Why You're Always So Tired
You sleep 8 hours but still wake up exhausted? Here are common reasons my patients experience fatigue even with enough rest.
UPDATED: July 24th, 2025
Welcome to the Healthy Aging Newsletter, a free publication translating trustworthy medical research into simple habits to age well, free of chronic disease. I’m Dr. Ashori, a family medicine doctor turned health coach.
You go to bed on time. You try to eat right. You stay active. And yet, you wake up tired. Again. Most people assume it’s just poor sleep. But often, that’s not the real problem. Let’s talk about what’s really draining your energy and what you can do about it.
1. It’s Not Just About Sleep Hours
You were in bed for 8 hours. So why do you still feel exhausted?
Because sleep quality matters more than the number of hours. Some say it has to do with how many times you wake up during the night but some waking is normal.
Grinding your teeth, vivid dreams, waking up multiple times to pee, tossing and turning. These are signs that your nervous system is in overdrive, even while you sleep.
When you wake up in the morning, after about 30 minutes do you feel you’re well rested? If not, it’s likely that you had a restless night sleep from too many interruptions.
2. Digital Fatigue
When you wake up in the morning and immediately begin your day with a strong stimulation like bad news, checking your phone, watching the news, or reading email, it can set you up for a long day of feeling activated.
Constant pings, endless screens, never really unplugging keeps your brain in a low-grade stress state. We need downtime as I discuss in my TREND method.
There is sometimes that wired-but-tired feeling which many scientists associate with cortisol, adrenaline, insulin. One solution is to partition the day into times when you’ll check your news feeds and messages.
3. Emotional Labor
You’re doing more than your job, you’re holding space for others, you’re absorbing stress, managing moods, and fixing things behind the scenes. This is similar to the digital fatigue above but it’s a lot of emotional stimulation that’s hard to turn down by bed time.
This invisible weight has a name: emotional labor. It doesn’t show up on lab tests but it depletes you. The only solution is to take on less and leave a little headspace in your mind.
4. Decision Overload
Do rest days sometimes feel exhausting? It’s likely because you’re not resting but still making multiple decisions. Where to go, what to do, which errand to run, whom to call or reply to, and which book to read.
Modern life doesn’t leave room for a lot mental quiet but you can build it into your routine by setting downtime aside. Make all big decisions and have all big conversations before 5 pm, leaving you enough time to wind down for sleep.
5. Values Misalignment
You can have a full schedule and still feel empty or a sense of lack of accomplishment.
When what you do every day doesn’t match what actually matters to you, it creates emotional friction and leaves a void. This is a much bigger problem to solve because it’s so unique to each person.
Final Thought
Chronic fatigue isn’t always about sleep or enough rest or something you are doing wrong. Sometimes, it’s your body telling you that you might need a different balance of stimulus and downtime.
My medical practice sometimes gets flooded with patients and I want to do more and more, leaving me emotionally exhausted but professionally satisfied. Still, this imbalance plays out as some gut problems, insomnia, and not adequately recovering from exercise or stress.
Feeling drained in your 30s or 40s? Together we’ll design a tailored plan built around balanced nutrition, smart movement, restorative sleep, and practical stress tools. Step by step, you’ll feel at your best again so you can focus on what matters most.