Transcription
You can get a full night's sleep, but you still wake up in the morning feeling exhausted. You have to drink a coffee or energy drink just to stay awake throughout the day. You constantly find yourself falling asleep, whether you're in class or whether you're at work. And don't get me started with naps. You feel like you can always take a nap anytime it is convenient for you. You are ready to go to sleep. You're always exhausted and you don't know why. So, this video is for you.
This is for my people that are always tired, always wanting to go to sleep. They don't know what's wrong with them, but they know they want to stop feeling that way. Well, I'm going to give you some tips for the people who are always tired and want to stop. So, the first one is to figure out your chronotype.
Now, this one is so imperative because your chronotype is your body's natural sleep schedule. I think this one is not talked about enough. And the reason why this is important is because there are different times throughout the day that different people have more and less energy. And if you do not know your chronotype, you don't know what times of the day you have more energy to do more high-intensity tasks and when you have less energy to do more less-intensity tasks. And the reason why this is important is because I think too many people try to follow what you see in social media. Wake up in the morning, go to the gym, do this, do this, do that. There are some people who have chronotypes that they would feel more energy if they went to the gym after work. There are some individuals that have a chronotype where when it comes to mental things that they have to do that are high intensity, maybe it's studying, maybe it's starting that business, it's better for them to do that in the morning or it's better for them to do that at a—you get what I'm saying—certain time throughout the day when they have the mental capacity, i.e., the energy to do those things.
Now, there are four chronotypes, and I will list below the quiz that I took to figure out my chronotype. But I think this has definitely helped me because I am—I believe I'm a lion—and I am like a 5:30 wake-up-in-the-morning type person. I know very cliché because I have a whole self-growth channel, but I actually am one of those people. I wake up early in the morning. It's great for me. I do high-intensity things in the morning, but for different people, there are different times a day you should do different things.
Now I know some people are going to be in the comments like, "Well, I can't change my work schedule. I can't change my, you know, school schedule." I'm not saying you can particularly change those things, but you can change what you do around those things and pick and choose and figure out, okay, during this time period, I have high energy. During this time period, I'm going to have low energy, so I should do this task at this time, this task at that time. There are time periods where people are trying to go to the gym. And it's like, no, the way your chronotype is set up at this time, you should be washing clothes. You should be doing a low-intensity workout to save your energy because you're going to need it during another time of the day, and it will just be better for you. But I think that's another one why a lot of people are tired. Sometimes it's because you're doing the wrong things at the wrong time. You might be waking up at the wrong time. You might be doing high-energy, low-energy things at the wrong time. But that's the thing that I would definitely say the first step is figure out what is your natural sleep schedule. So figure out what is your chronotype.
Now the next one, this one was actually very specific for me, and of course, you know, if one of those people that always feel tired no matter how much sleep that you may get. So I used to think I needed better habits. I used to think that I needed better structure. I used to think that I even needed more vitamins that I had to take. And though those things are important as well, I had to figure out that it actually wasn't always physical exhaustion; sometimes it was actually mental exhaustion. Trying to juggle a 9-to-5, create content, handle everyday tasks, and still trying to show up for myself. It felt like my brain never got a break. And on top of that, I often felt like I was falling behind no matter how much I was doing. I just couldn't get a hold of my life. And that kind of pressure builds up quietly. It's actually called decision fatigue. And for a lot of us, it drains us a lot deeper than you may even realize. So that's actually what led me to start therapy.
Today's sponsor, BetterHelp, helped me work through that mental overload. It's an online therapy platform that connects you with licensed therapists so you can talk to someone who actually gets what you're going through. No waiting rooms, no commuting, just support when your mind needs it the most. If you've been feeling exhausted in ways that sleep just can't fix, therapy might be your next step. Go to betterhelp.com/shammaya tiara or click the link in my description to get 10% off your first month.
Decision fatigue, in my opinion, is one of those things a lot of us don't think about much or think about enough. We always think it's something with our physical, which it possibly may be. But one thing that definitely helped me as well, including therapy, was actually just using a schedule to write out my day. So, every single day before my day starts, I try to write out the things that I have to do just so I can kind of get into the routine of doing things. A lot of people don't understand because you have so many decisions to make, whether they're big decisions, whether they're small decisions, that is using up your brain energy and it is literally exhausting you out. And so, especially when it comes to the end of the day or even sometimes when the day rolls over, you are bringing unfinished tasks onto the next day, unfinished responsibilities onto the next day. And I think a lot of people don't realize that that literally is exhausting you physically, but a lot of the root is it mentally. So I definitely, like I said, decision fatigue is a big one, too. Just cutting down the amount of decisions that you have to make because we already have to make a certain amount of decisions every single day. But if you can get in front of those things—such as, especially for the big ones, using therapy—and then for the little small ones, just writing out, okay, what am I eating tomorrow? What time am I waking up? What am I doing when I'm waking up? What am I wearing tomorrow? just doing little things to cut out the amount of decisions that you have to make. I've noticed it's made me a lot less tired throughout the day because if you don't prepare for the next day in the morning, you're probably making 50 to some odd decisions. You know, what am I wearing? What am I eating? All these other things. And a lot of times we don't see how that just causes a lot of brain power and it leads to a lot of exhaustion.
Now, the next one is caffeine. This is a big one that a lot of people use, whether it's energy drinks, whether it is coffee, to stay up in the morning, to stay up throughout the day. First and foremost, you should not be drinking caffeine on an empty stomach. I know some of you may do that. That is very problematic to do. First and foremost, you don't realize how sometimes your body can become addicted to having that feeling. So that rush that you constantly give yourself when you're not supposed to have that rush, your body regularly is supposed to have a certain amount of energy when it wakes up because it's going through an entire sleep cycle. So, the fact that you are waking up and you are needing this caffeine or you are wanting this caffeine, your body is going to become literally addicted to it. And the days that you don't have it, you're going to feel a lot more sluggish and a lot more tired. And what is it going to do? It's going to reinforce, "See, I need the energy drink. See, I need the caffeine." And it's like, not necessarily. You don't need it for, you know, energy all the time. Your body has just become addicted to that high energy it gets at a certain time throughout the day. And it knows, "Hey, every 10:00 a.m., we're drinking a coffee. Every 9:00 a.m., we're drinking this, we're drinking that." So, first and foremost, I would say try not to drink coffee more than two to three days in a row. Um, kind of like do two days and then don't drink for a day; two days and not drink for a day if you can do something like that. Another thing is, too, do not drink it too late in the afternoon. So, a lot of people often struggle with falling asleep or getting good quality sleep because they don't understand caffeine stays in your system for about 8 to 12 hours. So depending on what time you go to sleep, do that math to figure out, "Hey, is caffeine still going to be in my system by the time I'm going to sleep and by the time I am asleep?" I would say try to drink caffeine between like 9 to 11:30, maybe maybe 12 for some people depending on what your schedule is. But I would say definitely try not to drink it too late because it stays in your system. Um, and a lot of times, like I said, that just leads to you not having good sleep or leads to you having struggle to fall asleep. But also, like I said, try not to become addicted to it. Um, later in the video, I'm going to talk about some reasons why your body may be tired. But I think we have to focus on that, too. I think it's so easy to find a solution to the problem. Like, "Hey, I'm always tired. This thing fixes it." But a lot of times, we also don't realize, "Wait, all you're doing is putting a blanket over the problem." There's an underlying problem that you're not addressing, and you're just fixing it with something, but then you don't realize you become addicted to that fix.
So, the next one we're going to talk about is a nighttime routine. Now, this is not no 10-step routine. It's not like, "Oh, do this face mask and then do this meditation, do this." No, but you should have a routine so your body knows, "Hey, it's time for us to go to sleep." The problem that a lot of people don't realize, even when it comes into the chronotypes and just your circadian rhythm, which is the process that your body goes through when it's sleeping, we are on our phones all the time; we have screens all the time. Thousands of years ago, individuals went to sleep when it went dark. That's how you knew it was time to go to sleep for the most part, depending on, you know, what was your responsibility or the tribe or wherever you live. But for the most part, people went to sleep when it was dark. The problem is our bodies are built to go to sleep when it's dark. But it's dark outside, but we are inside, and we have all the lights on, and we have all the screens on, and then we expect ourselves to turn off all the lights, turn off the phone, turn off the TV, turn off the laptop, all these screens that we just had in our face, and we expect ourselves to not only go to sleep very quickly, but to get good quality sleep, and that's probably not going to happen. So different things I would say are to do things such as if you can have a low light, right? Um, instead of having all these bright lights on, can I—personally, I have like a light in my room that has about four or three different settings, and one of the settings I have is like a really low yellow light. I put that on after a certain time, about 1 hour before I go to sleep. That is the light that I have, so it's not a bright light. Another thing you could do is try not to be on the screen of any device too quickly before you go to sleep. So, even if you do 30 minutes, um, maybe you're doing this thing where it's like you get in your bed at a certain time or you just a routine so your body knows, "Hey, we're about to go to sleep." The problem is too many people will be watching TV one night in their living room, and then they go to sleep in their room, or they'll be cooking and they go to sleep in your room, and your body really doesn't understand, "Oh, wait, it's time for us to go to sleep. I I didn't notice what we were supposed to do." Get a nighttime routine. It could even be two to three things that you do every single night leading up to about 45 minutes to an hour before you go to sleep. So your body knows, "Hey, this is the time for us to go to sleep," i.e., this is the time for us to relax and power down. Your body is in go mode, 'cause it's like, if we need anything, if we we got to do anything, we going to stay up. We going to stay up. And now you're like, "All right, go to sleep." And your body's kind of like, "Oh, 'cause we sleep? I thought we was still in go mode." So, to help your body get out of go mode, to help your body relax, to help you get good quality sleep as well, you need to have a nighttime routine. And I know I keep mentioning good quality sleep because a lot of people don't realize the purpose of sleep is for your body to literally regenerate. Your body is supposed to go through this entire cycle while you are sleeping. And a lot of people don't understand they are getting seven, sometimes eight, some people even nine hours of sleep. And they're like, "Why am I still tired?" You're still tired because you got sleep, but it wasn't good quality sleep. Good quality sleep is your body feeling relaxed. Good quality sleep is your body feeling like, okay, I'm not thinking about a whole bunch of stuff from the day prior. I feel like I'm in a good setting. Another thing, too, is our bodies are more susceptible to get good quality sleep if it's just a couple degrees cooler when we go to sleep. But all in all, you just are paying attention to a lot of the things that I'm mentioning here. But if you mention me hear me mention—sorry—good quality sleep is because there's a difference between just falling asleep and then getting sleep that's going to make you wake up and feel energized.
The next one, of course, is your diet. I cannot make a video talking about good quality sleep and not talking about your diet. I say this in so many videos because it is so real, and you're going to hear me mention it in every single almost video. Take a blood test. I tell you guys all the time, go get your blood tested. Sometimes you are dealing with things that is causing you to be exhausted. Especially for my anemic ladies, okay? And a lot of women are anemic. There are things that are causing you to be exhausted throughout your day, and you're trying to cover it up with these energy drinks. You're trying to cover it up with this coffee and all these other things that keep you awake and keep you rejuvenated, and your body is literally screaming for help. So that is a baseline to try to figure out if there's anything that you possibly need to work on specifically for you. Another thing is to—I mean, it's—I would just say it's not common sense, but stop eating so much processed foods. A lot of times our bodies have trouble going to sleep because they cannot properly process these foods. And so when our body should be relaxed and sleep, like I said, going back to good quality sleep, your body is still trying to break down these foods. Your body is still in go mode when it should be sleep. Another thing, try not to eat two and two and a half hours before you go to sleep. This is because your body is going through a fast period. I know some people are like, "Yeah, but I feel a little bit hungry." That's why you should eat a good hearty meal with vegetables and things that are going to keep you, you know, full because your body is supposed to wake up in the morning and say, "Hey, I'm hungry." Your body is not supposed to feel like, "Oh, well, I can just eat a piece of, you know, just a piece of toast and some coffee and I'm good." No, your body is supposed to wake up in the morning and say, "Hey, I I'm energized. I feel good. Let's get in, you know, some protein. Let's get in some whatever the case may be." It doesn't have to be a huge breakfast, but your body is supposed to feel hungry. Your body's supposed to feel that way. And I think some people eat until they literally are about to pop. And you shouldn't do that as well. But that's one of the things I definitely would mention. Your diet. What are you eating? Are you eating fruits and vegetables? Are you eating things that are literally going to give you energy throughout the day? It's so easy to be like, "I don't have no energy." And it's like, "Yeah, because you eat all that high-processed cereal this morning and then you put bacon on the side and then for lunch you had this microwavable this and this microwavable that." It's like we're also supposed to be getting energy from food. So, if you're constantly throughout your day not eating things that are going to give you energy, don't expect your body to have energy, and you're not putting anything good inside of it. That's kind of like a car that's supposed to get um the most expensive gas—like the—you could tell I don't use that gas, but the most expensive one, the plus, the gold, whatever the case may be—and they're using the most basic gas. Of course, over time that car is going to have wear and tear. Of course, over the time that car is not going to drive as well because it's like you're not putting things inside the car that's going to keep it going. So, that's a good analogy as well. Another thing, of course, make sure you're drinking, I would say, at least like four water bottles, give or take a day. Also, see if you can get some more electrolytes inside of your body as well. Um, you can get those from—they have little electrolyte packets. I would say try to stay away from like the sugary ones, but you also can put a little bit of like Himalayan salt inside of like one of your bottles of water—not all of them—but that can help as well. Um, it's getting summer outside, so you should have more energy, but many women do have vitamin D deficiencies. I'm not trying to prescribe anything to anybody. I am not a doctor or anything of that sort. I'm just saying those are things that sometimes can make you feel tired, but of course, if you get your blood tested, you'll figure out exactly what you need. So, I would say get your blood tested. And then also make sure you're trying to eat fruits and vegetables on a consistent basis. And just as much as you can, try to stay away from processed foods because that's going to lead you to be tired.
The next one, of course, we have to talk about exercise. So, exercise, and I know some people are like, "I'm always tired. I have no energy to exercise." Going back to what I keep on saying, your body wants high-quality sleep. You're actually supposed to go to sleep feeling exhausted. You're supposed to feel that way after a long day. You're supposed to feel like, I want to have like this just relaxed feeling. I just want to let all this off of me, like I just had a long day. Not to the point where you're like stressed, stressed, stressed, but to the point where you feel like you just did a lot that day. A problem a lot of people don't realize is sometimes, too, your body is holding on to random pockets of energy or it doesn't really know what time to disperse energy or give energy because you're not using the amount of energy that you are supposed to be given every single day. If that makes any sense. So let's say the energy level that you get at the beginning of the day is 100. Every single day all you use is 65%; you don't really do too much. A lot of the jobs that we have, we sit down all day. We're very sedentary. We don't walk around. We don't really use our energy as much. So over time, your body is not going to keep giving you 100, 100, 100 because you don't use it. So a lot of times, too, people don't realize you don't have that much energy because your body is literally like, "Oh, we don't need it. You don't use it." So exercising is actually a great way to first and foremost improve your quality of sleep because it helps just your body stay regulated. Um, and also it helps you actually use the energy that you were supposed to be given. So, your body is going to give you more energy. You're going to feel better. You're going to feel more revitalized in the morning if you exercise because you are using that energy that your body is supposed to be giving to you. And your—if your body is getting the feeling of like, okay, well, we need this. Okay, let's give it to her. Let's give it to him. But if your body's like, we don't need it, you're—they're not going to give it to you.
And the final one is to have something that you are looking forward to. A lot of people may say, "Okay, well, I try to work out. I try to do all these things, but I don't know. It just feels like things don't stick, or it just feels like I'm always so tired." A lot of times, too, I feel like some people are tired with life. And I feel like it's kind of a melancholy thing to say, but I realize I used to sleep so much. I used to feel so exhausted. I just used to feel so sluggish when I didn't have anything to look forward to outside of work. And let's just be completely honest, a lot of people don't have much to look forward to outside of work. They don't have any hobbies. They don't have any passion projects. And I think you don't realize like your body understands when you're not happy. And so your body is going to treat you as if you're not a happy person. Because if you think about people who have depression, and I'm not um diagnosing anybody, but a symptom of depression is always feeling tired, not wanting to go outside, always feeling exhausted, always feeling that feeling of like, "What's the point?" And so, I think it's imperative, too, to have something that you are working towards every single quarter. Have hobbies that you do, but really have something that is making you happy. So, when you do leave work, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait to work on this thing." When you wake up in the morning, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I want to work on this thing or I want to do this thing." And that definitely comes through trial and error. You're not just going to watch this video and be like, "I got it." But I think that should be a task that you give yourself because you're tired because your body is like, "Why would we not be tired? All we do is go to work. All we do is do this." Your body isn't excited to be up. It doesn't feel like it really has a reason to be up. Kind of going back to the last thing I said because it's like, why would I give you all this energy and you're not even using it? So I think that's another thing that people don't think about for themselves. It's like, why would my body give me energy? Why would I have energy to do what—a lot of people say—"I don't want to be tired. I don't always want to be exhausted, feel exhausted." But then it's like if a magical wand was to be given to you and you were able to give yourself the ability to not be tired, what would you actually be doing during those time periods? A lot of times, too, people want more energy sometimes to do the things that they don't want to do. But
Also, people don't realize even if I give you more energy during the time periods when you're not doing anything and you just nap all day and sleep all day, you would just sit there. You would just be like, "Okay, well I usually sleep during this time period, but uh, it's nothing to do. Might as well watch some TV, scroll on social media."
So that's another thing that I think is really important. Having something that you're looking forward to, having something that you enjoy. Um, because like I said, when I was not having anything to look forward to or to enjoy, it was so easy to sleep all day. And it wasn't even that. Sometimes I was tired. Sometimes it was just like, what was the what's the point of staying up? What's the point of just like, all I'mma do is be on social media. All I'm going to do is watch TV. All I'm going to do is, so it's like I might as well just go to sleep.
But yes, so thank you guys so much for watching my video. Of course, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. I appreciate you guys so much. We are on the road to 100K. We are at about 90K right now.