I was on Effexor a couple of a few years ago and it made me very tired. I would go to bed about 9pm (within half an hour of getting home from work) and not get up until 7am the next morning. My Dr. put me on a low dose of Wellbutrin to counteract the this and other side effects. That worked pretty well. Now I take Cymbalta. It took a couple of weeks to get used to the Cymbalta but now I do not have noticable side effects.