Anxiety Can Make You Tired

Anxiety and being tired is common, and I’ve also noticed that anxiety can mess with your sleep patterns in weird ways. Sometimes, it’s impossible to get to sleep when you’re anxious – this makes sense, given that your mind is probably racing like crazy. But on the other hand, sometimes, if you’re anxious, you just can’t stay awake – this also makes sense because anxiety can make even the mundane seem overwhelming, and sleeping is a way to filter all that out. For me, there’s no telling when anxiety will cause me to be tired or lose sleep – recently, I’ve been going through a bout of always feeling tired, so I wanted to talk about that.

Anxiety Makes Me Tired and Unproductive

I don’t mind sleeping, or resting, or taking naps. I have a lot of comfy blankets for that reason. What gets to me during these periods is the fact that it becomes a lot more difficult to do anything productive. Often, all I can do is lie down and rest – I’ll usually put on music in the background too, but that’s the extent of it.

Not living up to what I think my personal standard of “productive” is has been one of the most difficult aspects of living with anxiety. Even though they’re my personal standards, and they don’t really mean anything outside of my own mind, it’s still been very hard to break out of that mindset, even if I know how ridiculous it is.

I don’t know of any better way to make that mindset go away aside from continuing to challenge it. That’s hard because if you’re anxious, that’s probably when you’re most vulnerable to these kinds of unhealthy thoughts. All I can say is keep challenging them, and hopefully, they will be easier to manage with time.

Deal with Anxiety and Being Tired by Knowing Your Limitations

I feel another thing to keep in mind is that if anxiety causes you to be tired and unproductive, be aware of what you think you’re capable of doing. You’re certainly going to be less capable than normal, and you should be ok with that.

Other people need to be ok with those limitations too, and if they’re not, and I can’t stress this enough, reconsider your relationships with them and terminate them if necessary. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few years, it is that life is too short to spend it with people who aren’t going to approach your needs, regardless of how different they are, with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Above all, like everything else, know that feeling tired because of anxiety will pass, and you will return to a state of normalcy in due time.