Sleepiness vs. Fatigue

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of working with Centre Volunteers in Medicine to discuss sleep with their behavioral health team. We discussed various interventions to help people who struggle with sleep, and one topic that came up is differentiating sleepiness vs. fatigue.

Have you ever wondered why you can feel EXHAUSTED but not fall asleep?

It's typical for people who have chronic sleep problems to experience a paradox of having extreme fatigue, but when given an opportunity to nap or sleep, they find that they cannot.

With chronic sleep problems, the body is on a type of overdrive which interferes with natural sleepiness.

How does one find sleepiness, and why is it so important?

Sleepiness is found when we have been awake for a sufficient amount of time. This amount of time varies by individual and circumstances. The higher a person's anxiety, the bigger the variations in when one wakes up in the morning, the longer you stayed awake in the morning lying in bed...all of those are factors (among others) dictate when sleepiness will arrive.

If you attempt to sleep before the "sufficient" amount of time has passed for your body's sleepiness kicks in and don't understand when to attempt to sleep (e.g., attempting too early in the night or staying in bed in the morning), then you will not find enough sleepiness to sleep well on a predictable basis.

Bottom line on this topic today? Start to differentiate between sleepiness and fatigue. Good sleep becomes predictable when there is sleepiness and not when there is only fatigue.

You can educate yourself and refine your sleep approach.

If you missed it in my last email, you can take a look at stats and how we use them to discern appropriate decisions to improve sleep when taking a formal, structured approach. You can also download a copy of a checklist of common reasons for fatigue if you are concerned that there might be reasons besides sleep that are driving your fatigue.

​You can read more about our services.

Happy Sleeping,

​Alissa S. Yamasaki, Ph.D.

Licensed Psychologist

P.S. - If you wish to receive this info directly to your inbox instead of finding it here, scroll down and complete the newsletter signup by checking the “sleep services” option. I write on sleep once on most weeks and announce service openings as we get them.