Sick of Being Tired?

by Kris Pitcher

Are you sick and tired of always being tired? According to the National Institutes of Health, 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep loss and sleep disorders. Seems every one's tired. Here are a few tips to get you out of your daze and back into life.

You need 7 to 8. Hours that is. People who think they can get by with 6 or fewer hours of sleep aren't kidding anyone. On average, we need 7-8 hours of sleep for rest and recovery. It's also difficult to "make up" for lost sleep. A consistent 5 hours per night during the week can't be made up by sleeping the whole weekend.

Make a list before you go to bed. If you wake up and worry, or have trouble falling asleep - this is a great tool. By making a list you are releasing all of your "to do's" and not relying on yourself to remember them the next day. That's too much pressure. When you wake up with worry, write it on the list.

Take a close look at your schedule and commitments. Are there things you can let go of so you aren't as over-committed? Time is precious, make sure you are filling it with the things most important to you. Busying yourself in the evenings with too many things makes for very late nights. What can you let go of?

Decrease your caffeine. Try enjoying your caffeinated beverages before noon, and no later. We can get into a cycle where we need it to wake up, rely on it all day, then it keeps us up most of the night only to leave us needing it in the morning. Vicious cycle. Nothing after noon.

Increase your water intake. Being fully hydrated allows our body to operate at a higher capacity. This just makes sense. It will literally perk up your cells. It will wake up your brain.

Get off the sugar rise and crash cycle. Eat your balanced nutrition throughout the day to maintain a healthy and steady blood sugar. Eating sugary foods high in refined carbs make us tired. Period. These are the habits that get our systems into cycles of feeling down and tired. Get out by eating well.

Taking control of a few things will get you out of the tired rut in a hurry. You'll be sleeping better and feeling refreshed when you wake in no time. Sleep loss is a tremendous stress on our bodies, doing what we can to counter that keeps us healthy. I'll see you on the other side of tired!