Originally Posted by
biminiblue 
I know this comes from bim's book of the obvious, but are you sleeping 7-9 hours a day?
Do you snore? Are you overweight? If you snore you could have sleep apnea which sort of keeps you from getting good restorative sleep, because you are constantly stopping breathing, therefore waking yourself up. Being overweight can also cause fatigue. The solution to being tired is rest, like haennie said. How about exercise? Do you get any? That helps with sleep, too.
Not overweight, no apnea. I try to work out at least 3x per week but admittedly exercise and downtime has been at a minumum for far too long. I'm a father of two young girls under 10 and co-parent my fiancee's 14 year old. I have a demanding full time job and several volunteer efforts in my community. The past 12-18 months - though sober - have been fraught with emotion and context ranging from despair to depression to anxiety to overwhelming stress. Perhaps life has been like that all along....
In the past five weeks it's gotten worse as the demands of a new job have me working near-constantly and unable to keep up. Everyone in my field and in my organization is like this. I replaced a guy who told me "I had to stop this job or I was going to have a heart attack".
He told me that AFTER I'd already accepted the job and been doing it for several weeks.
My exhaustion comes from always being spiked with adrenaline and cortisol... every damn minute of the day feels like I'm running to keep up with the next deadline. There is so much on my to-do list I don't even know what to start with when I have a few free moments... so I just deal with whatever is the next crisis in line as a management strategy.
When I do have some time away from work - then it is the demands of fatherhood... two sisters constantly at one another.... a fiancee who is trying to cope with her own high stress from school, work and parenting a teen....
I know the obvious answer is "get more rest". I go to bed at 9pm. I rise at 4:30 or 5 depending on the day. I am unable to sleep beyond that most days because I wake with a headache or the panic of racing thoughts of work. Sleep is usually punctuated by tossing, turning and several wake-ups.
When I wake I am just exhausted.... munted and weary. The only option feels like coffee. After a couple cups of coffee.... I start to feel I can manage through another day.... then by 9pm I am totally blown once again. If I'm lucky, I get a short run or half an hour at the gym. I'm mangaging, I'm getting by, I'm mostly in a positive mood about it.... I am supportive of my family and community and generally happy....
But the coffee and the exhastion and the stress take a heavy toll and it cannot be sustainable....
I 'know' that shifting away from dependence on caffeiene and back to a natural stasis and getting more rest and finding things to cut back on in my life are essential steps....
I have as yet been unable to make it happen.