Health
Why are some people always tired?
Why are some people always tired?
“Most days I stick to my routine, especially sleep,” says BBC journalist Sandy Ong. Before I feel tired, I get ready for bed, put on my pajamas, brush my teeth and do my skincare routine. “I put my phone away from me in the dining room, then go to my bedroom, which is quiet, dimly lit, and the right temperature, and read a story for half an hour before turning off the lights around 11 p.m.”
Eight and a half hours later, the alarm goes off and I wake up feeling exhausted,” Ong adds. I’m in early middle age, exercise regularly, and as far as I know, healthy. So why do I still feel tired when I wake up despite getting enough sleep?”
Many people experience the feeling of constant fatigue. According to a meta-analysis published in 2023 that examined 91 studies from three continents, one in five adults worldwide had experienced general fatigue for up to six months, despite not having an underlying medical condition. In the United States, 44 percent of more than 1,000 adults surveyed by the National Sleep Foundation in 2019 said they felt sleepy between two and four days a week. A 2022 YouGov survey of around 1,700 people found that one in eight UK adults are always tired and a quarter feel tired more often. Fatigue was higher in women regardless of whether they had children or not, and this finding was repeated in different studies.
Ambiguous concept
Rosalind Adam, a family doctor who has practiced in Aberdeen, Scotland for more than a decade, says fatigue is a very common complaint among her patients. This condition is so common that the National Health Service has even given it a name: TATT (Tired All The Time).
Despite the prevalence of chronic fatigue, scientists’ understanding of fatigue, what causes it, how it changes our bodies and brains, and how best to deal with it is limited. Even defining fatigue has been difficult. Adam explains that fatigue is different from sleepiness, which is more of a desire to sleep. Of course, the two are related, but fatigue is more multidimensional.
Poor quality sleep can contribute to feeling tired.
“We can feel tired in many ways,” says Christopher Barnes, a professor of organizational behavior and management at the University of Washington in Seattle who studies how sleep deprivation affects the workplace. For example, there is physical fatigue, which is the type of tiredness you might feel after a long walk or intense exercise session. Vicki Whitmore, director of a program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, that studies the biology of fatigue, explains that fatigue is normal physiologically. It’s easy to understand, and researchers have been studying muscle fatigue for a long time.
Fatigue at work affects performance and leadership
Fatigue can have both cognitive and emotional aspects, which explains why when we’re tired, we may experience brain fog and find it difficult to do things or snap at people around us.
In the past decade, scientists have finally been able to study other aspects of fatigue thanks to advances in imaging technologies and biochemical tests that allow us to see brain changes in real-time, Whitmore says.
Fatigue can be caused by a myriad of reasons. Fatigue is a symptom of many diseases and chronic problems, including cancer, MS, long-term COVID, depression, and myalgic encephalomyelitis. Fatigue can also be caused by less serious causes. Adam, who studies how fatigue affects people with myeloma, heart failure and prolonged covid at the University of Aberdeen, says: “It’s important to distinguish between disease-related fatigue and non-disease-related fatigue. “If we can distinguish between different types of fatigue, we may be able to deal with them differently and offer solutions tailored to each.”
The importance of sleep quality
The benefits of adequate sleep have been repeatedly emphasized (the amount of sleep adults need varies, but most people need seven or more hours of sleep a night, and experts recommend 7 to 9).
Without sleep, our body will not be able to repair muscles, strengthen immunity, regulate emotions, consolidate memories and new information, and other important things. People who feel tired for long periods of time have a higher risk of death than the general population and are also at a higher risk of developing anxiety and depression.
In some cases, fatigue is a symptom of illness
Inadequate rest can lead to headaches and other physical pains, as well as feelings of irritability, low mood, and unfocused mental state. These effects often affect our relationships as well. Barnes says: “We know from scientific works related to sleep and marital satisfaction that when one of the couples suffers from lack of sleep, the conflict between them increases.”
Fatigue can also have a negative impact on the workplace and affect performance and leadership. Barnes was the first to examine how sleep-deprived bosses are more likely to be harsh with their employees. “They come into work with less self-control and are more likely to engage in abusive supervision,” she says.
Fatigue can also have devastating consequences. In the UK, fatigue is the main cause of 20% of accidents on major roads. Human error related to fatigue or lack of sleep has also been involved in many human-caused disasters, including the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, along with other factors.
Ranjana Mehta, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies occupational fatigue, says: “Fatigue in oil and gas extraction work, both onshore and offshore, leads to significant disasters, loss of life, damages It has become economic and environmental problems that we are still involved in.”
But getting enough sleep is only part of the equation. Sleep quality is also important. “Better but shorter sleep is better than longer but poor quality sleep,” says Whitmore. “If your sleep is interrupted frequently, you will feel less refreshed.”
When we sleep, the brain stops external processes. Resting neurons create space for the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain to clear away waste products, such as the sticky amyloid-beta plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease. This waste removal system is called the glymphatic system. During sleep that is continuously interrupted and ineffective, many toxins are not cleared from the brain.
Daniel Jane Blum, a sleep psychologist and research assistant professor at New York University Shanghai, says that our glymphatic system works best at certain times of the day each day, so it’s best to get deep sleep at regular times.
Sleep that is constantly interrupted is not very relaxing.
Sleep time is important. Synchronizing sleep with our natural circadian rhythms (the brain’s 24-hour internal clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles) results in the best rest. This explains why night work is often associated with adverse health outcomes, from heartburn to diabetes.
Better but shorter sleep is better than longer but poor-quality sleep
Referring to the fourth and final stage of the sleep cycle, which is characterized by rapid eye movements during which we usually dream, our neural connections are strengthened and we process the emotions of the day, Bloom says that if you have the same eight hours of sleep but during the circadian period If it is not regular, you will have almost no REM sleep and you will not benefit from its benefits. Too little or irregular REM sleep has been linked to depression, dementia, Parkinson’s, and other cognitive problems.
Why are some people always tired?
Countless Reasons
Given the pervasive effects of poor quality sleep on our health, relationships, and work, it’s important to try to get to the root of the problem. When patients complain of persistent fatigue, the first thing Adam does is rule out possible medical causes.
Blood tests can sometimes be helpful in accurately diagnosing thyroid disorders or estrogen or other hormone imbalances. These conditions, especially in women, are often associated with feeling tired. Tests can also show if you are deficient in certain nutrients, such as vitamin B12, and folate, or minerals such as iron and magnesium. “Nutrient deficiencies play a significant role in fatigue,” says Geir Bjorklund, founder of the Norwegian Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine. “Essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and dietary components are critical for various physiological processes, including energy metabolism.”
Sleep is more effective if you go to bed at a certain time every day.
Blood tests don’t tell everything, so it’s important to get a thorough clinical history. “In healthy people, we look at the role of factors such as exercise, sleep, diet, and mental health, and consider factors that may be important for each individual,” says Adam. “For example, a person may have a young child who makes it impossible for them to sleep continuously.”
One of the common causes of fatigue is sleep disorders or breathing problems
Stress also plays an important role in fatigue. A 2022 study of more than 16,200 government employees in China found that those who had experienced stressful life events were twice as likely to report feeling tired than others.
When we are stressed, the body produces the hormone cortisol, which increases our body temperature and heart rate to prepare us to face the threat. Cortisol levels naturally fluctuate throughout the day, but when levels remain consistently high, they disrupt sleep.
A common cause of fatigue, Bloom says, is sleep disorders or breathing problems. This problem includes snoring, which occurs when a person’s airway is partially or completely blocked. Referring to a disorder that causes breathing to stop and start repeatedly during the night, he said that all snoring is abnormal and may be a sign of sleep apnea. All of these can disrupt natural sleep patterns and make it impossible to reach deep sleep. Therefore, people sleep for seven to nine hours, but their sleep is not of high quality.
Dehydration is another major cause of fatigue. Other common causes include caffeine and alcohol, which people often underestimate their impact on their sleep quality. For example, the half-life of caffeine is about 5 hours, which means that when you drink a cup of coffee at noon, a quarter of it is still in your body by midnight.
Alcohol, especially near bedtime, can negatively affect sleep quality in several ways: aggravating breathing problems, disrupting the circadian cycle, and preventing REM sleep. You may often fall asleep a little faster and sleep more deeply during the first sleep cycle. But then it takes us into the lightest stage of sleep, causing more wakefulness and more cortisol production throughout the night.
Bjorklund recommends having a balanced diet, addressing nutritional deficiencies, maintaining good sleep hygiene, managing stress through techniques such as mindfulness, regular physical activity, ensuring adequate hydration, considering therapeutic interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy, and creating a support network, to boost energy levels. it helps.
Why do people listen to sad songs?
There is a paradox in sad music: we don’t enjoy sadness in real life, but we enjoy art that makes us feel that way. Countless researchers since Aristotle tried to solve this contradiction. Perhaps through music, we experience a kind of catharsis of negative emotions. Catharsis here means refinement and cultivation of the soul. Maybe there is an evolutionary advantage in this feeling of sadness, or maybe we want to value our suffering. Maybe our body produces hormones in response to anxiety disorder, music that leads to a sense of comfort.
According to the New York Times, Dr. Nob, an experimental philosopher and psychologist at Yale University, in a new study published in the Aesthetic Education Journal, raised the question, “What is the purpose of sad music?” He tried to solve the contradiction of this kind of music. Over the years, he came to the conclusion that people often have two perceptions of the same thing. For example, they can consider people as artists if they have a set of characteristics such as an innate talent for working with a brush; But if they don’t have abstract values such as creativity, curiosity or interest and just recreate old masterpieces for profit, we can say they are not artists. According to Dr. Nob and his former student Tara Venkatsan, a cognitive scientist, perhaps sad music also has a dual nature.
The aforementioned research shows that our emotional response to music is multidimensional; You don’t necessarily feel happy when you listen to a beautiful song, and you don’t necessarily feel sad when you listen to a sad song. According to a 2016 study, the emotional response of 363 listeners to sad songs was divided into three categories: sadness and strong negative emotions such as anger, panic, and despair, nostalgia, quiet sadness and self-compassion, and finally sweet sadness is pleasant pain. It comes from consolation and understanding. Many respondents reported a combination of all three. The researchers called this research “Fifty Blue Spectrums”.
Given the layers of emotion and the ambiguity of language, it’s no wonder that sad music creates a paradox; But it is not clear why it induces a sense of pleasure or meaning. Some psychologists have investigated how certain aspects of music, such as position, pitch, rhythm, and resonance, are related to listeners’ emotions. According to research, certain forms of songs have an almost universal function: for example, among different countries and cultures, lullabies have similar acoustic characteristics that make children and adults feel safe. Thomas Irola, a musicologist at the University of Durham in England and researcher of the “Fifty Spectrum” study, says:
Throughout life, we learn to make connections between our feelings and what we hear. We recognize emotional expression in speech, and often these cues are used in a similar way in music.
Other researchers, such as Patrick Joslin, a music psychologist from Uppsala University in Sweden, believe that such findings reveal the value of sad music. Sad music, he writes in an essay, asks why “the second movement of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony evokes a sense of sadness?” It leads to the question, “Why does a slow step lead to a feeling of sadness?”
According to the findings of Joslin and his colleagues, there are cognitive mechanisms through which feelings of sadness are induced in listeners. These mechanisms include unconscious reactions in the brain stem, synchronization of the rhythm with the internal rhythm such as the heartbeat, conditional reactions to certain sounds, the arousal of memories, emotional contagion, and reflexive measurement of music. Perhaps because sadness is such a strong emotion, it can evoke an empathetic and positive response. In fact, understanding other people’s grief provokes a social response.
Why do people listen to sad songs?
The purpose of listening to sad music is not necessarily to convey sadness; Rather, it is creating a sense of connection.
Dr. Nob, along with Dr. Venkatsan and George Newman, a psychologist at the Rotman School of Management, designed a two-stage experiment to test the hypothesis. In the first part of the experiment, they gave one of four song descriptions to more than 400 participants. In the description of the first song, it was written: “transmitting complex and deep emotions, but technically full of errors.” The second track was described as: “music without technical errors that do not convey complex and deep emotions.” The third song was described as “highly emotional and technically flawless” and the fourth song was described as “technically flawed and non-emotional”.
Subjects were asked to indicate on a seven-point scale whether their song conveyed the intent of the music or not. Their goal was to show how important it is for music to express emotion and generally happiness, sadness, hate, or any other emotion on an intuitive level. Overall, subjects reported that deeply emotional but technically flawed songs best reflected the nature of music. In other words, the emotional expression had a more prominent value than the technical aspect.
In the second part of the experiment, which included 450 new subjects, the researchers gave each participant 72 descriptions of emotional songs that convey feelings such as “humiliation,” “narcissism,” “inspiration,” and “lust.” For comparison, they gave participants phrases that convey conversational interaction in expressing people’s feelings. For example, one of the phrases was: “An acquaintance is talking to you about the past week and his feeling of passion”. In general, the emotions that the subjects receive are strongly rooted in the “purpose of the music” and are similar to the emotions that make people feel close to each other in conversation: emotions such as love, joy, loneliness, sadness, ecstasy, and relaxation.
Mario Etti Picker, a philosopher at Lowell University of Chicago, finds the results of this study interesting. After reviewing the data, he came up with a relatively simple idea: “Perhaps the reason we listen to music is not just an emotional response, but we do it to understand the connection with others; Because, according to the reports of many subjects, sad music is not necessarily enjoyable despite its artistic dimensions. In other words, according to the paradox of sad music, our love of music is not the result of direct praise of sadness; Rather, it is the result of valuing communication with others.”
Dr. Irola also concluded in his research that empathic people are likely to be moved by unfamiliar sad music. They tend to engage in this kind of imaginary grief. These people also show significant hormonal changes in response to sad music. But sad music, like an onion, has many layers, and this explanation can give rise to other questions. For example, who should we communicate with? Artist or with our own past? Or even with an imaginary person?
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