Why Everyone Feels Exhausted These Days (Even After Sleeping Well)

Most of us assume that feeling tired comes from not getting enough sleep. But many people feel exhausted even after sleeping well. Why? Are we living in the era of The Great Exhaustion?

These days, being tired isn’t just physical — it’s also mental. You can feel exhausted even when you haven’t done anything all day. Sometimes, just thinking about something is enough to drain you.

We live in an era where the mind feels overloaded even when the body hasn’t lost much energy. You can wake up feeling fine and suddenly feel exhausted after seeing an email, thinking about a task you’ve been avoiding, or getting a phone call from a certain person.

According to psychiatrist Dr Alok Kanojia (HealthyGamerGG), your brain is actually the culprit behind making you feel tired. It uses an adaptive mechanism to stop you from investing energy in a task if it believes the workload is high and the reward isn’t worth it. It does this by making you feel tired.

Think of it this way: when there’s a task like writing a long report, sorting financial records, or cleaning your entire house, you start feeling exhausted before you even begin. This happens because your brain thinks, This is going to take too long.

When a task requires a lot of energy, the chances of success feel unclear, and progress isn’t visible, the brain tries to protect you from wasting energy.

Tiredness, in this sense, is an energy conservation strategy. The brain does the math, then uses emotions to stop you from making what it believes could be a costly mistake.

Tiredness is an emotion. When you feel tired, it’s worth asking yourself: What is my body telling me not to do? The answer often lies there.

Tiredness is a signal that part of you feels the task ahead is a waste of energy. Your body tries to prevent that “waste” by making you feel exhausted.

One way to get underneath this tiredness is to think about how you feel after completing a task. Usually, you feel good. But before you start, your mind often goes into avoidance mode and talks you out of it because the task feels too big.

For example, let’s say you want to build muscle and think about going to the gym. Your brain immediately tells you that results take months — maybe even a year. Since there’s no immediate payoff, it says, Why even bother today?

In short, when the finish line feels far away, the brain prefers comfort now over progress later — and convinces you not to start at all.

Sometimes progress doesn’t feel clear because there’s simply too much to do. If your brain tells you that you’re going to feel worse after making progress, that’s when it becomes a problem.

That’s also when you need to question how you’ve arrived at the conclusion that doing the task will make you feel worse.

This is the point where you notice your mind quietly discouraging progress, and suddenly, the feeling of being stuck makes sense.

Your brain does the calculations, decides it’s not worth the effort, and pulls back. But when you start thinking about how good it’ll feel at the end, you become far more willing to begin.

One of the best ways to make your brain want to take on a task is to break big task into smaller ones. This is known as task chunking. It convinces your brain that the effort isn’t a waste of energy because now the first step feels easy.

Completing that tiny step creates a sense of progress, making the task feel manageable. That’s when your brain starts thinking, maybe this isn’t so bad, and you finally get going.

Another reason why we feel tired all the time is decision fatigue. Many psychology and behaviour sources estimate that the average adult makes about 33,000–35,000 decisions per day. From the moment you wake up, you’re deciding what to eat, what to wear, what to watch, what to listen to.

Even ordering coffee used to be simple. Now it’s latte, cappuccino, americano, flat white, piccolo, espresso, cold brew — with oat milk, coconut milk, almond milk, venti or grande.

Our brains weren’t designed for this many low-stakes decisions.

In the past, life was more routine-based. Options were limited, so the brain used far less energy deciding. Today, every small decision uses mental energy. Make too many, and the brain goes into conservation mode — which feels like tiredness.

So yes, we are the tired generation. Inconsistent sleep patterns do play a role, but it’s not just that. Our brains are overloaded.

We’re constantly told to sleep more, eat better, exercise, or take supplements — but sometimes the real issue is mental overload.

Breaking tasks into smaller steps and setting aside one day a week (maybe Sunday) to organise meals, clothes, and schedules can help reduce low-stakes decisions.

Our brains are exhausted. Sometimes, they don’t need more optimisation — they just need a break.