Excessive sleepiness

[fleshconsumed]

Wanted to ask if anybody else has similar experience that I do. It seems to me that I want to sleep too much. I usually get up at 6:20-6:30 so I go to sleep no later than 11PM which gives me around 7 hours of sleep at night. It is supposed to be enough, but yet, often enough I still feel sleepy during the day that I feel it's necessary to take a nap in my car on my lunch break. When I come home I'm usually good for several hours, I may exercise or read, but lately I felt the need to take another nap for 30-45 minutes in the evening as well.

Lately I've been trying to study for microsoft certifications after work, but I feel too tired and cannot concentrate. I have to fight to keep reading. I have been trying to ignore it, but it seems excessive to me that I get 7 hours of sleep at night, then another hour and a half of naps throughout the day and I still do not feel 100%. That just seems plain wrong to me.

I know typical response would be go see a doctor, but I'm just wondering, does anybody else feel drowsy throughout the day, if so how do you deal with it? If I do go to doctor, what should I ask, what should I look for, etc?

EDIT: spelling x2

 

[Titan]

Do you consume caffeine? Crashes can be long.

Do you eat a lot of carbs, especially junk carbs? Your blood sugar could be low.

I only feel unusually drowsy on rainy days.

Otherwise I can usually tie my lethargy to diet.

 

[fleshconsumed]

No, no coffee. I don't drink it at all.

I usually eat 2-4 slices of bread a day when I make myself sandwiches. Occasionally I'd eat potatoes, vermicelli, or rice.

Don't know about sugar. I usually drink a cup of tea with honey in the morning and a glass of orange juice every day. Should be enough, shouldn't it?

 

[brikis98]

Why do you assume that 7 hours of sleep per night is "enough"? For most people, at least 8 is necessary. Due to genetic/biological/etc variations, as well as your daily activities (e.g. exercise, diet, etc), some people may need less while others need more, so it's not inconceivable that your body actually prefers 9+ hours of sleep per night to feel your best. You might just need to go to bed earlier or get up later and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

Now, if in the past you used to feel great on 7 hours of sleep and now suddenly you don't, you need to figure out what changed. Are you sleeping through the night or waking up many times? Did you change your diet? Add/remove caffeine? Are you exercising too much (overtraining)? Is your job more stressful? If you can't identify any factors of this sort, it's possible you are sick. A number of diseases are known for making people lethargic/sleepy, so if nothing else fits the bill, and sleeping a few extra hours a night doesn't help, you may try visiting a doctor.

 

[Titan]

Remember tea has caffeine, often more than coffee. Even green tea. Unless it is purely herbal, like mint. Try replacing with hot water and juice from half a lemon if you really want something that will clean your liver. Best of all it's free at most restaurants if you want something hot. Another good tea is burdock root and/or nettle.

If you drink diet soda cut it out. Sweeteners like aspartame can mess with your energy levels. The new age hippie movement complains about them as "excitotoxins."

15 minute naps are supposed to be good, but longer ones just make you more tired.

You might be getting too few calories perhaps? That would make me sluggish. If you feel tired after meals eat less and work more small snacks in.

 

[Titan]

Also, as a programmer I can attest to stress being a workout in it's own right, sounds like you are working very hard. The chemicals from stress in your brain are possibly the worst thing for you, they can even result in memory loss, along with those greying hairs. The wrong and easy way is to use caffeine or alcohol to cope, but both of those chemicals wear off and actually leave you with more stress in the end.

Your best bet to deal with stress is to find some time and a place to just rest and let your brain process all that's going on, a mental cool-down, if you will. If you can space-out while getting exercise like on a treadmill, bike or elliptical, it could help even more as exercise helps with stress.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Titan
Remember tea has caffeine, often more than coffee. Even green tea. Unless it is purely herbal, like mint. Try replacing with hot water and juice from half a lemon if you really want something that will clean your liver. Best of all it's free at most restaurants if you want something hot. Another good tea is burdock root and/or nettle.

If you drink diet soda cut it out. Sweeteners like aspartame can mess with your energy levels. The new age hippie movement complains about them as "excitotoxins."

15 minute naps are supposed to be good, but longer ones just make you more tired.

You might be getting too few calories perhaps? That would make me sluggish. If you feel tired after meals eat less and work more small snacks in.

A co-worker of mine loved to drink tea, but hated the caffeine. He ended up buying loose tea leaves and he'd use the same leaves to make five or six cups of tea. He claimed the caffeine was mostly in the first cup and his subsequent cups were just nicely flavored water.

 

[interchange]

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

A co-worker of mine loved to drink tea, but hated the caffeine. He ended up buying loose tea leaves and he'd use the same leaves to make five or six cups of tea. He claimed the caffeine was mostly in the first cup and his subsequent cups were just nicely flavored water.

He's right. You can do it with regular tea bags too. Just steep for 10s, throw away the cup, and pour in more hot water.


Also, 7hrs is not enough sleep for a lot of people.

 

[glenn beck]

Originally posted by: interchange

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

A co-worker of mine loved to drink tea, but hated the caffeine. He ended up buying loose tea leaves and he'd use the same leaves to make five or six cups of tea. He claimed the caffeine was mostly in the first cup and his subsequent cups were just nicely flavored water.

He's right. You can do it with regular tea bags too. Just steep for 10s, throw away the cup, and pour in more hot water.


Also, 7hrs is not enough sleep for a lot of people.

if I had only 7 hours of sleep a night I would be a wreck

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: glenn beck

Originally posted by: interchange

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

A co-worker of mine loved to drink tea, but hated the caffeine. He ended up buying loose tea leaves and he'd use the same leaves to make five or six cups of tea. He claimed the caffeine was mostly in the first cup and his subsequent cups were just nicely flavored water.

He's right. You can do it with regular tea bags too. Just steep for 10s, throw away the cup, and pour in more hot water.


Also, 7hrs is not enough sleep for a lot of people.

if I had only 7 hours of sleep a night I would be a wreck

Same; I can do it one night if I had 9-10 the night before, but I usually need 8-8.5h. Difference between 7 and 8 is huge for me.

 

[NGC_604]

..

 

[Deeko]

I'm more tired when I get 7+ hours than when I get 5-6 hours.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

I also have to take naps in the evening often, and I need 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning.

One thing I can suggest is to tailor your sleeping to complete REM cycles (1.5 hours). That is, sleep only 6, 7.5 or 9 hours, etc. I often feel just as good sleeping 6 hours or 9 hours, but when I sleep 6.5 or 7, I am more groggy.

Ideally, I should pick that 7.5 hour number more often than the 6 hours, but work, housework and training adds up.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: Titan
Remember tea has caffeine, often more than coffee. Even green tea. Unless it is purely herbal, like mint. Try replacing with hot water and juice from half a lemon if you really want something that will clean your liver. Best of all it's free at most restaurants if you want something hot. Another good tea is burdock root and/or nettle.

This is misinformation. Even the most caffeinated tea is still half to a third as caffeinated as coffee on average.
http://www.stashtea.com/caffeine.htm

As later posts have mentioned, the caffeine is extracted from tea very quickly so it is trivial to make your own decaf tea without sacrificing much flavor.

As far as sleeping goes, your first assumption that 7hrs is enough just may not be right. I need 8+ to make it through the day without being drowsy. Also, dont forget that exercise can really raise your energy levels. The days I bike to work I feel much more alert than the days I don't.

Also, realize juice is about as sugar saturated as you can get. Could be causing blood sugar spikes. Try diluting it with water (soon you wont be able to stand it straight).

If you havent had bloodwork done in a while, the thyroid guess is a possibility, worth checking out anyways.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

get your thyroid levels checked out.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
get your thyroid levels checked out.

Really? This is gonna be your first response when there are so many other things that could quite possibly fix the problem? 7 hours of sleep is often in the middle of a REM cycle so getting more or less could be beneficial. Also, 7 hours could be too little. Along with that, if you don't set your body on a regular schedule, your sleep schedule gets messed. Melatonin timing gets thrown off, etc. I'd worry about thyroxine levels only, if after fixing these things, the symptomology persisted.

 

[Kaido]

Go to bed earlier?

Seriously - my power hours are 9pm - 12pm. If I can nail those and then just wake up naturally (no alarm), I feel 1000x better and usually wake up before 5am (if you have a sleep deficet, you'll need to spend a week getting caught up on your sleep and establishing new sleepign patterns). My bedtime goal is 8:45pm and to fall asleep within 15 minutes. If you're seriously about trying to fix this, reduce your sugar, cut out the caffiene/alcohol/drugs, stop eating 2-3 hours before bed, stop drinking anything an hour before bed, and don't exercise within probably at least a couple hours of bed, but be sure to exercise during the day so you're tired.

But no one ever wants to hear the hard answer

 

[ericgomes]

I'm in that same boat. Diet and your lifestyle is of upmost importance. Depending if you work out or not, some people are required to have more sleep than others (that's what they've been accustomed to their entire life). I need around nine hours of sleep in order for me to feel great throughout the day. I also work, go to school full time, go to the gym for 90 minutes, and I have hockey every other day.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
get your thyroid levels checked out.

Yeah, a simple blood test will quickly rule out hypothyroidism.

OP - I'm assuming this schedule of yours used to not pose an issue? If you were to go to bed earlier, does/would make a difference? I had a similar situation and after wasting too much time trying to figure out why I was tired so much, I finally went to the doctor and learned that I had developed hypothyroidism. On meds now and I'm back to normal.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: ericgomes
I'm in that same boat. Diet and your lifestyle is of upmost importance. Depending if you work out or not, some people are required to have more sleep than others (that's what they've been accustomed to their entire life). I need around nine hours of sleep in order for me to feel great throughout the day. I also work, go to school full time, go to the gym for 90 minutes, and I have hockey every other day.

Yah - like for me, the simple fact of the matter is that I HAVE to go to bed early if I want to be awake the following day. If I go to bed even beyond 9:30-10, I'm lagging all day long the next day. But if I'm in bed early consistently, then I only need about 7 hours of sleep. If I'm up past 11pm or later, then I need more like 9-10 hours of sleep and never feel fully rested.

Funny how that works.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Thanks for feedback guys. I am on a diet. Like I said before I do not drink coffee, don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, I'll drink soda every other week because it's just too addictive to completely give up, however, I do not drink it on a daily basis. I usually drink tea with honey in the morning, water throughout the day and a glass of natural apple/orange juice mixed with mineral water in the evening. My other diet is usually sandwiches with lean meat, cheese and pickles, occasionally cooked rice, potatoes or vermicelli, sometimes home made salads, although I don't like them that much. I limit myself to junk food such as chips, like with soda, I occasionally cave in and have some every other week, but definitely not on a daily basis. I almost always try to have a sleep routine, that is go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time as well, and I always try to get 7+ hours of sleep at night.

Other than that thanks for all suggestions. There were some conflicting advices, Titan suggested low blood sugar, someone else as said to cut it out instead... Make up your mind guys

Originally posted by: Titan
Remember tea has caffeine, often more than coffee. Even green tea. Unless it is purely herbal, like mint.

I like mint tea, so I might switch. Does it matter if I buy any mint tea, or does it have to be "herbal"?



Anyway, I can't recall ever having these problems before, at least not this bad. Still not really sure what the problem is, I might be getting older, it might be because of the diet, or it might be thyroid as some suggested. I'll try to increase my sleep to 7.5-8 hours and time my sleep to REM cycles, try to wake up more naturally, rely less on my alarm and give it a week to see if it has any lasting effect. If it helps, that's great, if it doesn't I'll probably have to go to a doctor and do the blood work. Anyway, thanks for the advice guys.

 

[Titan]

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed

I like mint tea, so I might switch. Does it matter if I buy any mint tea, or does it have to be "herbal"?

If it's mint tea, it's just mint leaves so it is herbal. Technically "tea" is a plant so if you don't use that plant it's called an infusion which most people call herbal tea. I take some dried herbs, like mint leaves, or burdock root, put in a tea ball, and make "tea". No caffeine.

Since you are dieting and tired, try to go the whole day with no nap and get more sleep at night. First thing in the morning drink 1-2 big glasses of water to get your metabolism going. Make sure you're getting enough protein if your physically tired. You may need more water too.

If you can have a couple days of no work (like a weekend) you may want to cleanse with a juice fast. Get like 1/2 gallon of OJ and drink that and nothing but water for a day. Diluting it may be a good idea as well. See if you can make it 2 days. In between days, take some fiber supplements to have toxins that are cleansed bond to something. Some people feel really recharged after a fast, there may be something in your diet that slows you down and hitting the reset button can help you identify it. Make sure to do your homework on fasts if you try this, I am not a doctor.

One thing that gives me energy is I drink 1 8oz glass of unsweetened cranberry juice diluted in a pint glass (you can also figure it out by buying concentrate) first thing in the morning and just before bed. That really works keeping metabolism up for me. Warning it is kinda expensive and tastes like ass.

Ok, i'm out of extreme things to recommend.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: Titan

Since you are dieting and tired, try to go the whole day with no nap and get more sleep at night. First thing in the morning drink 1-2 big glasses of water to get your metabolism going. Make sure you're getting enough protein if your physically tired. You may need more water too.

If you can have a couple days of no work (like a weekend) you may want to cleanse with a juice fast. Get like 1/2 gallon of OJ and drink that and nothing but water for a day. Diluting it may be a good idea as well. See if you can make it 2 days. In between days, take some fiber supplements to have toxins that are cleansed bond to something. Some people feel really recharged after a fast, there may be something in your diet that slows you down and hitting the reset button can help you identify it. Make sure to do your homework on fasts if you try this, I am not a doctor.

One thing that gives me energy is I drink 1 8oz glass of unsweetened cranberry juice diluted in a pint glass (you can also figure it out by buying concentrate) first thing in the morning and just before bed. That really works keeping metabolism up for me. Warning it is kinda expensive and tastes like ass.

Ok, i'm out of extreme things to recommend.

There is zero physiological benefit in a fast. A spiritual or psychological benefit, maybe. But starving yourself for two days does absolutely no good for your body, nor does it cleanse anything in particular besides your mind. If anything, you'll have zero energy on a fast beacuse you're not eI'm a bit skeptical about the cranberry juice idea as well.

If you ARE dieting, are you actually eating enough? Sandwiches may not be particularly filling. Assuming you are, are you eating frequently enough? The "three meals a day" thing really doesn't work for many people, like me, and can actually work against you. For instance, you finish lunch at 1PM, and dinner is at 8PM, so by 5:00 you're a bit peckish and a bowl of chocolates is sitting there - so you grab a handful, and continue to eat your normal portion for dinner. Spacing out some higher-energy snacks (a smaller sandwich, piece of fruit & nuts, yogurt cup, etc.) between meals so you're eating something solid every 3-4 hours can help maintain energy throughout the day.

 

[angminas]

There are a lot of things that can cause fatigue. Do you have any other symptoms?

It could be something you're eating or not eating. Do you take a multivitamin or any other supplements? Your diet doesn't sound too bad, but it could probably use more beans and vegetables. Sandwiches are a great place to add whole grain and vegetables to your diet. Canned soup, too, if you watch the salt- just toss in some frozen mixed veggies or sliced squash or whatever. Anywhere you can add healthy, low-calorie foods might help your overall health. Look at what you eat and figure out if you're getting enough iron- if not, fatigue is a classic symptom.

Do you get any exercise? Do you wake up naturally, or with an alarm? When the alarm goes off, do you still feel significantly tired? If so, considering you're only getting 7 hours, you need more sleep. Some people have to really wind down for sleep. You might need to remove electronics from the bedroom, or stop doing something else you do in there that distracts you from sleep (reading, lifting weights, etc).

But you probably just need to get to bed earlier. You might have more success with it if you stop thinking of sleep as a waste and start considering it an investment in your future. Many, perhaps most people won't be at their best on 7 hours of sleep. And, of course, having a day of rest every week can help you recharge.

 

[StageLeft]

I'm surprised you guys need so much sleep, damn. I would love to get a solid 8 constantly but I generally don't because I'd rather watch tv or (more often than not) get up early to drink coffee and surf the net--I mean workout

I know 8+ is ideal, though for most, and makes the day better. I can do 6 or 6.5 long term and I do feel it but it's not critical. More than one night of 5 or so and it's lights out.

Good you don't do caffeine. Some is ok but personally I've found that if I do do much it screws with energy levels and gives me headaches to boot. Some excercise should help energy but if you'r egangbusters it will wear you out.

BTW if your calories are too too low of course it would devastate energy levels.