Michael Inzlicht, this phenomenon has an evolutionary explanation. In order to survive, a person as a species all the time needs to do something: sleep, look for partners for procreation, get food, clothes - and so on ad infinitum. And if at some point he forgets about one of these tasks, then he simply will not survive. Therefore, the body has developed a biological mechanism that makes us switch from one to another. The psychological fatigue that we feel by the end of the working day is a signal that it is time to switch to another activity.
Tip 1
Increase your motivation In 2019, British scientists published the results of a study in which they observed the behavior, physical and psychological state of 100 nurses during their 12-hour shift.
And as a result, an important correlation was found: those nurses who were more involved in their work, knew that something depended on them, and received inner satisfaction in the process, were more energetic and less exhausted than the rest.
The explanation is simple: if we consider our work to be really important, then we are more motivated to do it and it is more difficult for us to get distracted. This means that the brain does not lose interest in it and gets less tired.
/hate-work/
Why people don't quit jobs they hate
To increase your motivation, try this exercise: at the end of each working day, for a couple of minutes, reflect on how your work is useful for others. If helping others is not part of your duties, remember that work allows you to pay for housing, feed and clothe loved ones, and financially support older relatives.
This simple action will have a beneficial effect on more than just your motivation. According to research by psychologists Adam Grant and Sabine Sonnentag, people who are clearly aware of the impact their work has on others tend to be less distracted while doing it. And in general, they feel happier and more satisfied with life.
Tip 2
Don't get distracted too oftenThe human brain is not a computer. It's not designed for multitasking. Therefore, when the brain has to do several things at the same time, it spends too many resources. And as a result, he gets more tired and starts making more mistakes.
How can I fix this?
/how-to-focus/
5 tips to quickly focus on work
Tip 3
Take Breaks Research shows that several regular but short breaks throughout the day can be better for rejuvenation, cognition and stress reduction than one long one. In 2014, specialists from DeskTime, a developer of time tracking software, analyzed the data of many users and found out that the most efficient ones worked in cycles. They immersed themselves in tasks for 52 minutes, and then disconnected from tasks for 17 minutes.
These data correlate with the modern ideas of scientists about the basic cycle of rest - activity: at night, on average, the body goes through all five phases of sleep in 90 minutes, and during the day it experiences a peak of activity at the same time, followed by 15-20 minutes of decline. And it is better to spend them on rest.
/chill-out/
How to rest: 5 tips
Things to do during a 15-minute break:
What not to do during mini-breaks? Check social networks and messengers. This can deprive the rest of the forces. According to researchers from the American Psychological Association, excessive use of gadgets increases stress levels and greatly spoils mood.
Tip 4
Start working lessIt often happens that fatigue at work is not due to psychological problems. But simply because you are overwhelmed. In this case, all the previous tips are unlikely to help you. There is only one way out: discuss with the manager.
It is especially important to do this if you communicate with your boss orally, and not in a chat. When another request appears, specify in what order to fulfill it and, if the matter is urgent, what can be postponed until later. This will help him to assess the volume of your load and you to properly distribute it. 
So don't check your work email on weekends. /time-to-rest/
“I close my laptop and start living”: 7 ways to quickly switch from work to leisure
Tip 5
Take care of yourselfWhen the resources of the body are at zero, it is difficult to cope even with work that does not require serious mental effort, and fatigue sets in faster. Therefore, it is so important to regularly recover physically.
The rules are simple:
10 ways to unwind before bed
According to the World Health Organization, adults need 150-300 minutes of moderate exercise or 75-150 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise to maintain good health.
/sport-every-day/
5 tips to make physical activity part of your life
We tend to feel tired at the end of the day, after hard work or exercise. But if such fatigue does not go away after sleep or rest, this is an alarm signal. In the article we understand why strength disappears and how to increase efficiency without harm to health.
There are energy carriers in the body - ATP molecules. They are synthesized by all human cells. With the participation of ATP, physiological processes of different levels occur: from intracellular metabolism to walking or running, which involves many structures and systems.
ATP is the body's energy currency. No process will happen if there is no ATP.
In order for cells to synthesize ATP, it is necessary that they receive glucose and oxygen. We get glucose from food, and oxygen from the air we breathe.
Energy is wasted all the time, even when we “do nothing” something is constantly happening in the body: the heart beats, muscles work, the stomach and intestines digest food, cells and tissues are renewed, necessary substances are synthesized. The brain regulates these processes and processes information, which also consumes energy.
When we work - physically or intellectually - even more energy is expended. But if fatigue after a couple of hours in the gym is clear to us, then why we get tired when we solve math problems or come up with a project plan is not so obvious. It can be assumed that thinking is a very energy-consuming process, and we get tired because we think intensively.
The brain does consume a lot of energy.
Especially a lot of it is required by those neurons that are currently involved. But the brain, like the whole organism, is active all the time, and not just when we think. It constantly regulates the processes occurring in the body, processes information and spends about 20% of the energy consumed on it. The "thinking" brain requires more energy, but this increase is not significant.
20%
the brain consumes energy
If we do not diet, then usually our well-being does not depend too much on how much energy we have spent during the day. Therefore, by the evening we will feel tired, regardless of whether we were doing hard work or watching a series. Fatigue is manifested in inhibition of reactions. The man says that he "difficulty thinking and concentrating."
The first remedy for fatigue that comes to mind is sleep.
Normally, fatigue disappears after sleep. But how exactly does it help in the fight against fatigue? Clearly, sleep isn't just about replenishing your energy reserves, as a piece of the pie would do.
In fact, scientists do not know exactly why a person sleeps. But they know that without it recovery is impossible.
Most research suggests one thing: lack of sleep leads to various failures and disorders. Thus, it has been shown that with lack of sleep, carbohydrate metabolism is disturbed, the risk of developing diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and obesity increases.
The psyche is also not happy with the lack of sleep: anxiety and aggressiveness increase.
Sleep supports the health and normal functioning of the body, but it is not yet clear how exactly.
And what about the brain? Previously, it was believed that the brain in a dream turns off for a while and “reboots”. But later, technical capabilities made it possible to see what was really happening. It turned out that during sleep the brain works no less intensively than during wakefulness. It processes the information received during the day, new knowledge is built into the network of existing ones, “recorded” in memory or removed from it (this is called the consolidation of memories).
And yet the "reboot" seems to be happening. There is a hypothesis of synaptic homeostasis, according to which sleep is needed to maintain synaptic connections in order, weaken and clean them up.
New neural connections are formed constantly. If they were automatically fixed, it would be very easy for a person to form new useful habits, memorize complex concepts and formulas, and so on. But at the same time, there would be too many connections, and the neurons could not provide them all with energy. In addition, “noise” would arise in neural networks, which would prevent a person from thinking normally, and the brain from processing and storing information. Therefore, some neural connections are weakened, and some are completely destroyed. And, apparently, it happens in a dream.
One study supporting this hypothesis found that the size of the synapses in the brain of mice does decrease after sleep, by about 18%. And its strength directly depends on the size of the neural connection.
During sleep, mainly those synapses that are not so important are affected. The largest, and therefore the strongest and most important, retain their size.
It turns out that sleep does not restore energy in the literal sense of the word, however, it relieves the superfluous, literally “freeing” the head from unnecessary thoughts and information – a kind of “clearing the cache”. This helps us feel rested.
Scientists have discovered that insomnia can be inherited. In addition, researchers have established a genetic link between insomnia and type II diabetes. The Atlas genetic test can analyze the genetic predisposition to insomnia.
But after sleep we are not always alert and full of strength. Sometimes, when we wake up, we feel tired and overwhelmed, although we have slept enough. If this rarely happens, don't worry. But if fatigue is with you all the time, this is a wake-up call.
The body may actually lack energy. As already mentioned, cells need glucose and oxygen to synthesize ATP. If somewhere there is a failure, and there is little oxygen or glucose in the cells, there will also be little energy.
So it can be - banal - when we eat little. There is simply nowhere for glucose to come from, since normally the body receives it from food. Therefore, starvation, strict diets and lack of energy always go somewhere nearby.
Chronic fatigue can also be a symptom of many diseases.
Oxygen deficiency in cells can occur, for example, due to iron deficiency anemia (IDA) . The fact is that oxygen gets to the cells as part of the protein hemoglobin , which is contained in red blood cells - erythrocytes . With IDA, there may be little in the body of both hemoglobin and erythrocytes, that is, couriers that deliver oxygen to all tissues and organs.
Glucose may not be enough due to diabetes mellitus .
In order for glucose to enter the cells, the hormone insulin must act on them. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas produces little or no insulin, so the hormone is virtually absent from the body. In type 2 diabetes, cells lose their sensitivity to insulin, or insulin is not produced in sufficient quantities to cover the needs of the body. Both in type 1 and type 2 diabetes, glucose practically does not enter the cells.
Other hormonal imbalances can also lead to energy imbalance and a constant feeling of fatigue. For example, lack of thyroid hormones .
Cancer can also cause fatigue. Scientists attribute such fatigue to inflammation in the body: inflammatory cytokine molecules send signals, in response to which, the brain "triggers" the symptoms of fatigue. In addition, fatigue increases the stress caused by the diagnosis and the process of treatment itself.
Deficiencies of certain vitamins (particularly D and B vitamins) and trace elements (iron, magnesium, zinc) can lead to permanent fatigue.
And if “get it and do it” is a short hundred-meter sprint, then long reflections are a marathon several tens of kilometers long. The sprint would have been much less tiring. For the same reason, it is harmful to think about work outside of working hours. Also mental or mental fatigue may cause a feeling of physical fatigue. Participants in one study exercised on an exercise bike. One group had previously watched the movie, while the other group took an hour and a half test of attention. As a result, the second group was able to pedal not as long as the first, and, according to the subjective assessment, it was harder for them. It turns out that a significant part of our fatigue is in the head.
Therefore, scrolling through social networks or watching funny videos will most likely not help recovery either. First, as with rumination, concentration is lost: if you generally find it difficult to focus on work, then you will spend a lot of energy returning to it. And each break will be accompanied by a new effort, which will negate the effect of such a rest. Secondly, by flipping through social networks, you somehow receive and assimilate new information. And if you already have a lot of tasks to keep in mind, the situation can get worse.
If your fatigue is related to health problems, you can't do without a doctor. If with constant stress and overload, then you need to work on this. Excessive fatigue will pass when you eliminate the causes.
But if everything is fine with you, you do not feel overtired, but just want to be more productive, you can try to change your lifestyle or approach to work a little.
The obvious advice is: get enough sleep, eat a varied and balanced diet, exercise, and walk more often in the fresh air.
Less obvious:
In addition, such work is also useless: working too much, you get tired, and productivity drops. Tip: don't spend the whole weekend cleaning and cooking, it's better to distribute household chores evenly throughout the week.
More articles on how to feel better on the Atlas blog:
, Gusnard D., Appraising the brain's energy budget, 2002 
