Constantly Exhausted and Low on Energy? – How Stress Affects Your Body
- Feb 18, 2025
- 4 min read
Silke Tsafrir is the founder of her studio "Matte&Stuhl" – a space for stress management, mindfulness, and soul growth in Stuttgart. Silke's heartfelt mission is to holistically support women and inspire them through her training and coaching to respect their own needs more and more and to live a stress-free and self-determined life.
If you constantly feel exhausted and drained, you are not alone. Many people feel perpetually tired, even when they get enough sleep. As a result, they struggle through the day with overwhelming fatigue, barely managing to complete their daily tasks.
As a mindfulness coach, I help people understand the root causes of their fatigue and regain their energy. I show you how to identify what is making you tired and what you can do to restore your balance.
You will understand how stress is depleting you, and why it is worth making a change. In this article, I will explain:
How a lack of balance is linked to fatigue,
Why your body does not regenerate properly during sleep, and
What your racing thoughts have to do with it.
Exhausted and low on energy – How your stress is involved
Does this sound familiar? You get enough sleep but still wake up feeling exhausted. Many people believe that fatigue is solely due to a lack of sleep. However, chronic stress can be just as exhausting. When your body is in a constant state of alertness, it produces the stress hormone cortisol. If stress persists, cortisol levels remain high, leading to perpetual exhaustion.
Why is this important?
Stress is not just physically exhausting; it also affects our mood. If we do nothing about it, we quickly find ourselves in a cycle of tension, fatigue, and overwhelm. You may notice increased irritability, reduced concentration, and declining energy levels. Your body is signaling: Take a break! However, most people ignore these signals for too long. If you do not act, the feeling of constant exhaustion only worsens.
And what happens if you ignore your body’s signals?
Ignoring stress for too long weakens your body over time, potentially leading to burnout, depression, or heart problems. If your body repeatedly shows signs that the strain is too high, take the time to pause and consider what you can do to pull the emergency brake.
Three possible reasons why you feel constantly exhausted and drained
1. Exhausted and drained? Your nervous system under constant stress
Due to our fast-paced lifestyles, we are always under stress. This keeps your nervous system in a heightened state of alertness. Your sympathetic nervous system is constantly active, keeping you in high-performance mode. While this is helpful in action-packed moments, an imbalance occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is not equally engaged. This imbalance makes it increasingly difficult to truly unwind and relax.
The problem: Without regular breaks, your system overheats. This consumes a lot of energy. Over time, excessive stress leads to inner restlessness and nervousness. You end up feeling both completely drained and overly wired. This condition is unhealthy in the long run.
2. Why do you feel exhausted despite sleeping
"Why am I always tired and exhausted?" Maybe you sleep enough, yet still wake up completely fatigued. This could be due to excessive stress. Chronic stress leads to an overproduction of cortisol, which prevents you from entering the deep, restorative sleep phases. These deep sleep phases are essential for waking up refreshed and energized. If they are missing, you may be sleeping, but your body isn’t truly recovering.
Bottom line: If you wake up feeling just as exhausted as when you went to bed, your stress levels might be the culprit, specifically your elevated cortisol levels.
3. How your racing thoughts leave you drained and exhausted
A constantly churning mind – who doesn’t know the feeling? You want to relax, but your thoughts keep spinning. This not only robs you of sleep but is also incredibly draining and consumes energy. Constant overthinking and worrying wear down your mental and physical reserves.
Overthinking too much? If you find yourself stuck in endless thoughts even when you want to unwind, it’s time to learn how to truly quiet your mind. Personally, mindfulness exercises help me step out of the endless cycle of overthinking.
Exhausted and low on energy, what to do?
Always feeling drained and exhausted? It doesn’t have to stay that way. The key is to actively reduce stress and give your body and mind regular breaks. Once you start incorporating small pauses into your daily routine – such as short relaxation exercises, mindfulness practice, or meditation and truly disconnecting on weekends, you will feel your energy gradually return.
Read more from Silke Tsafrir
Silke Tsafrir, MBSR, Mindfulness Teacher & Life Coach
Silke Tsafrir is an MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) teacher, mindfulness trainer, and life coach. After experiencing a severe personal tragedy, she was first introduced to the MBSR program, coaching, and meditation. She was so fascinated and convinced by the effectiveness of mindfulness practice that she completed training in MBSR and became a certified life coach. In 2019, she founded her studio "Matte&Stuhl" in the west of Stuttgart, where she offers mindfulness training and coaching both on-site and online as well as Yoga and Reiki treatments and retreats. Her mission is to guide women on their path to a mindful and self-determined life.
