Drained and Depleted; I’m Tired of Always Feeling Exhausted!
How Fatigue Undermines Health and Happiness
The greatest joys of life can lose their luster when you are dead tired and exhausted.
And life becomes dull when enthusiasm is replaced with tiredness.
As the barrage of tasks and the burden of responsibilities pile up, many are discovering that they are just too tired to fully enjoy life.
The relentless schedule of never-ending social events, business meetings, family, shopping, church, and who knows what else can take you to exhaustion.
It’s like life has conspired against you, using your routine to drown you in the misery of weariness.
Getting out of bed
As you navigate the challenges of parenthood and professional responsibilities, the weight of fatigue seems to leave you perpetually drained.
You have a deep sense of guilt because taking care of your child feels more like hell than a gift from heaven.
When you wake up in the morning, you don’t wake up to your own life. You wake up to tend to your little one’s needs and to complete tasks that are attributed to your responsibility.
The simple act of lifting your weary body out of bed becomes an uphill battle as if you’re pushing against an invisible force that seeks to hold you down.
Church is too much.
You long to participate in church. And you would love to stay connected with friends.
But you feel isolated because you’re too drained to be social.
Attending church events or spending quality time with friends becomes less frequent, often requiring immense effort and sacrifice.
For most parents who suffer from exhaustion, the first thing that gets eliminated from their schedule is the church.
How can you attend midweek bible study when you’re poopped by dinner time?
The DSM-5
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses (known as the DSM-5) is the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s professional reference book on mental health and brain-related conditions. It is the main guide for mental health providers in the U.S.
The DSM-5 clearly explains that chronic tiredness leads to depression.
And often, those who feel constantly tired are in danger of other mental health issues like dysthymia and anxiety. Tiredness also negatively affects such things as blood pressure, liver function, and thyroid performance.
Feeling tired all the time is a serious condition.
And it won’t go away just because you want to weather it out.
Ask uncle google.
Like everything else connected to psychology, there is an ocean of free advice available on the net about how to deal with tiredness. If you read up on it, you will probably find the usual set of recommendations:
- Eat often to beat tiredness.
- Get moving.
- Lose weight to gain energy.
- Sleep well….
- Reduce stress to boost energy.
- Talking therapy beats fatigue.
- Cut out caffeine.
- Drink less alcohol.
The normal axiomatic pharmaceuticals.
Emotional tired.
However, there is a kind of tiredness for which these remedies really don’t help. It’s the type of tiredness known as emotional tiredness.
Emotional fatigue comes when you’ve been neck-deep in a situation that is serious and life-changing. As time drags on, the tiredness drags you under, making you feel that the simplest tasks of everyday living are a burden.
People who are emotionally tired have drained their vitality and make an effort to participate in even the most common of everyday activities.
It’s like your tiredness is sapping the joy out of everyday pleasures.
No matter how many blessings you’ve got, tiredness is a thief who has stolen your happiness.
So what’s the solution?
The obvious answer would be to get more rest.
But bed rest won’t take away the problems that weigh you down and steal your vitality.
Sleeping more hours certainly has its benefits, but it only replaces the energy that you lost. It will not give you greater strength to deal with what is sucking you dry.
God’s way.
Thankfully, God has been helping people who are tired ever since He first made them. Actually, one of the very first lessons from the very first chapter of the Bible is about rest.
I’ve always found it amazing that Jesus used rest as a selling point for following Him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28.
God cares deeply about your tiredness.
And He knows that you need strength and energy and how to get them to you. And his ways may surprise you.
Did you know that there different kinds of rest?
One of my favorite parts of John Bunyan’s Pigrim’s Progress, is the part he gets a letter from the king telling him to leave the path of battle and visit House Beautiful.
If you never read this amazing story, let me tell you what happened at House Beautiful.
He rested.
But he didn’t just sleep. A sweet elderly couple ministered to him until he was fully rested.
There is rest in friendships.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have many really good friends. Thankfully, for this, you only need one.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 talks about taking the weight off of someone. That someone is you, and you may need a friend to take a load off your heart.
It’s amazing how rested you can feel after a deep conversation with a good friend.
There is rest in laughter.
This may seem silly, but being serious all the time is tiring business.
Proverbs 7:22 says that a cheerful heart is good medicine. Laughter is a gift from God. And laughter lightens the load and gives rest to a heavy heart.
Learn to laugh again.
There is rest in worship.
When God made the law that the Israelites had to rest on Saturdays, it wasn’t because He wanted them to stay in bed all day. God gave them the day off so they could worship Him.
There is rest in worship.
Contemplating God and feeling His presence renews your strength in ways that are impossible to describe.
How about you?
Have you ever been exhausted?
What did you do?
Do you think faith can play a role in rehabbing tiredness?
