Why do I feel tired and sleepy?

From a physiological point of view, if you often feel tired and sleepy, this is a normal defense of the human body. Because you usually do not exercise much or are too busy at work, you will often feel tired and sleepy, which will make the brain activity fragile and the person as a whole become slower. At this time, you can relieve the symptoms through a certain amount of rest, diet adjustment, and mental relaxation.

Why do I feel tired and sleepy?

Most temporary burnouts can be relieved by getting enough rest. However, as we age, our body's metabolism slows down and our ability to remove reactive oxygen species decreases. The older we get, the slower we recover from fatigue. Therefore, for a healthy daily life, we need to find a fatigue recovery method that suits us.

1. Excessive accumulation of waste in the body

When people exercise, they use a lot of skeletal muscles in their arms, legs, and waist. Skeletal muscle accounts for about 36% of body weight in women and about 42% in men. Skeletal muscles consume a lot of calories, so you will feel hungry soon after exercise.

Although sugar is the main fuel for muscle cells, fat is also used when sugar is insufficient. When sugar is used as fuel, it burns completely with almost no residue; but when fat is used as fuel, a lot of residue is left. The residue produced at this time is lactic acid and ketone bodies. If lactic acid and ketone bodies accumulate in the muscles, muscle pain will occur and spread throughout the body through the blood. The spread of lactic acid and ketone bodies will hinder cell activity throughout the body, resulting in fatigue.

2 Brain cell hypoxia leads to brain fatigue

Even if we don’t do physical exercise or work overtime, we will still yawn and feel tired when we attend long meetings or lectures. In this case, although the muscles are resting, the brain cells are active. The adult brain is small, weighing only 1.5 kilograms, but it consumes 20% of the oxygen needed by our entire body. When the brain is actively active, it consumes more oxygen, so there is not enough oxygen supplied to brain cells.

3. Lack of sleep can lead to stress

If you don't get enough sleep, it's easy to get stressed. Stress causes the body to secrete stress hormones, which makes people forget about hunger and lose sleepiness. In addition, stress causes cell fatigue, resulting in the production of large amounts of reactive oxygen species and deterioration of peripheral blood circulation. Simple lack of sleep, such as from working overtime for one or two days, can be eliminated by getting enough rest.

However, long-term lack of sleep, such as three-shift work, will not only lead to physical fatigue, but may also induce serious sequelae such as high blood pressure, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and sleep disorders.

4. Unbalanced eating habits

The eating habits of people of different age groups vary greatly. The desire to drink sweet drinks in the morning is because our body needs energy to start activities. However, blood sugar will rise after drinking sweet drinks. In order to solve this problem, the body will secrete insulin to regulate sugar to lower blood sugar. After the blood sugar is lowered, people will feel tired and have headaches, and will eat sweet foods again, thus forming a vicious circle.