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I am not a morning person. The first 2-3 hours of every day I feel exhausted, I have headaches, Im not hungry at all. Whether Im at work first thing in the morning(which is most days), or just lying around the house, its always the same feeling. I cant function properly because of this problem. After this time has passed though, I am full of energy and feel fresh, and this lasts until the end of the day usually. How can I feel good in the mornings? Surely its something I can improve.

(As a side note, I get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Days where I dont have to wake up early, I get 8-9 hours, but I still feel exhausted in the morning.)

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I am not a morning person. The first 2-3 hours of every day I feel exhausted, I have headaches, Im not hungry at all. Whether Im at work first thing in the morning(which is most days), or just lying around the house, its always the same feeling. I cant function properly because of this problem. After this time has passed though, I am full of energy and feel fresh, and this lasts until the end of the day usually. How can I feel good in the mornings? Surely its something I can improve.

(As a side note, I get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Days where I dont have to wake up early, I get 8-9 hours, but I still feel exhausted in the morning.)

I get all the same symptoms. My solution was to work the night shift so I could get up at 3-4PM and have a couple hours before I had to go to work at 6PM.

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You may not be getting restfull sleep. I had the same thing where I always felt tired and it took years of taking numerous medicines etc. Finally, I go refered to a sleep clinic to find out I have a bad case of sleep apnea. Sure, I would get sometimes 10 hours of sleep but almost none of it (unbeknownst to me) was truly restful.

Still, assuming you don't have sleep apnea, always eating a healthy breakfast will help your energy levels through the day. The same goes for drinking water or juice. Plus, one thing I learned to do was to not sleep overly late on the weekends. I noticed that it only takes two days to mess up my body clock. So, it would end up taking about 3 or 4 days to get comfortable again to with a sleep routine. Then it would start over again. Ugh. So I double checked my sleep schedule and became more consistant.

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Try taking luke warm shower and eat light breakfast (even if you don't feel hungry). Headache maybe a result of dehydration - so drink a glass of water or juice first thing in the morning and see if it helps.

Believe it or not, that is my morning routine. I shower usually, grab a protein shake, and drink a lot of water throughout the morning(and entire day). Notice anything wrong with that?

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You may not be getting restfull sleep. I had the same thing where I always felt tired and it took years of taking numerous medicines etc. Finally, I go refered to a sleep clinic to find out I have a bad case of sleep apnea. Sure, I would get sometimes 10 hours of sleep but almost none of it (unbeknownst to me) was truly restful.

If I wasnt getting restful enough sleep, wouldnt I feel tired throughout the entire day, and not just the morning?

Plus, one thing I learned to do was to not sleep overly late on the weekends. I noticed that it only takes two days to mess up my body clock. So, it would end up taking about 3 or 4 days to get comfortable again to with a sleep routine. Then it would start over again. Ugh. So I double checked my sleep schedule and became more consistant.

Same here. If I sleep for 8-9 hours one night, then it pushes back my bedtime for the next night, and I dont get tired until a later time.

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Believe it or not, that is my morning routine. I shower usually, grab a protein shake, and drink a lot of water throughout the morning(and entire day). Notice anything wrong with that?

Me too, although I don't drink water. Bear in mind that I have to literally choke down the food. I'm nausous for the first few hours I'm awake. Sometimes I can't manage it and don't have breakfast.

Same here. If I sleep for 8-9 hours one night, then it pushes back my bedtime for the next night, and I dont get tired until a later time.

Same here. I can't ever fall asleep quickly or wake up quickly. When it's time to go to bed, I have energy to go another 4 hours at least. When it's time to wake up, I feel like I'd rather die than wake. If I sleep in, then I can forget about falling asleep at a decent hour.

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Same here. I can't ever fall asleep quickly or wake up quickly. When it's time to go to bed, I have energy to go another 4 hours at least. When it's time to wake up, I feel like I'd rather die than wake. If I sleep in, then I can forget about falling asleep at a decent hour.

Oh boy, this is exactly how I feel! It's so bad that in the past, it cost me a job. Now, it's threatening to destroy my marriage.

My wife has to spend 3 hours getting me to wake up, some days. She hits me, punches me, even pulls hard on certain parts of my body that still have hair (leaving that to your imagination) and I still don't wake up. Lately, she started pouring water on me. That gets me up, but I still feel lousey once awake. I now sleep 12-15 hours. 15 hours, if I worked the day before and am tired. 10-12 hours, if I relaxed the day before.

For the past 40 years, getting up in the morning was very difficult. My head always felt like it was full of lead, like it weighed 100 lbs. I awake and can't open my eyes without pain. I feel like I'm having a severe hangover, every morning. Even if I know it's destroying my life to lay in bed, when I'm in that state of consciousness, I don't care about anything. I just want to go back to sleep and dream some more.

Oddly, when I was living in the Philippines, I would always wake at 4am, when the first rooster crowed, or when the guy outside my window started up his motorbike. I had no trouble getting up. But back then, I was engaged to be married, and I was living in a foreign country and everything was new and different. Back here in CT, I can never seem to get up before noon, unless there is a very important appointment to attend. Sometimes I sleep so late that I awake to see the sun setting.

20 years ago, I worked swing shift at a manufacturing mill. Man, that really wrecked my sleep cycle. I was bad enough before that, but things go worse after 3 years of working A shift for 7 days, then B shift for 7 days, then C shift for seven days, and the cycle would repeat.

Even years before that, I would often be drowsy on the long commute from work. One evening, I dozed while on the freeway and awoke to the jarring stop of my car plowing into the car in front of me. There have been many times when I dozed at the wheel since, but thankfully, I regained consciousness before running off the road (they have those buzz strips on the shoulder of the highway now to wake you when you drift off the road). I used to fall asleep on the job, usually 2-3 in the afternoon, because I was too drowsy to stay awake. And on the night shift, in the mill, I would doze off, only to be awakened by the crew leader yelling "HEY!!!" at me.

Every night, I go to bed with the resolve to wake early the next day. Every morning, I sleep right through the alarm clock, plus 4-5 more hours and when I finally do wake up, I am angry with myself for failing to master my body.

When I do get up early, say, to attend class at Primerica on Saturday mornings, when I return home, I don't feel right. My head feels woosy and I usually have a headache, so I go lie on the couch at 1PM when I get home from class. Sometims I wake and find that it's 10PM!!!

I can never sleep early. I'm a night person, at least in THIS time zone. No matter how much I try to adjust my sleep patterns, I always end up reverting to the late night mode. The only time I feel decent is when I get up after 2PM. If I get up before noon, I fell "off kilter" for the remainder of the day.

'Wish I could control my sleep habits, because it's one more strike against me achieving financial success.

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My wife has to spend 3 hours getting me to wake up, some days. She hits me, punches me, even pulls hard on certain parts of my body that still have hair (leaving that to your imagination) and I still don't wake up. Lately, she started pouring water on me. That gets me up, but I still feel lousey once awake. I now sleep 12-15 hours. 15 hours, if I worked the day before and am tired. 10-12 hours, if I relaxed the day before.

Wow, I don't have it that bad. I've been known to hit the snooze button every ten minutes for two hours straight, but not that. Perhaps you're a bit like me and Baseballgenius but your condition is aggrivated by your other troubles? Do you also have energy to spare when it's time for bed? If not, then you probably have something different.

For the past 40 years, getting up in the morning was very difficult. My head always felt like it was full of lead, like it weighed 100 lbs. I awake and can't open my eyes without pain. I feel like I'm having a severe hangover, every morning. Even if I know it's destroying my life to lay in bed, when I'm in that state of consciousness, I don't care about anything. I just want to go back to sleep and dream some more.

I do get that, but only if I wake up in the AM, and even then usually only if before 10AM or so. I've had it where, if I'm in that tired-state, I can barely speak. Someone will ask me a question, and I stare at them, my mouth open to reply, but no words will come out. And oh boy am I cranky.

But, if I so much as sipped coffee, I became animated and cheerful with frightening speed. I mean, like, as little as ten seconds. Unfortunately, this also causes me to crash mid-day so I try to avoid it unless it is absolutely necessary.

But on the night shift, it's totally different. Sure, I'm groggy and nauseous for that first hour or three, but by the time I'm at work, I feel fine. And I'm good to go for my twelve-and-a-half hour shifts and then some. My only problem is that I still can't fall asleep when it's time to sleep and so still end up getting up later every day.

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Oh boy, this is exactly how I feel!

Isn't sleeping that much generally a sign of depression? Given some of the other things you've mentioned in your posts, and how little motivation you seem to have to do anything, I wouldn't think that it's very far-fetched. Have you ever looked into that? It may be that part of your problem is some sort of chemical imbalance, especially if you've had trouble with this for pretty much all your life. I don't think this is the only problem you have, but it might be worth checking out.

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Not sure if this will help but I used to feel tired all day, then I changed my diet from mostly meat to mostly vegetables.

I find that eating all that fiber really helps. Now my stress load is much lower.

I don't feel tired all day. Just in the morning. Same thing with BaseballGenius.

Edited by Inspector
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The ingenuity of modern pharmaceutical science has finally solved my lifelong insomnia problem. Now I take a pill and go to sleep. I wake up refreshed 6-7 hours later. I used to have difficulty falling asleep, and then staying asleep for more than 30 minutes. Waking up at a normal hour (6:30-7a), I wouldn't feel 'normal' until around 3p. Now, for the price of a prescription refill each month, I get nearly twice the productive awake time as I did before. Aren't the drug companies wonderful, that they can do so much for so little?

-Q

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Have you considered looking into polyphasic sleep? Diana at NoodleFood did an entry on it some time ago.

I don't much like to get up in the morning, but I jump in the shower first thing and I always feel fine right away, in fact mornings are generally my most productive time. I get loggy in the middle of the day and then around 8pm I start to wake up again, just in time for bed. :fool:

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I've had lots of difficulty getting restful sleep over the years. I used to wake up dozens of times in the middle of the night and still be very tired when I got up. I had a lot of success with pharmaceuticals and *always* sleep better when I'm taking them. I'm also much more productive when I've had good, restful sleep. I'd seriously recommend looking into getting some medication to help with your problem.

It also helps me to get up a little earlier than is neccessary. Once I've had my coffee, breakfast, and a shower I feel much better. I also do fairly simple things, like check my e-mail or do dishes, for a few minutes in the morning to give my brain a little time to wake up.

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Have you considered looking into polyphasic sleep? Diana at NoodleFood did an entry on it some time ago.

Polyphasic sleep is when you sleep for like 30 minutes at a time, several times throughout the day. I wont say anything about how efficient it is, but its very impractical, especially for people who have jobs. "Hey, boss. Its time for my nap." I dont think that would come off very well.

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Some exercise might activate your body and improve mood in morning.

When I do exercise of moderate intensity or higher(or concentrate on a mental task of the same intensity) in the morning, I end up getting very tired in the mid-late afternoon and dont ever recover. So it ends up being a trade-off of when I have to feel tired. But I do feel a bit better in the morning when Im able to take my mind off of how I feel, it just tires me out quickly.

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I found a possible helpful explanation for the disorder this Sleep Researcher calls, Delayed Sleep Disorder:

"Bright light in the early hours of the morning will generally result in phase advance. Often repeated bright light exposure over consecutive mornings will be necessary although it depends on the delay of the sleep phase. It is a good idea to read outside in the early hours of daylight to assist the sleep phase shift. When the eyes focus to read the pupil dilates and more light hits the back of the retina where it can be sensed by the brain."

It makes sense. Light is essential in keeping the body functioning properly. Im going to open my blinds in my room, so in the morning the sun will be shining through. I'll see how it affects me.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:UfFfln...;cd=2&gl=us

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Polyphasic sleep is when you sleep for like 30 minutes at a time, several times throughout the day. I wont say anything about how efficient it is, but its very impractical, especially for people who have jobs. "Hey, boss. Its time for my nap." I dont think that would come off very well.

You don't get a lunch hour? I've thought of trying it and I have a job, I just prefer to be flexible on the taking-a-lunch front because I'm confronted with a bunch of bad examples of the other sort where I work.

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