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You may feel tired in the morning if you’re not getting enough sleep. It may also relate to your mental or physical health. Speak with your to find the cause. In the meantime, making a few lifestyle changes may help you fight morning fatigue.
When waking up is hard to do, consider the following strategies.
We’ve all had those mornings when we just can’t shake a feeling of sluggishness, even when we’ve technically gotten enough sleep. In an effort to perk up on tired days, many of us load up on cup after cup of coffee.
But over-caffeinating can leave us jittery and anxious (not to mention perpetually running to the bathroom).
Perhaps there’s a better way to banish morning fatigue and get on with your day with the energy you need.
That beloved button on top of your alarm clock may not be so helpful after all.
Spending the last half hour or so of nighttime rest in what researchers call “fragmented sleep” has consequences for your ability to function throughout the day.
Pro-tip: Try the 90-minute sleep cycle hack by setting two alarms — one for 90 minutes before you want to wake up and one for when you actually want to wake up.
The theory is that the 90 minutes of sleep you get between snoozes will be a full sleep cycle, allowing you to wake up after your REM state, instead of during.
Fatigue is a classic symptom of dehydration, and even a mild case can trigger feelings of sleepiness, changes in cognitive ability, and mood disruptions. Let a glass of water freshen up your entire body before you get moving.
Pro-tip: If you find you still can’t shake morning lethargy, try upping your intake of water and other noncaffeinated beverages throughout the day.
There’s a reason it feels so good to stretch when you wake up. Overnight, during REM sleep, your muscles are literally paralyzed (atonia), and reactivating them releases energy-stimulating endorphins.
Pro-tip: If you have a bit of time for morning yoga, take it; just 25 minutes has been shown to boost energy levels and brain function.
Cold showers are reported to reduce sick-day absences from work.
If you don’t want to take a full shower, a splash of cold water to the face, to signal a temperature change to your body, may also do the trick.
Is getting out of bed the main problem? Keep a spray bottle or water mist by your bedside table so you can lean over and mist yourself without even opening your eyes!
Pro-tip: One cult-favorite product is Saborino’s Morning Face Mask from Japan, which has essential oils to activate your senses. In one minute, this sheet mask cleanses, invigorates, and moisturizes your skin.
Note: People with sensitive skin may want to avoid this product.
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The jury is still out on whether breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But research does say that skipping this first meal can negatively affect your energy and ability to pay attention throughout the day.
Food is fuel. Give your body some calories to put it into action at the start of the day.
But if you’re working out in the morning, remember to eat after, not before.
This will (a) burn more calories, (b) boost your metabolism, and (c) help you avoid an unsettled stomach.
Pro tip: Build a fatigue-fighting breakfast instead.Since what you eat at breakfast can affect how you feel for hours, making the right choice is critical for your morning.
Reach for a combination of fatigue-fighting foods like lean proteins, whole grains, nuts, and lower-sugar fruits.
All breakfasts are not created equal, so take stock of your morning food choices. Sugary items like sweetened coffee drinks, pastries, and breakfast cereals can lead to the classic blood sugar spike-and-drop that leaves you feeling drained.
Pro-tip: Pay attention to nutrition labels to see how much sugar you’re getting at breakfast — and cut back wherever possible. Keep whole foods like apples, carrots, and oranges on hand for easy access.
That’s right, we said less coffee — but not none! Though coffee has plenty of health benefits, chugging a lot in the morning may indirectly contribute to increased fatigue later in the day.
Participants in one study reported feeling more tired the day after they had consumed caffeinated drinks. Experimenting with a reduced amount of caffeine in the morning actually may make you less tired.
Pro-tip: Avoid the big mugs. Purchase a smaller cup, if you have to, to help reduce the amount you drink.
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Sunlight bumps up your body’s serotonin levels, leading to improved sleep — and, therefore, increased daytime energy. And, according to a series of studies at the University of Rochester, spending time in nature “makes people feel more alive.”
Sounds like a very good reason to carve out a portion of your morning in the great outdoors.
Pro-tip: If going outside is a chore in the early morning, adjust your curtain so that the sunlight seeps in when you’re getting ready to wake up.
Sure, when you want to crawl back into bed, exercise may sound pretty unappealing — but it may be exactly what your body needs to get help booting up.
Research consistently correlates aerobic exercise with reduced fatigue.
See if you can squeeze in a quick walk or bike ride, or try a longer workout for even more benefit.
Pro-tip: When pressed for time, get your body up with a few rounds of high-knees and jumping jacks. Even 30 seconds of torso twists could do the trick, or plan a short cardio commute on your way to work.
Is it possible that negative feelings about your job or stressors at home are draining you of morning oomph?
You may not be able to fix certain situations overnight, but once you’ve identified them as a source of mental and physical exhaustion, you can often take some action to alleviate them.
Pro-tip: Streamline harried mornings at home by making school lunches the night before, or make time for morning meditations and create calm before your day begins.
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Sometimes all we need for an energy boost is a little excitement on the horizon.
To beat morning fatigue, consider scheduling a phone call with a friend during your commute, penciling in an outdoor walk on your midmorning break, or pre-making an appealing breakfast that calls you out of bed.
Pro-tip: Let another schedule determine yours. Make an earlier morning podcast or radio show part of your wake-up routine.
If morning fatigue becomes a chronic problem, it could be caused by depression or anxiety. People with depression can feel worse in the morning or only feel depressed in the morning.
The only way to know, however, is to track your mood or see a professional.
Pro-tip: Dig a little deeper. Asking some key questions about your mental health state may reveal an underlying condition that needs professional attention.
If your bedtime habits can have so profound an effect on your rest, so too could your waking routine. You’ve probably heard of sleep hygiene — the handful of best practices that help you fall asleep at night.
These include:
Getting up at the same time each morning helps maintain circadian rhythm, the internal biological clock that’s responsible for feelings of sleepiness.
Make an effort to rise at the same time every day — even on weekends — to see if you can banish the midmorning slump.
Sarah Garone, NDTR, is a nutritionist, freelance health writer, and food blogger. She lives with her husband and three children in Mesa, Arizona. Find her sharing down-to-earth health and nutrition info and (mostly) healthy recipes at A Love Letter to Food.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed is an expression so common you’ll find it in most dictionaries. That little string of words paints an optimistic but unrealistic picture of how we should aim to feel first thing in the morning.
But let’s get real. For many adults, waking up tired often becomes the norm — and waking “with a burst of energy” starts to sound like a pipe dream.
It could leave you wondering, “Is it normal to wake up feeling tired? And what can I do to feel more energetic?”
Feeling tired when you wake up is normal. It’s a natural part of the body’s process of transitioning out of sleep. What’s not normal is feeling tired throughout the day. The good news? There are steps you can take to minimize the time you spend in that morning grogginess zone, and there are ways to optimize your energy levels throughout the day.
Why You Wake Up TiredDid I get enough sleep? If that’s the first thing that pops into your mind as soon as your alarm clock beeps, a shift in perspective may be helpful. Constantly worrying about how often you’re waking up tired can be stressful and counterproductive, managing expectations is a good first step toward feeling better about your sleep.
Waking up feeling slightly groggy or tired is just part of the human experience. It's called sleep inertia: "The transitional state between sleep and wake, marked by impaired performance … and a desire to return to sleep." The main thing to know about sleep inertia is it is completely normal. It's misleading marketing — often seen in commercials for mattresses and pharmaceutical sleep aids — that gives us the idea we should wake up with raised, outstretched arms and feel immediately amazing.
Understanding Sleep InertiaOne of the many restorative processes happening in your brain as you sleep is the flushing out of adenosine, a chemical that builds up during waking hours and eventually causes feelings of sleepiness and the desire to crawl into bed. During the night, the body clears out the built-up adenosine.
However the chemical residue doesn’t just magically disappear the moment you wake up. It can take anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes for it to dissipate and for its effects to wear off.
(In your RISE app, we call this your “grogginess zone.”) It's a necessary transition and not an indicator of poor sleep.
You'll commonly experience this period of drowsiness even after what you might consider to be the perfect amount of sleep. The real test isn’t how you feel the moment you open your eyes; it’s how much energy you have throughout your day.
How to Combat Morning GrogginessWhile you may not be able to escape your grogginess zone altogether, there are a few things that may help you pass through it more quickly.
If you’re worried about excessive grogginess and the amount of sleep you’re getting, sleep debt is the most important number to consider. Sleep debt is a running total of the hours of sleep you’ve missed, compared to the sleep your body needs. (Although eight hours is a generally accepted estimate, sleep need can vary from person to person. The RISE app uses data from your phone and/or wearable combined with proprietary sleep-science-based models to learn your unique sleep biology and calculate your sleep need in hours.
) Instead of attempting to analyze sleep quality or figure out how much deep sleep or REM sleep you’re getting, try simply keeping track of and minimizing your sleep debt.
To address sleep debt, it’s not enough to look at a single night of sleep. Tabulating the hours of sleep you owe your body over a 14-day period will give you a better picture of your body’s energetic capacity as it relates to your sleep habits.
If a full night of restful sleep is followed by prolonged sleep inertia and tiredness or low energy levels the next day, calculate your sleep debt from the two preceding weeks to find out if your sleep debt has been building up unchecked. The RISE sleep app makes such calculations automatic and even provides guidelines for minimizing and lowering sleep debt.
Maintaining a consistent bedtime is a keystone habit that can help keep you in the black. But when you get off track, using afternoon naps and sleeping in on weekends might be necessary to pay down your sleep debt.
Getting off your regular sleep schedule is not ideal, but carrying a high sleep debt is worse.
If you have a nine-hour sleep need and you wake up after six hours of sleep, you will likely feel tired that day. However, this is not always the case.
Sometimes, after a particularly short sleep, it is possible to feel like you have even more energy than usual during the day. But what you're feeling may actually be caused by the stress hormone cortisol, as your body's fight-or-flight functionality kicks in. Poor sleep can increase cortisol production, which can feel good in the moment but is more likely to be detrimental to your health in the long run.
The problem this can cause (as it relates to sleep inertia) arises when your body gets accustomed to the good feeling of pumping cortisol, to the point that your body experiences the absence of a fight-or-flight response as a bad feeling. This is why it's possible to actually feel extra groggy or tired after a night when you sleep longer than you usually do and to "wake up tired” after a particularly long night of sleep.
It's called a sleep hangover, and it can be an indicator of being caught in a bad cycle. To steer clear of that unhealthy dynamic, try to meet your sleep need as consistently as possible.
In addition to addressing your sleep debt, assess the other factors and habits that may be contributing to your morning grogginess and low energy levels. There may or may not be a simple or single reason you’re having problems with waking up tired, but being aware of your sleep hygiene and habits can help pinpoint the most likely offenders.
Substances That Can Disrupt Your SleepWhat do alcohol, caffeine, late-night snacking, and excessive hydrating before bed have in common? They all have the potential to disrupt sleep, which can affect your energy levels the next day.
Because caffeine and nicotine are stimulants, consuming them close to bedtime has the potential to disrupt or inhibit sleep.
Drinking alcohol may cause you to fall asleep faster. But as its sedative effects dissipate during the night, it often interrupts your sleep cycle with multiple micro-awakenings, which you may or may not remember the next day but will probably feel in the form of lingering tiredness.
Eating and drinking too much water (or other beverages) close to bedtime can also be problematic, as indigestion and frequent trips to the bathroom during the night are hardly conducive to restful sleep. The common-sense solution? Try limiting your consumption of these substances in the hours leading up to bedtime and note any improvements in sleep and next-day energy.
The RISE app can let you know the exact timing of when to curb all of these things based on your biology and sleep need.
Get Your Body Clock Aligned With Your Sleep GoalsYour body clock, or “circadian rhythm,” refers to the biological and behavioral patterns that predictably fluctuate in roughly 24-hour periods.
It’s a cycle that repeats each day and influences when you wake up and go to bed. If you have an irregular sleep schedule or stay up late watching Netflix each night, waking up tired could indicate circadian misalignment, which can have negative effects on cognitive function, motor skills, and the ability to focus.
On Monday mornings, this often manifests as social jet lag: feeling tired because you have to wake up early again after shifting your sleep schedule over a weekend of late nights and sleeping in. Your circadian rhythm — or energy schedule, as we call it in the RISE app— is impacted (in its timing and amplitude) most significantly by light exposure.
Be Deliberate About Timing Your Light ExposureTo get sufficient sleep and minimize your time in the morning grogginess zone, keeping a consistent sleep schedule is key. And because light plays the pivotal role in the timing of your energy schedule, paying attention and being deliberate about your exposure to light may help get your energy schedule back on track.
Try exposing yourself to light (preferably sunlight) as soon as you wake up and removing most light, especially blue light, 90 minutes before your target bedtime.
Keeping bright overhead lights on in your home after sundown and nighttime exposure to excess blue light from the screens of your phone and computer is a recipe for circadian misalignment, not to mention increased sleep inertia. Before the advent of electricity and artificial lighting, circadian rhythms were largely dictated by the light changes around sunrise and sunset and were much easier to maintain — mostly because ill-timed light exposure was simply not an option.
Today, with the abundant artificial light sources available to us, it’s all too easy (and common) to use them late into the night. The reason this is so disruptive to sleep is that by avoiding darkness, we are also blocking the signal that allows our bodies to produce more of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. Limiting light exposure at night is a powerful tool for adjusting and optimizing your energy schedule.
Stumbling around in the dark between sunset and bedtime is hardly a viable solution, but there are relatively inexpensive interventions that can help you limit light exposure at night:
The good news is the effort you put toward maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm will do more than improve your sleep and energy levels. It can also contribute to better overall health outcomes and decrease your risk for developing some potentially life-threatening disorders.
According to a 2018 study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, a disrupted circadian rhythm and inconsistent sleep have been linked to higher incidences of cancer, depression, and cardiac disorders.
Whether you’re motivated by the possibility of shorter periods of sleep inertia upon waking or better long-term health outcomes, taking the time to tweak your sleep environment is a good idea. Making your bedroom a sleep sanctuary will set you up for a good night’s sleep. At Rise, we have three guiding principles for an ideal sleeping environment:
If you’re keeping a regular sleep schedule and consistently meeting your sleep need but you’re still waking up feeling tired, talk to your doctor.
It’s important to rule out or address any underlying medical issues or serious sleep disorders that could require medical intervention.
Sleep disorders — such as obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and restless leg syndrome — seem like the most obvious culprits. But other medical conditions can also disrupt sleep and cause chronic fatigue — from thyroid disorders and heart conditions to asthma and heartburn. A full medical workup is the best way to determine if you have underlying issues that may affect your sleep and energy levels.
Don’t Lose Sleep Over Losing SleepOnce you’ve done what you can to improve your sleep hygiene, do your best not to obsess or stress over morning grogginess or getting the perfect amount of sleep every night. Remember to look at sleep in two-week windows, and keep in mind that managing sleep debt is an ongoing process. Try not to think of waking up tired as a problem to solve. Instead, see it for what it is: the natural transition from sleep to feeling fully awake.
The RISE app is a simple, effective way to get yourself on the path to better sleep and better mornings.
June 29, 2021 Health
After a good night's sleep, one should be cheerful, fresh and cheerful.
Often, instead, we wake up with a bad mood and irritability. There is an explanation for this.
We spend the last few hours before waking up in REM sleep. This phase is characterized by increased brain activity. The most noticeable sign is the rapid movements of the eyeballs. The cycles of REM and NREM sleep are repeated 4-5 times per night. It is during REM sleep that we see vivid dreams.
In this phase, the brain consumes an impressive amount of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It is the source and carrier of energy in cells. Adenosine suppresses vigor and attentiveness and stimulates sleep, which is why we wake up sleepy.
The state after waking up is also affected by whether you slept with someone next to you or not. For example, women who share a bed with a man report a decrease in the quality of their sleep. But if sleep is preceded by sex, the woman's mood improves, she is tolerant of mediocre sleep and morning fatigue.
The presence of a woman in bed has no effect on a man's sleep. On the contrary, men notice a decrease in the quality of sleep when they spend the night alone.
Owls, who prefer to sleep and wake up later, are alert during the day and in the evening. But for those who like to go to bed late at night, the quality of sleep suffers and insomnia is more common.
Nighttime wakefulness affects the hippocampus, which is responsible for emotions, memory and attention, and may even contribute to its reduction in volume, which leads to reduced learning and memory loss, and may also be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease.
What we eat before bed also affects our well-being. Recent studies have shown that eating sweets before bed can improve mood in the morning. An increase in blood sugar levels affects the activity of the neurons responsible for sleep. For the same reasons, after a plentiful dinner, he tends to sleep.
Scientists still don't know why we sleep. But they know for sure that we need at least 7 hours of sleep every day. Lack of sleep leads to irritation and activates bad memories and negative emotions. Emotional instability is a consequence of the inability of the anterior lobes of the brain to control the limbic system.
Sleep disturbance also affects memory, and severe insomnia can lead to various illnesses and mental disorders. During sleep, scientists believe, the brain gets rid of a harmful protein that, when accumulated, may contribute to the development of senile dementia. If you haven't had enough sleep, drop everything and take a nap right now!
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Everyone knows the feeling of tiredness and lack of energy, especially during periods of bad weather or outbreaks of viral infections.
Normally, this problem is solved with the help of proper rest and sleep. But when such a state drags on and significantly reduces the quality of life, this is a signal that the time has come to think about the state of health of the nervous system.
Fatigue is a functional state of the body with a significant decrease in energy, performance and motivation, which affects both the physical and mental well-being of a person. As a rule, constant fatigue is a symptom, not a separate condition. In most cases, it is caused by a combination of lifestyle, health characteristics and social problems.
Constant feeling of fatigue can cause a variety of physical, mental and emotional symptoms:
Symptoms tend to get worse after exercise.
Clinically significant is the feeling of fatigue with accompanying signs for two or more weeks.
Certain symptoms may predominate depending on the type of fatigue. There are two of them:
Physical fatigue: Normally, muscle fatigue gradually accumulates during exercise and disappears after rest. Pathological cases are associated with lack or lack of sleep and health problems. It becomes difficult for a person to perform ordinary physical actions that he easily coped with before. For example, a patient who used to go to the gym regularly and with pleasure, completely quits training due to lack of strength. The problem can also affect completely routine matters: climbing the stairs to the second floor, walking to the nearest store. Muscle weakness will be a mandatory symptom.
Mental fatigue: it is difficult for the patient to maintain not only physical, but also mental activity. Memory, concentration, learning ability are impaired.
Eternal fatigue and drowsiness do not allow even light mental work to be done. This condition affects the reaction and attention of the driver. According to statistics, sleepy people at the wheel get into car accidents three times more often than others. This is comparable to the risks that are associated with the state of intoxication.
It happens that a person sleeps enough every day, eats normally and leads an orderly life, but constant weakness and fatigue do not go away. Feeling exhausted can make it impossible to manage even the necessary daily activities. This means that the condition requires professional diagnosis and possibly treatment.
Fatigue can be conditionally divided into physiological (normal) and pathological.
With physiological fatigue of the body, the causes are usually the following:
Pathological causes of fatigue:
Separately, it is worth talking about such a reason as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS, myalgic encephalomyelitis).
This is no longer just a symptom, but a separate disease, which is characterized by a high degree of fatigue without a somatic disorder corresponding to the state. Such patients may wonder why they are tired and apathetic all the time, almost constantly, since they are hypersensitive to even light exertion.
Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are able to conduct some kind of relatively productive activity for only a few hours a day, or even less. It's not about hard work, creative projects, or intense workouts - such people are exhausted even by talking about abstract topics or going to the nearest store. They have to spend most of their time trying to rest and recover.
For persistent weakness and fatigue, the causes in this case include viral infections, primarily the Epstein-Barr virus, and problems with the immune system. The etiology of this disease is still being studied. Risk factors are age over 40, female gender, and stress.
The main symptom of CFS is severe fatigue that lasts at least six months and is not relieved by rest.Post-exercise weakness is characteristic, which persists for at least 24 hours.
Constant companions of chronic fatigue syndrome are various sleep disorders, cognitive disorders, muscle and joint pain, orthostatic hypotension, painful lymph nodes and frequent colds. With constant fatigue, the reasons for the decline in the quality of life lie not only in poor health, but in the fact that it becomes almost impossible to lead a full-fledged lifestyle: there is no strength for previous hobbies and even work, self-development and learning new things stop. It becomes difficult to maintain daily contact with people up to social isolation.
Symptoms of the disorder may wax and wane, which can create a false sense of well-being. But, unfortunately, in the pathological state of severe fatigue, the causes are rarely eliminated without specialized treatment. Therefore, despite temporary remissions, the old problems return with a vengeance.
It is always important to understand why you feel tired.
If the condition lasts for a considerable time and it’s not just a too busy day, then you need to consult a specialist, because this not only interferes with life, but can also be a symptom of a serious mental or somatic disorder.
If you are sure that your condition is caused by a natural cause and is a normal reaction of the body, then you should give yourself a rest. In cases where the cause is unknown or pathological, only a specialist can tell you what to do if you constantly feel tired.
Since fatigue is often associated with insomnia and disruption of the nervous system, it is necessary to consult a psychiatrist-psychotherapist and a neurologist. Depending on the situation, the help of a therapist, psychologist and other specialists may be needed.
There are no diagnostic tests that can pinpoint the exact reason why the patient constantly feels tired. This difficult-to-diagnose condition that can mimic other health problems requires ruling out a number of other disorders and identifying the underlying cause.
The elimination of this pathological condition requires special knowledge and experience from the specialist, since there is no standard treatment regimen. The use of one drug is not enough; correction of prescriptions in the course of therapy is often required. Therefore, with constant fatigue and weakness, only a highly qualified specialist can determine what to do to ensure that the result is as effective and lasting as possible.
This condition affects many organs and systems. With general fatigue of the body, what to do can be decided only after the examination. It may include laboratory testing, exercise tests, instrumental methods, and mandatory psychiatric diagnosis.
Treatment should primarily relieve symptoms. It may include:
In this case, there is no universal drug - therapy is prescribed based on individual needs. If you caught yourself on such questions as “I am constantly tired, what should I do? Why can't I rest and pull myself together? How to stop this?” — don’t expect everything to go away by itself. Contact a competent specialist, because it is not known what is hidden behind these symptoms. Chronic fatigue develops differently for everyone: it happens that it is enough to normalize the lifestyle and eliminate beriberi, but sometimes complex complex therapy is required. Remember that fatigue quickly depletes the body, reduces immunity and prevents you from leading an active life.
