

We should get insomnia out of the way because it's a problem many people struggle with ( approximately 30%-40% of adults in the US report insomnia symptoms in a given year) and can obviously wreak havoc on a person's ability to sleep and feel rested. Why does grief make you tired?: 10 Possible Explanations For example, being physically tired might require you to give your body a rest, while being emotionally exhausted might mean finding ways to calm your mind. Also, if you can step back and notice the type of tired you're feeling, it might help you identify ways to cope. Knowing there's more than one kind of tired can help normalize the many reasons you might feel exhausted in grief.

Finally, there's a general sense of fatigue that can be caused by a wide range of lifestyle, physical, or mental health factors and feels like a chronic lack of motivation or energy. Next, there's being emotionally and/or mentally exhausted where your body might have what it needs to function, but your brain just feels weary or overloaded. For example, there's physical exhaustion, which might result from being on your feet all day, intense exercise, or a sheer lack of sleep. The first thing to consider is that there is more than one way to feel tired. Especially if it persists for a long period of time, and despite efforts to rest, etc. We do recommend you speak to your physician if you're experiencing fatigue that you find concerning. Instead, the purpose of this article is to normalize the experience of being tired in grief and provide some rationale as to why you might feel this way.įinally, it's important for us to add the disclaimer that we aren't doctors. It's merely because discussing these outlets is beyond the scope of this article. That isn't because options for coping don't exist. You'll notice that we don't offer many suggestions for dealing with fatigue. Because many people experience unanticipated physical grief responses and then, naturally, search online to make sure they're not a sign that something is wrong.įor the purposes of this article, we're going to address reasons why grief might be making you tired. So if you found us after Googling something like, "why is grief so exhausting?" you're not alone. Grief and loss can cause mind-body mayhem, which comes as a surprise to those who thought grief would be a purely emotional experience (read about physical grief symptoms here). The simple answer is, yes, it’s perfectly normal to feel exhausted after experiencing significant loss. “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”Ī common question about grief that we often hear asked is: Does grief make you tired?
