As I age, I've learned to distinguish "not being excited" (languor) and "being tired" (exhaustion), which to my younger self felt like the same thing. The former is not always caused by a lack of energy, but also excessive idleness, especially if I'm doing things that requires attention but also isn't intellectually stimulating.
When the author refers to "normal tired" and "dead tired", I think that echoes with my two states. I don't quite think of them as existing on a scale, but the experiences sound similar.
Doing stimulating things (exercise, reading aloud, singing) can usually bring me out of the state of languor. Just getting that adrenaline rush is enough to jolt me back to life (and thus I don't think of it as recharging; more like a jump start).
If I'm exhausted, I can feel gravity in my joints, and I'll have to rest. Regular sleep, exercises, and generally keeping a good health is the only way I can combat exhaustion.
This hits the nail on the head for me. Interestingly, I only came to this realization later in life as well. I've always thought of myself as "tired" but the real problem is I require an exceptionally high stimulating environment to excite me out of langour.
Exercise. Video games. Occasionally (rarely?) an academic subject that I am good at and interests me can also elicit this excitement and energy.
But in general I go about life in a rather "depressed" mode. Most tasks are done not because I feel that little kick to do them, but because I know if I don't my life will be worse.
I often wish I was more naturally excited by things which are less stimulating. I waste a lot of time just satisfying that part of my brain that craves stimulation and novelty. It's really a shame, because I truly do wish I were spending that time on productive or meaningful pursuits.
I've wondered over the years why I'm this way, when I work among peers who seem to get stimulation from reading such arcane topics as linux kernel development.
I can only assume in my case the root cause is video games + the internet. I'm in my mid 30s and have had a video game in my hand since I was 5 or 6 (original game boy). If my spare time wasn't spent playing video games, it's spent on the lottery game of social media / the internet over the years. I'm only just starting to work on undoing the damage these mediums have done to my motivation and stimulation center. If I'm honest, part of me doubts I'll ever be able to be genuinely excited about some of the hard work that I wish I could be excited about, but the thought of living the rest of my life essentially a slave to stimulating media is a depressing thought. I want to create interesting things, which means I need to be genuinely excited to learn new subjects.
Sorry to hear. I think you're doing the right thing in trying to see if you can cope with lower stimulation gradually. Try lower stimulation hobbies, reading novels, going for long walks etc. Maybe you'll find that you can somewhat recondition yourself gradually. There really is a great joy in enjoying simple pleasures without distraction. Don't fret if you can't get there quickly or have a different baseline too, there's nothing wrong with being a certain way but, speaking from personal experience and general life experience, many of us seem addicted to things to one degree or another these days. Not least things involving screens.
Since you mentioned the word depressed, it can't do any harm to talk to a mental health professional too if you're concerned in any way about your emotional state. It may or may not be needed but that could also be a factor.
> Maybe you'll find that you can somewhat recondition yourself gradually.
That's the goal. I intend to be patient with myself on this task and work on it over the course of the next few years. I have no doubt that it will take years to effect any kind of substantive change.
This was an interesting post to me because I've never heard of that distinction, and I think I'm similar. I've often had issues with "being tired" but it's probably more accurately what you call languor. I'll have times when I'm bored throughout the day and sleepy but then a video game or stubborn coding problem will get me engaged and I'll suddenly spend hours and not feel tired at all while the time flies.
Likewise, I do find exercise helps when I do force myself to do it. The issue is often I have days where I struggle to motivate myself to do stimulating things, but perhaps that's another issue. Not really sure what could help there.
When I hit the motivation plateau like you’re describing, simply going for a walk or going to the gym pulls me out of it rather quickly. By the time I’m done, I come back and am motivated to work on high-impact things. I’ve found that moving my body and taking a break from dicking around online, or doing low-quality “productive” tasks with little consequence is the key there.
These being tired and fighting exhaustion with exercise threads must be a dread to read for anybody who works hard physically.
But I'm in the same privileged or at least not working physically position and I found most correlation with number of tasks I'm focusing on.
If there are too many things at once or none of them stands out, I'm more likely to feel tired.
If I'm focusing on a specific thing associated with specific action with no other things on my mind, it seems to be getting done effortlessly with high energy state.
I feel like for me that’s because progress in one direction implies lack of progress in other directions of concern. That’s scales with the number of things you’re trying to get done.
That’s why I think long running work streams with focus are so important. Context switching has cost beyond just the startup and tear down.
I think you're right to distinguish between kinds of tiredness, rather than levels.
The article, good and thoughtful as it is, suggests that a dead-tired state is somehow just more tired than normally tired. But there is also a tiredness in which you are keen and ready and would be happy to get moving with something, but your mind and body are unable to do the real work competently - the analysis or the lifting. This is like your exhaustion, without your languor.
I had this feeling a lot during 2020 and put it down to a justifiable mental response to the times (I hadn't had Covid, as far as I knew) until, slightly to my surprise, I was diagnosed with a vitamin B12 deficiency which turned out to explain pretty much the whole thing.
Extending your point, I think all of these subjective thought experiments on being tired are maybe useful for the person engaging in them.
People are so different for a myriad of ways that I don’t see how many of these ideas are generalizable.
Even being the same person but having different sugar and caffeine habits can dramatically change your energy level throughout the day. Without caffeine and sugar I have steady level of energy throughout the day. With sugar and caffeine I have peaks and valleys. It’s why I haven’t had soda since 2013.
Also probably fair to include burnout, chronic-fatigue/post-viral/long-covid, moderate to clinical depression, anhedonia, cardiac problems, auto immune diseases. Tired and fatigued are also super different. Sleepy vs tired, wired, and lacking the capacity to physically function effectively.
Growth = stress + rest. When physical or mental stress outpace rest you will get tired. The intensity and duration being the big differentiator.
I've spent the last couple of years at the two bottom levels of that scale. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize one of the root causes: my wife and I have fundamentally different personalities that are at odds with each other.
My wife is an extrovert. She is energized by going out, visiting places, doing things, meeting people.
I'm an introvert. I get energized by staying in, reading a book, watching a movie, spending time by myself.
This creates tension every weekend when we need to negotiated what to do. This friction is weary by itself, but then the outcome almost always makes someone unhappy. Most weekends rather than recharging for the rest of the week, I end up more tired than I started.
Not sure how well this will generalize but if you find yourself in those bottom steps it's worth it to do some introspection and audit how you spend your time.
Friends of mine are mixing weekends. They do one together followed by one each doing things by their own they want to do. So the introvert can e.g. stay home and refresh while the extrovert is again meeting people.
accept it, and enjoy the fact that it is making your life better. You could be dating an introvert and you could both be looking at your computers over the weekend.
If her extroversion isn't strictly social, maybe you kind find activities that allow you both to recharge.
A camping trip for example could allow you an opportunity to read, and enjoy nature, and give her the opportunity to explore (hike, kayak, forage, etc.)
If that doesn't work you may also just consider doing different things on most weekends, and making explicit time for each other for a nice dinner, a movie, or something more traditionally 'dating'.
We’re opposite in a lot of things we prefer:
- They love traveling w/ crazy schedules, bouncing around timezones for a week or two at a time.
- Sleeping and waking late.
- Going out late partying with friends.
- Spin classes or yoga with club music blasting.
- When not doing the above, they stay home doing literally nothing but watching Netflix or reading in bed for days on end.
They are either fully on, or fully off. I find this exhausting and/or boring as hell, depending on what mode they’re in.
I prefer the opposite in a lot of ways:
- Staying local, maybe taking a day or weekend trip every few months, and international trip once a year.
- Waking and sleeping early
- Time alone every day
- Working on personal projects or hobbies
- Lifting weights or exercising while listening to stimulating lectures or books.
- Having hours-long meals with friends or family once or twice a week.
We’ve found that instead of trying to do things we don’t like to appease the other. We find things that overlap for us and make it a point to do them together whenever possible:
- Cooking some meals at home
- Walking our dog around the neighborhood
- Going on day or weekend trips once in a while.
- Meals w/ friends and family, when I peel off to go home after, when they go meet up with friends to burn the midnight oil.
Wait till you have kids. Or rather: folks who don't have kids yet, recognize that when you do you pretty much lose your weekends to doing things with them. Especially so when you have more than one. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it does seem to be a thing that people don't really appreciate until they're knee deep in it.
This often leads to the sort of deep tiredness described in this post for introverted parents.
Find myself there as well somehow though I wouldn’t call my partner 100% extroverted, Im the onr more on the introverted side. To me a mind trick is to attempt a balance. For instance to realize that it would do me good to be outdoors during which I could still do my introverted stuff (introspection) during which I also do some phisical exercise. I just can’t be 100% within my head all the time, I still have to interact with them from time to time or escape for a walk from time to time. Some times Im out with my family and realize the energy is too good to be missed, this moment has to be taken advantage of, so I join in whatever we’re doing. I usually reserve one day a week of complete me time during which I paint completely isolated from others and distractions. Just knowing there’s an escape valve I can sacrifice a day for another. Im also getting a some dose of introverted recharge while working, while doing repetitive work on autopilot but I have to
admit there’s a bit of energy drain there too with the necessary socialization.
> This creates tension every weekend when we need to negotiated what to do.
Is it necessary to negotiate? Why can't each of you do whatever they want to do?
"Fine you go out I'll read a book" or perhaps "I'd generally rather read a book than go out, but I'd like to spend this time with you, so I'll go out with you to visit places".
When I’m falling asleep too late, exhausted, I say to myself: I’ll be alright tomorrow, just tired. I’ve been tired many days and I got through just fine. It doesn’t solve the dead battery problem but it removes the anxiety around not getting enough sleep or dreading the next day.
Sometime back one of mentors mentioned about https://theenergyproject.com/. I haven't gone through the program myself but the way he summarized is, important aspect of managing your work is also managing your energy levels through the day/week/year. Identify the work which requires more energy(mental/physical) and get that done first. Later on identify the things which give you more motivation or joy which in turn provide more energy. These could include going out for a walk or having 1:1 or having conversation with someone. Again this will vary depending on if you are introvert or extrovert.
Cardiovascular exercise takes more energy than it gives at the beginning but your body will get less easily tired further down the road. So yes, activities can give energy.
Not sure why you're being downvoted because it seems true to me:
For example, starting out with running feels very exhaustive and draining but once you're in the habit of it you overall feel more energetic I believe.
This is true and was proven by numerous scientific observations. Mild physical and intellectual activities indeed improve cellular energy levels to some degree.
Nobody really knows how it works exactly, but it's a fact.
Regarding mental energy - when I'm in an "everything is draining" state I consider that a depressive episode. When not in one of those, there are hobbies I find rewarding and stimulating (some even physical-energy-producing, like eating or drinking coffee). Or it can even be as simple/"idle" as "that was a fun run through Returnal, I feel pumped up."
Not gonna lie, I get nights where I don’t sleep at all and my mind ‘glows’ with thoughts and the thoughts are intrusive, almost an imposter on my mind. This is a good time to write and take notes. Missing a night’s sleep is detrimental to the next day where all the things that would normally excite me are boring as hell. All I can do is exist during the day and I feel slightly drunk and can’t do anything that requires good dexterity. It’s horrible. Then I make up the sleep debt by falling asleep on that day, and the feeling of rejuvenation is tremendous and I can function. I’ve talked to my doctor about those nights where my mind ‘glows’ with activity and I was diagnosed with mild psychosis. Luckily it’s treatable with meds, so there is that.
I also get this "glow" sometimes and can't sleep for an entire night. I feel like I just want to jump out of bed and do everything at once. But I keep telling myself that "I'll make sure to do it tomorrow" but that seems to almost never happen. I don't mind these sleepless nights, but I wish the "glow" came during the day instead.
That's funny, I have the same nights sometimes and never thought of asking a doctor. Seems it's just what happens when we stay too inactive for a few days or mess up our sleep schedule.
Was that the only symptom for the psychosis diagnosis?
Concussion is a trial by fire of discovering what is truly not taking up mental energy. In the acute phase you go from having 16+ hours of it per day to 10 minutes. The answer is pretty much just staring at a blank wall. Anything else is costly to a degree
I had a mild one that put me out of work for a week. I wonder if it's really a lack of energy, or just the body deterring you from any activity by pretending to be tired, so the brain can heal faster.
Agreed - surgeries too. Between waiting for the anesthesia to work itself out and the body recovering from the shock of it, it can be a wallop to the energy reserves. Recently slept like 20 hours a day for a day or two after a comparatively mild one.
I am a fairly energetic person. Yes, things have been slowing down as I age but my spirit is young.
I switched careers several times. About 2 years into my dev role I realized that I do have a relatively fixed amount of cognitive stamina. Took me a while to actually get it.
1. Partying all night has an extremely bad effect due to several factors I better not mention directly
2. Competitive gaming is sucking the life out of me. I have taught myself to avoid playing seriously anything Quake or StarCraft as these high skill 1vs1 games naturally attract other wannabes just like my younger self. It's all very demanding and I always end up either taking a beating or 10, or sacrificing the next few work days.
I have learned to take the ego hits and suffer horrible humiliations in the games that I love.
In any case, what never fails to charge and heal me is going to nature. Does wonders to body and mind
I am pretty sure people still play Pong, Arkanoid and Doom for that matter. Here, go play Spacewar! - https://archive.org/details/pdp1_spacewar (read instructions below, it is not obvious though, like press LCtrl+Enter to load)
This is very true. Some men have to have regular iron level checks and if their iron is too high, they have to have some blood taken out to lower the levels ( venesection). Definitely get medical advice if you're a male before taking iron supplements.
Fatigue is not only a mental thing as many assume. What really happens is our cells are gradually accumulating Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) while we are awake, and when a certain threshold of ROS is reached, we feel tiredness.
This is a defensive mechanism of a living organism to keep ROS levels at bay. But what happens if one ignores the fatigue? ROS cellular levels will continue to climb up to the point of a pathological cell destruction. The thing is ROS are chemically active and when there are too much of them, you are asking for problems. Such as: broken enzymes in mitochondria, overoxidized lipids, damages of DNA and mtDNA - it all starts to accumulate. This is when a fatigue may gradually transform into one of the physical diseases. Cardio-vascular problems, T2DM, cognitive impairment, ME/CFS. The list go on and on [1].
So, if you often feel tired then you should be very aware of the underlying biochemical processes. It's all mental until it's physical and hardly reversible.
This is relatively well known [1]. ROS normally go away after sleeping, and this one of the reasons we need sleep.
But. If you are past a certain threshold, ROS can do so much damage that it starts to affect cellular ATP production, leading to a tissue hypoxia. When this happens, it leads to onset of an acquired mitochondrial dysfunction. This is a pathological state that is characterized by a lingering fatigue as its main hallmark sign. Such fatigue does not go away after sleeping.
But usually it is not like 0 or 1. A person may have something in between and live without even knowing it, thinking that it's all just mental or age-related.
I wish I had heard about this earlier. I'm now 40 and my sleep patterns are not healthy. I don't have insomnia, I'm just used to sleeping past the point of total exhaustion. That cannot be good given what you say about ROS :(
I also think a very large majority of people on this planet are tired because of an unknown deficit of vitamines and minerals like Omega 3, Zink and Vitamin D
I never ate much meat but I do eat fermented-only dairy. I got my bloodwork done and I am iron deficient. I am taking the bisglycinate salt which is completely unnoticeable on my stomach. I'll have it retested after a course of 5000mg elemental iron equivalents (about a month). My mood noticeably improved after checking and correcting my blood vitamin and iron levels.
V in HVAC is for "ventilation" and although home AC unit might not provide it itself, I'd be surprised if there really wasn't any. Unlike AC, V is mandated by law in many jurisdictions.
The ones I know suck air out of the building (well, really, create a mild low pressure), and rely on fresh air getting in elsewhere (for example through dedicated intakes around windows in apartments.)
Vitamin D deficiency is well known enough it should stand up to the simple concern trolling done by people who demand a source like every post must be an academic journal.
I just saw a thing on social media that if you require 9-10 hours of sleep to function, you probably have sleep apnea.
That's been my case since childhood but I only found out a couple of years ago that I have mild sleep apnea. I was fitted for an ALF appliance and did myofunctional therapy and mostly corrected it. Now I sleep with tape over my mouth, which lets me wake up feeling mostly normal instead of hungover:
The only difference is that I use 2 pieces of 1/4" wide ordinary surgical tape in a X shape so that the outer lips are held closed instead of the center. This is for aesthetics, to keep the upper lip from stretching over time, which can lead to unpredictable levels of homeliness :-/
Hopefully this helps someone get enough energy to get themselves checked out.
Edit: also, the tape is short enough that it's easy to open your mouth and rip the tape off in the middle of the night to breathe. The tape is more of a hint to the body to get used to sleeping with the mouth closed.
Gluten can be responsible for such conditions. As many other external factors I guess. I have been reducing gluten consumption recently and kinda feel tiredness as reduced. Maybe unrelated but it cannot hurt. Also practicing sport regularly helps reducing tiredness. Human body is such a complex machine.
I believe that there is a general tiredness affecting large parts of the population. Maybe some side effects of covid-19 / the vaccines or maybe it’s completely unrelated and more psychological in nature like lack of deeper meaning in most people's lives.
All I know is that you have to fight it. this tiredness doesn't go away with more rest. On the contrary, your self-esteem will take a hit and you will internalise your lack of power.
This is dangerous advice, it really depends on what you're tired from and you can't apply it generally.
Eg tiredness caused by actual, diagnosed, Long Covid often does go away with more rest. In fact, even a tiny bit too much, too soon, can severely set back your recovery. To my understanding, parent's "just will yourself back into shape" advice is the exact opposite of what long covid patients should be told.
(Source: wife has long covid since January; her own experiences + what her therapists say from research and other clients)
To let you drag down by outer circumstances is more dangerous in my opinion. When you start running even if you would rather lay in bed that generates a lot of self-esteem. The resulting positive attitude may even be good for your immune system.
In some unfortunate situations you need to take some risks to get out of it.
It's not always about attitude, sometimes it's about physical healing. Sometimes, your body really just needs rest. Stop telling people stuff you don't know enough about.
Not overdoing it (to start with) is by far preferable tbh. My experience, for instance, is that inflamed achilles takes very long time (years) to go back to normal. To get it inflamed was fairly easy: resuming jogging a bit too swiftly after a winter break.
I know enough about people focusing too much on their wellbeing. You can trust me. Your mindset is more harmful than mine.
Sometimes the body needs rest, it's certainly true, but humans are adapted to a rather unforgiving environment in which you had to function even when in bad shape. Mind and body are connected.
This 'general tiredness' you're referring to seems to be linked to depressive states, whereas the blog post is more about exhausting yourself by trying to solve every little challenge you come across:
> Another key observation is that this tiredness I’ve been feeling is different from depression. I’ve experienced the latter in the past on a few occasions and while there are similarities in how they impact your life, I’d put them in different buckets. If only for the reason that I haven’t encountered these current experiences before.
Maybe it's a little bit of both; lack of motivation gradually eating at your reserves and transforming you into a generally tired person.
Hard to be sure tbh. I thought I had something like that since I had covid at least twice. Now I am on vacation next to sea and i wouldn't say I lack energy.
I think for some the daily grind causes noticeable fatigue fairly quickly (if not managed actively).
I think it has something to do with an accumulation of microplastics and/or PFAS/PFOS in our bodies. One of these things is going to be our generation's version of leaded gasoline.
I didn’t get COVID till this year. I was vaccinated, and while it was the most sick I’ve felt in years, it was relatively short, the worst symptoms only lasting about a day.
A few day’s afterwards, I went out to the mailbox to grab my mail. This is maybe a 5min walk. I was panting heavily by the time I got back. I used to walk 12+ miles a day in shit heat and I’ve never been particularly in shape, so that was worrying.
I haven’t noticed any increase in my tiredness, but my sleep schedule had been fucked long before COVID existed.
When the author refers to "normal tired" and "dead tired", I think that echoes with my two states. I don't quite think of them as existing on a scale, but the experiences sound similar.
Doing stimulating things (exercise, reading aloud, singing) can usually bring me out of the state of languor. Just getting that adrenaline rush is enough to jolt me back to life (and thus I don't think of it as recharging; more like a jump start).
If I'm exhausted, I can feel gravity in my joints, and I'll have to rest. Regular sleep, exercises, and generally keeping a good health is the only way I can combat exhaustion.