Chronic Fatigue – Life Doesn’t Have to be Miserable

Being tired all of the time can make it difficult to enjoy life. You feel crabby around your family, children, and loved ones. You can’t perform at school at work. You lose your drive to spend time with friends. You might struggle with erectile dysfunction (for men) and/or reduced sex drive. Small tasks become a big deal. The list goes on and on, but the important thing is that sleep deprivation impacts nearly every aspect of your life. 

What's even more frustrating is when you feel like this even after getting a full 8 hours of sleep. That seems counterintuitive. If you are getting 8 hours of sleep, then you are likely doing many of things you are supposed to in order to feel rested.

But here’s the thing, there are conditions that will give the illusion of a proper, full night’s rest without actually providing quality sleep needed, and generally fall into these categories:

• Sleep conditions
• Medical conditions
• Lifestyle conditions

Sleep Conditions That Cause Fatigue

One of the more common reasons you are tired all the time even after 8 hours of sleep is that you have a sleep disorder. Sleep disorders are conditions that prevent you from getting quality sleep. Here are a few sleep disorders that would give you illusion of sleeping throughout the night, but actually don’t provide quality sleep.

Sleep Apnea Causing Chronic Fatigue

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder and medical condition that causes you to repeatedly stop breathing constantly throughout the night, anywhere for 40 to 100 times or more a night.

When you stop breathing, you momentarily wake up to begin breathing again (though you won’t remember waking). Therefore, you might sleep from 9pm to 7am and still feel like you barely slept – because you really didn’t sleep! It causes severe sleep deprivation because you are constantly being awakened, thereby preventing any restful sleep from happening.

Here are common symptoms:

• Bed partner hears you repeatedly stop breathing throughout night
• Loud, chronic snoring
• Wake up exhausted in the morning
• Wake up with headaches
• Waking up choking/gasping
• Mood disruptions, such as constant irritability, brain fog, etc.

Parasomnias Causing Chronic Fatigue

Parasomnias are disruptive sleep disorders that interfere with your circadian rhythm, and may impact sleep quality without your awareness of it. You might compare this to, say, insomnia where you are acutely aware of your lack of sleep.

Common parasomnias include:

• Restless leg syndrome
• Sleepwalking
• Night terrors
• Chronic nightmares

Other Sleep Related Causes of Fatigue

Sleep deprivation despite a sufficient amount of time sleeping isn’t always the product of a sleeping disorder. Your sleep quality might also be impacted by:

• Not having an ideal sleeping environment: quiet, dark, peaceful, and comfortable room
• Adjust to doing shift work
• Stress/anxiety from work, marriage/divorce, moving, etc.
• Working hours that do not align with your natural circadian rhythm
• Too much “screen time” with laptops/TV/cell phones before bed, as the blue light can delay the onset of restorative stages of sleep
• Shift work

Any of the above can cause you to get less quality sleep even though you are getting the right amount of sleep time.

Common Medical Causes of Fatigue

There are some relatively common medical conditions that can make you tired all the time, even though you are getting 8 or more hours of sleep. These include:

• Hypothyroidism
• Hormone problems
• Diabetes
• Anemia
• Heart Disease
• Chronic illness

These medical conditions can leave you feeling drained of energy, enthusiasm, and make you feel like you could “sleep a year.” With such conditions, you might range from feeling chronically fatigued, to feeling like you happily put your head down and sleep at any time, to being so disruptive you can hardly function normally.

Lifestyle and Cognitive Causes of Fatigue

Finally, there are numerous lifestyle and emotional related causes of being sleep deprived from lack of sleep quality. Some of the more obvious ones are:

• Drinking too much alcohol, which greatly impacts REM sleep
• Poor diet/malnutrition, such as allergies or intolerances that can make you feel lethargic and sluggish all of the time
• Clinical depression/anxiety
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Shift Work

If you are living in Anchorage and struggle with chronic fatigue or tiredness during the daytime, contact us. We can help.