12 Reasons Why You Feel Tired All The Time and How To Fix it

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Why Do I Feel Tired All The Time And Have No Energy?

“Why do I feel tired all the time?” is a question we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives. Low energy levels rob us from being productive at work, spending quality time with our family, and being happy in general.

Nobody likes to feel fatigued and sleepy all the long.

But what’s the reason for your constant tiredness?

What causes tiredness and most importantly, how can you stop feeling sleepy and tired all the time?

In this post, I will list 12 possible reasons you feel tired every day and also, will talk about the ways to fix any of the problems you might have. It’s time to drastically improve your life.

1. You Feel Tired Because of You Bad Sleeping Schedule or No Schedule At All

You’ve heard that going to bed and waking up at the same time helps improve our sleep quality. A good morning routine is sometimes all you need.

But how many times have we done it?

Yes, waking up at the same time is easier because we all have jobs to do. But going to bed fluctuates all week long and by Friday we are so sleep-deprived that we spend half of the Saturday in the bed (that’s for those who don’t have kids). We catch up on sleep on Sunday too. On Sunday evening we feel fresh and stay late, but Monday morning we are forced to get into the working clothes again, and we must wake up early to do that. The nightmare starts again, and it goes like that until next Saturday morning…

You get the picture.

Not scheduling your sleep literary exhausts your body and brain.

One of the greatest motivational speakers of the last century –  Og Mandino, says in his book that we are all slaves of our habits. First, we build our habits, and after that, our habits build us.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you sign up or make a purchase I might get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my business. See full disclosure.

How to create your own sleep schedule?

It takes a while to teach your body to get into the habit of going to sleep and waking up at the same time.

First, you want to know how much sleep you need. I know, everyone says that we should sleep around 7 hours every day, but just because that’s true for me, it doesn’t mean you need the same amount of sleep too.

Many people feel happy with 5-6 hours of quality sleep.

The next thing you want to find out is what time you need to wake up. The rest is simple math.

For example, I need to wake up at 5 a.m. every day. I know I feel at my best after 7 hours of sleep. I’ve tried to sleep less, and I feel terrible. More than 7 hours make me lazy and less productive. Therefore, I usually go to sleep at around 10 p.m. and not later than 10:30 p.m.

On the weekends I work (I work from home full time), but when I had a 9-5 job, I would usually delay with not more than two hours.

Of course, if I were out with friends, I wouldn’t follow this schedule, but that’s just for a few nights in the month.

Consistency is my goal, and it should be yours too. I talk a lot more about how to wake up early without feeling tired here. 

2. You Feel Tired All The Time Because Of Your Diet

We are used to thinking that junk food and sugary drinks are the only definitions of bad eating habits.

Yes, this type of diet will get you overweighted and probably move you a few steps closer to diabetes, but it’s not the only type of lousy diet you might have.

Even if you don’t eat junk food, your diet still might be unsuitable for your body.

Here are a few reasons your diet might still be poor and make you feel exhausted all the time:

• Following a low-calorie diet  – trying to lose weight or just unknowingly depriving yourself of a healthy amount of calories daily.
• Low protein diet – this is something you might be experiencing if you’re a vegetarian or vegan and don’t observe your protein intake. Lack of proper knowledge and not enough protein in my diet caused me lots of health issues, including infertility problems (which I still struggle with), so be very cautious with this one.
• Lots of fried food and indigestion – I don’t understand why nowadays everyone considers fried food as healthy. Just because we put in the frying pan healthy ingredients it doesn’t mean the end product is healthy too (remember that the junk food is done as well with somehow healthy products).
• Eating whatever and whenever – This means that you eat whatever you have around whenever you feel hungry. This confuses your stomach and makes it overwork or stay empty for too long. None of it is healthy.

How to improve your diet?

Identify your diet and see if there are any issues with it.

How?

For a week or two write down every single piece of food that enters your body. By writing it down, you will catch the pattern easier.

Is it too much food? Buddhist monks tell us that the amount of food we put in our plates should be able to fit in our palms. You’ve also heard the saying: Eat your breakfast alone, share your lunch with a friend and give your dinner to your enemy.

I wouldn’t follow the last one (I enjoy having proper dinner), but I like the idea behind it. I think it mainly means that eating dinner late isn’t healthy. Also, many dietitians advise us to eat at around 6 p.m. or not later than two hours before we go to sleep.

The point is to find out what’s the best diet for you and to stick with it.

3. Stress keeps you exhausted and fatigued

And that’s not a secret at all.

Our bodies deal with stress in different ways, but if there’s one thing that’s in common, that’s the sleeping troubles.

If you’re usually stressing about work, family issues, or personal problems, chances are you are feeling tired and sleepy all the time. It really doesn’t matter how many hours you sleep, and it’s almost irrelevant how good your diet is. Of course, these things help, but as long as you’re experiencing high levels of stress, you won’t feel fresh and positive any time soon.

How to deal with stress in everyday life?

I bet you’ve heard most of the suggestions below, but maybe that’s because they work and it’s time to give them a chance:

• Exercise often – it helps you release excess energy and clears your mind
• Try yoga and meditation – You should’ve expected me to mention this after my small talk about the Buddhists above. I am in the process of creating the habit of doing yoga at least three times a week and meditate for 10-15 minutes 5 times a week.
• Walk outside more often – An hour of fresh air daily with reducing the stress, and it also helps you think and have a different perspective on life.
• Get rid of your problems, if possible – Of course, we aren’t always able to eliminate our problems, but most of the time we have some control over the situation. For example, too much overtime at work could be reduced after delegating some work or simply talking to your boss and letting him know it affects your health.
• Journal – Journaling is a great way to deal with stress and anxiety. I have a bullet journal and a gratitude journal that help me manage my stress levels, and they work. Here are 10 gratitude journals to help you if you’ve never journaled before.
• Read Dale Carnegie’s book – This man is a legend, and this book has saved my sanity many times that I’d like to admit. Every tip you’ve ever heard about how to deal with stress and worries is here (plus more).
• Find a hobby – Practicing a hobby you like will take your mind away from the problems. These precious minutes or hours of uninterrupted focus on something you love will improve your mental health.

4. You feel tired because you don’t exercise

It might feel weird why everyone recommends exercising when you feel tired and fatigued. After all, isn’t the exercising going to make you feel even more tired?

Well, that’s the trick!

By exhausting yourself with a good cardio or gym session, you pump in lots of oxygen in your body, move the mussels around and improve your body strength. All of that helps you think faster, be more productive, improve your health, sleep well and yes, feel refreshed and energized afterward.

When was the last time you gave yourself a good jog around the neighbourhood? Don’t you remember that afterwards, you were ready to do so many other things? Try it again.

How to start exercising?

Well… start!

Just joking!

Block out a few hours every week for yourself. It might be just 15 minutes every day, half an hour three times a week or whatever fits your schedule.

Respect this blocked time and ask your family to respect it too. Don’t make appointments or arrange meetings when you should be exercising.

Here’s a list of different types of exercises you could do:

• Jogging
• Zumba
• Salsa or any other Latino dance that could make your blood boil
• Simple gym session
• Aerobic videos on Youtube
• Boxing – that one would help with stress a lot
• Hiking
• Biking
• Gardening – I realize that’s not an exercise, but if you dig your garden this weekend, I believe you could skip the rest.
• Brisk walk
• Swimming
• Yoga
• Simple stretching – still better than nothing

5. You feel tired because of the lack of oxygen

We spend our days in offices; we drive our cars to get home or take the bus. We spend the weekends cleaning or going out to restaurants.

We barely spend time outdoors anymore.

And the lack of oxygen in our bodies causes tiredness and fatigue.

How to fix it?

It’s effortless, yet we rarely do it.

Go out more often.

Walk more. Breathe deeper.

See the sun and enjoy it.

6. No Vitamin D

Lack of vitamins would definitely affect your sleep quality and make you feel tired more often. But there’s one vitamin we usually don’t pay attention to.

Vitamin D.

Did you know that over 42% of the US population is deficient of Vitamin D?

Here’s what research says about Vitamin D and its deficiency:

“…About 1 billion people worldwide have Vitamin D deficiency…Many conflicting studies are now showing an association between vitamin D deficiency and cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and depression.” (Source)

What’s the reason?

Firstly, we stopped spending time outdoors. We stopped enjoying the sun daily, and Vitamin D is the only vitamin that could be mainly produced with the help of the sun. Secondly, we use many products with high UV protection, so the little time we spend under the sun, we still cannot get what we need from it.

How to know if you’re deficient in Vitamin D?

You need to do a blood test and then follow your doctor’s advice.

Personal note: One of the reasons to include Vitamin D deficiency as a possible reason for your tiredness is because I recently found out that my Vitamin D levels are way under the critical point. I almost didn’t have any Vitamin D in my body. The recovery process is long as this vitamin gets absorbed by the body slowly. But being aware of the problem makes me want to spread the news as I feel like no one is talking about it. But Vitamin D affects every aspect of our life, and that includes anxiety and depression levels.

To get your daily dose of Vitamin D you want to spend outside at least 20 minutes daily with 40% of your body exposed to the sun. If you don’t do that, then you are most likely deficient in Vitamin D and need to take supplements.

7. You feel tired because of your phone

You are most likely on your phone right now. There’s a 20% chance you are in bed and reading this while you know you should be sleeping.

Your phone (and my phone, I’m not a saint) deprives you of getting enough sleep. The blue light of your screen makes it almost impossible for you to get off your phone and go to sleep. It’s proven that it stimulates your brain to stay active and alert.

But, did you know that blue light also damages your sight and can increase the risk of blindness?

If you use your phone before you go to sleep, then it definitely is one of the reasons why you feel so tired all of the time.

How to deal with this problem?

I am far away from the idea that by reading this post, you will stop using your phone that much. Actually, almost no one could convince you to do that.

But you could improve your situation by following two simple pieces of advice I’ll give you:

• Block the blue light on your phone. There are apps to do that for you
• Don’t use your phone for an hour before you go to sleep. Read a book, journal or work on your hobby.

8. Too much coffee

Drinking too much coffee could be a reason you feel tired all the time.

It might not make too much sense why a drink that gives you energy would make you feel tired, but it’s possible.

Too much coffee causes fatigue, high blood pressure, anxiety and more.

Reducing the cups of coffee in the morning and eliminating coffee in the afternoons will improve your sleep quality, hence – feeling fresh and more energized the next day.

Please remember that caffeine causes addiction, so if you reduce the amount of coffee you drink, you might feel worse at first. Your body will want its fix of caffeine, and it’s going to crave about it for an extended period. I recently gave up on coffee because of digestive problems, and it took me around two months to feel like I don’t need any coffee in the morning. Did I mention that I still wake up at 5 a.m. every day?

9. You feel tired all the time because of poor sleep quality

I keep saying this here and there. But let’s talk more about good sleep quality.

Many factors affect your sleep quality, and I’ve mentioned most of them in the previous points. But I feel like I have to summerise them again.

Here’s how to improve your sleep quality:

• Go to sleep at the same time every evening and wake up at the same time every morning. That helps your brain understand that there’s time to be active and there’s time to relax and recover.
• Improve your diet and don’t eat at least two hours before you go to sleep. Educate yourself on what’s the best food to eat before sleep.
• Stay away from your phone or block out the blue light.
• Make sure your room temperature is cooler than usual as it’s very hard to have a good sleep if it’s too warm. Your body relaxes better in sleep if you keep the temperature at around 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit)
• Eliminate caffeine (some teas have caffeine as well) in the afternoons.
• Don’t nap for too long if at all during the day. Just because you feel sleepy, it doesn’t need you should sleep.

10. You feel tired and exhausted if you are depressed

Depression makes us feel simply awful. It takes away any joy from our days, and the world becomes a grey picture of weird shapes and faces.

It could also be the reason you feel tired and fatigued all the time.

People who suffer from depression believe they don’t have the power to look after themselves and usually ignore any self-care. This results in poor diet choices, overeating sugar, bad sleep habits, and isolation.

All that affects the body even more negatively, and the person feels even more depressed. The process is like a wheel that keeps spinning, and one thing leads to the other all over again.

How to help?

If you suffer from clinical depression, you need to see a doctor and follow his advice.

If you feel depressed, but it isn’t clinical depression, there are many ways to feel better. But the one you really need to focus on is self-care in any form you could practice. See these 50 ways to practice self-care daily and choose where to start. I also recommend you take a look at this source to help you mindfully get out of depression. 

11. You feel fatigued and tired because of sugar and alcohol

That’s not a surprise at all.

We already talked about sugar, but alcohol isn’t too much behind. The excessive intake of both will cause you digestive problems, dehydration, blurry mind and sleep problems. If you feel like you haven’t been good with either, it’s time to change your lifestyle.

12. Bad lifestyle and lack of self-care

This is the last one of this list of reasons why you feel tired all the time.

Overall, you could see that a bad lifestyle and lack of self-care and nourishment causes every single problem you might have with your body.

Make an audit of your life, get inspired to make a change, and improve yourself.  Here’s a detailed guide on how to change your life completely. However, you already know what’s right for you and what’s not. Work on having the inner power and motivation to make the changes.

Visualize the person you would become once you make some tweaks in your life.

Self-care isn’t hard, and sometimes self-care means to say No to going out and staying home to relax. Sometimes self-care means drinking one extra glass of water in the mornings. Little things like cleaning your home, getting an aroma candle, and breathing fresh air in the park for 10 minutes daily are self-care habits.

Self-care isn’t something that requires money, just the small will for the first time to put yourself first. At least once a day prioritize yourself and don’t feel guilty about it.

Look after yourself.

Favourite products to help you stop feeling tired all the time

Self-care Kit

Having a self-care kit is a must to help you relax at the end of a hard day or pamper yourself when you’ve got some extra time. I love this self-care kit from Etsy as it’s all organic and if you’re going to start looking after yourself, it’s best to do it in a natural way. See the stress-relief self-care kit here.

Anxiety relief kit

Another awesome product I recommend is this anxiety relief kit from Etsy. The lovely lady behind the kit combines aromatherapy with anxiety relief exercises that helped her overcome anxiety. You get 3 sets of cards with breathing techniques, affirmations and grounding. Awesome combination to help you feel better fast. See the kit here. 

Wellness and Sef Care Planner Bundle

If you like tracking and planning as much as I do, then this is your product. It’s extremely affordable printable that you could start using in a few minutes and get control over your life and mental health. This bundle will help you track your sleep, workouts, habits, meal plan, stay motivated and develop new habits, and much more. Have a look at it here. 

Meditation PlayList

As I mentioned above, I try to develop the habit of meditating a few times a week. I follow a lovely couple on Youtube and they have a great collection of meditations I keep replaying. See their full list of guided meditations here and take a look at the yoga videos they offer.

App to block the blue light on your devices

Blocking the blue light on your phone and computer should be your priority. If you are with an iPhone you already have this feature built-in. Go to Settings→Display & Brightness. Click on Night Shift and schedule the hours you’d like to block the blue light on your phone. I’ve arranged mine to start three hours before going to bed.

I dug a little bit for an Android app and found Twilight Blue Light Filter. It’s free to use, so go ahead and install it now.

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12 Reasons why you feel tired all the time

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