this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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I feel perpetually sleepy.

I have a hard time napping during the day- scratch that I can't nap during the day. My anxiety makes it impossible. However the second I crack open a book I feel like I'm going to pass out. It's very strange.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (3 children)

If you have access to it, consider getting a sleep study done. There’s a bunch of different things that can cause daytime sleepiness that all need to be treated in different ways. If it’s something like sleep apnea it’s really important to get it treated ASAP.

It's super annoying too because you’re not going to necessarily have any idea anything unusual is happening after you go to sleep, unless you have a partner that brings it up.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Also if you don't exercise and get good cardio in daily, anxiety and sleep will be issues by default. It's crazy how sedentary some of us are. If I don't exercise for a week, I get massive anxiety, am unreasonably tired during the day but can't sleep well, and the next few days my pores are dripping sweat, until I get back on cardio track and go back to not sweating much.

Cardio is as evolutionarily necessary and inbuilt for humans as pooping and sleeping, and -- funny thing if you've experienced a panic attack before, you just feel like you have to run. It's insane how much gunk is cleaned out of your largest bodily organ when you run. From pouring stinky sweat for a couple days to barely sweating. And the sleep, energy and mood quality difference is also insane.

There are obviously other factors that can cause these issues, but if you don't exercise and eat right, and you're experiencing depression, anxiety, lack of energy, and sleep problems... Well, what's the saying, "if you stink, try a shower before bleach injections."

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

agree with everything you said here, but if im not the pedant someone else will be -- sedentary, not sedimentary. At least I don't like to think I'm sediment

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I thought the root word felt off as I was typing it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

it happens, they're super close :) i know I've made worse mistakes lol

[–] cactusupyourbutt 3 points 10 months ago

speak for yourself

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Agreed on the cardio thing. I run pretty regularly but a knee injury has put stop to that for the last month or so and I've just been miserable and bad tempered. Last time I felt like this was when I quit smoking.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

If it’s something like sleep apnea it’s really important to get it treated ASAP.

Sleep apnea is also linked to heart diseases, it's a really serious thing to left unchecked.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

To add to this, get your blood work done. You could have a lack of iron or something.

[–] PunnyName 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Mostly tired of being alive. It's terrible out there.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Used to, then I started jogging 30 minutes a day

[–] disguy_ovahea 7 points 10 months ago

Good advice. Cardio won’t fix fatigue, but a lack of cardio will induce it. It’s an easy place for OP to start, and if they still feel fatigue after two weeks of daily cardio they know to look elsewhere.

[–] TrendigOsthyvel 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was falling asleep all the time and all the places. Found out at the age of 23 I had a cyst in my brain blocking the liquids inside my head from flowing freely, thus affecting the whole of me in various and weird ways. Felt like shit growing up and hating everything. One brain surgery later, with complications of course, because why not? I felt like a completely new person, for good and for bad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] TrendigOsthyvel 7 points 10 months ago

I had spasms during the procedure with a bleeding in my brain as a result. Took me almost a year of getting back on my feet. But today I am super grateful to have a completely different possibility on life. This was ages ago today, but I carry it with me almost everyday.

[–] june 13 points 10 months ago

ADHD, major depressive disorder, and bipolar 2.

Yea. Tired. All the time.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even worse when you've been tired af the whole day but as soon as you lay in bed you are wide awake and it takes an hour to finally fall asleep.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Oh yes, I hate this and it happens often. But slowly less after trying to be more fit.

[–] kromem 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Things that might be helpful for people in here:

  • Get iron levels checked. A lot of people are actually pretty low. Make sure doctor using more recent reference ranges, as there's been a lot of bad outdated info about iron and infusions

  • Glycine. It lowers your core body temperature when taking before bed which puts you into deep sleep faster and more frequently so you end up waking up feeling more rested with the same amount of sleep

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Also, get a sleep study for sleep apnea. "It is estimated to affect 10% to 30% of adults in the United States but in many cases goes undiagnosed". -National Sleep Foundation

[–] waterbogan 3 points 10 months ago

Glycine

Thanks for this tip, I dont have trouble sleeping generally but my partner does, will look into this for him

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Speaking from only my own last issues that were similar: I had a massive vitamin D deficiency. Was tired but had issues sleeping. Became depressed etc. Finally had blood work done/doc visit when I started having suicidal thoughts.

OP, just schedule a doc visit tomorrow morning, plz.

[–] midori 9 points 10 months ago

Yes, but it's because of multiple sleep disorders and neurological disorders. It's best to get a polysomnogram to determine if you have anything wrong with your sleep patterns. If that yields nothing, then a CAT scan may be in order to determine if anything is wrong inside your skull. If that also returns normal, then at least you're otherwise healthy.

Source: had to go through all of this

[–] jordanlund 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I found out in January that, every now and then, when I'm asleep, my heart stops for extended periods. 8 seconds, 5 seconds, 4 seconds.

I wore a heart monitor all March and it happened 3 times. But never when I'm awake.

Now I have a hard time sleeping. (3:48 AM)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I hope you're seeing a doctor or medical professional about that. An unsteady heartbeat can be very serious.

[–] jordanlund 7 points 10 months ago

A bunch of them! Yeah! Next step is a long term monitor under the skin. If it's happening during the day, that's a quick trip to a pacemaker. :(

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, unfortunately. It's something that I'm working on with multiple doctors and practitioners, and so far we've gone through some of the usual suspects (Vitamin D levels, checking thyroid function, making sure I wasn't diabetic - already had my doubts on that one but I'm not the one with the medical degree I suppose..., etc).

My mental health isn't always the best, so I'm trying to get that worked on as well because bad mental health can cause lethargy and chronic fatigue (it's a two-way street though, the reverse applies too)... Unfortunately a lot of mental health meds have fatigue as a side effect which doesn't help my case. It also doesn't help that I have Crohn's disease, and any autoimmune/chronic condition in general can also cause chronic fatigue.

I don't know, I still feel like the root cause of it is an imbalance of something, but that's my best "gut instinct" guess - I have nothing concrete to base that off of. It feels like all of the things I'm trying are just attempting to "brute force" the issues away, rather than treating whatever is the root cause, but I digress... All I know is, it feels like the game was rigged against me from the start.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Anxiety is awful for me. When it hits, I just want to take a nap the rest of the day.

[–] colonial 5 points 10 months ago

I suspect I get mild SAD in the winters. Not enough to feel truly depressed, just more of a constant low-level "damn, I wanna nap right now."

It's probably different from your case, but what helped me was a sunlight lamp (light therapy) and a grab bag of supplements - standard multivitamins as well as magnesium pills and vitamin D fortified milk.

[–] MrsDoyle 5 points 10 months ago

My brother was sleepy all the time. It came to a head when he fell asleep at the wheel. Luckily the car drifted off the road onto a grass verge and no-one was hurt. Turned out he had sleep apnea - his breathing stopped time and again through the night, waking him. He never ever had a good deep sleep. He now has a CPAP machine that keeps his airways open while he sleeps. He says he's a new man.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Suss out medical causes through blood work, sleep study, etc. Work with your Dr on this.

Also work on sleep hygiene. Strict routime (go to bed and wake up at the same time every day), comfortable bed, cool dark room, preparation (nothing exciting, no screen use, no caffeine leading up to bed time), and mindset (we sometimes use headspace to help with bed time anxiety). My anxious kid has a weighted blanket and that helped him a lot.

Exercise during the day helps a lot with sleep and general well-being. I feel better and sleep better when I avoid sugar.

I don't know how to learn decisiveness but I believe it can be learned through practice and I believe that being decisive helps you sleep. You know you did what you thought was right, there is less worrying about your decisions afterwards. My other son and I are this way and we sleep like babies. Speculation, there is definitely a correlation there for us so maybe it is causal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I've had trouble with being sleepy at inappropriate times at least since my late teens. I almost always wake up feeling tired. (And before anyone says it, I have sleep apnea, but it's treated. I didn't notice a big difference when I started treatment.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Get your Vitamin D level checked, just in case.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yes, but in my case it's caffeine withdrawal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

A whole lot of things can be going on. Some vitamin levels can be low, it can be ADHD which just seems to get worse with age, and can also explain the anxiety. Of course capitalism plays a role.

But best thing is, get your blood levels checked, if it is a simple deficiency it is 'easy', otherwise you have to dig deeper, but of course, getting sunlight, try to go to sleep at a reasonable time, and eat healthy are things you could start doing right now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I used to. It was you could say „severe hormone imbalance”. Now after fixing that I have more energy than I ever would need honestly to the point I need to go running or something.

Unless I don’t sleep well then I just wait for the night whole day which happens more often than I’d like to. I need to be asleep already at 12 am and wake up at 8-9 to sleep well.

Problem is I work/think/focus best at 10pm-12am and I need to time my cbd oil into that to sleep. And considering the stuff makes me high for some reason even tho it shouldn’t theoretically then it gets complicated to schedule it all for optimal sleep.

In any case the oil removed anxiety from my life so that’s nice, maybe not completely I still get nervous some times y know but it’s big difference

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

deleted by creator

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If it’s low cortisol, then a quick burst of resistance exercise should made a difference. For example you could do a few push-ups or curls, and see if that wakes you up.

[–] Alteon 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Get a sleep study done. You likely have sleep apnea. You're likely overweight as well.

Get healthy. Get a CPAP. Get ATLEAST 7-hours of sleep a day (if you do you won't need naps).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

i would if i saw the entire world as a giant bed.