Why Am I Always Sleepy No Matter How Much Sleep I Get? (2024)

Feeling sleepy during the day when you haven’t had enough sleep is one thing. But it’s even more frustrating — and worrying — when you feel sleepy no matter how much sleep you get.

Below, we’ll dive into the reasons you might be feeling sleepy, despite feeling like you get plenty of sleep. These include not knowing your sleep need, having sleep debt, and being out of sync with your circadian rhythm — which the RISE app can help you fix. We’ll also cover the sleep disorders and medical conditions that could be to blame.

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1. You Don’t Know Your Sleep Need

Your sleep need is the amount of sleep your body needs each night. It’s determined by genetics, just like height and eye color.

If you don’t know your sleep need, you may be sleep deprived and not even know it.

Let’s say you shoot for eight hours of sleep because that’s the most recommended amount. But if you really need nine hours, you’ll still feel sleepy, despite feeling like you’re getting a full night’s rest.

And while your sleep need is set from early adulthood, there are times when you need more sleep than usual. These include:

• When you’re ill
• When you’ve just done intense exercise
• When you’ve got a muscle injury

Your sleep need may be more than you think: We looked at the sleep needs of 1.95 million RISE users aged 24 and older. The median sleep need was eight hours, but 48% of users needed eight hours or more. Some even needed a whopping 11 hours 30 minutes of sleep!

One small sleep extension study looked at adults aged 20 to 26 and found the mean sleep need was eight hours 25 minutes. But sleep needs ranged from seven hours 17 minutes to nine hours 16 minutes.

The fix: Use the RISE app to find out your sleep need. RISE uses proprietary sleep-science-based models and a year’s worth of your phone use behavior to calculate your sleep need in hours and minutes.

This way, you know how much sleep time you need and whether you’re really getting enough shut-eye.

RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click here to view their sleep need.

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2. You’ve Got High Sleep Debt

Sleep debt is the amount of sleep you owe your body. If you haven’t been meeting your sleep need recently, you’ll have built up sleep debt and be feeling low on energy.

But it’s not just last night’s sleep you need to think about. We measure sleep debt over your last 14 nights.

That means you may have gotten enough sleep last night, but if you’ve been missing out on sleep over the last two weeks, you could still feel tired the next day.

You might spend a few nights sleeping for nine hours, for example, but if you’ve got high sleep debt, this may not be enough to catch up on sleep and boost your energy levels.

And if you don’t track your sleep with a device, you may think you’re meeting your sleep need, but you could be coming in short. A 2021 study found the overall agreement between self-reported sleep and sleep measured by a device was only 57%. (Sleep trackers aren’t perfect, either. Some may overly inflate your sleep duration as they mistake time spent watching TV or reading in bed for sleep time.)

One more thing to be aware of? We often forget about sleep efficiency, which takes into account the amount of time it takes to fall asleep and the times we wake up during the night. You might need eight hours of sleep. But spending eight hours in bed isn’t enough time to get you there.

Expert tip: Don’t worry too much about the quality of your sleep. While an interesting metric, experts still don’t have a set definition for sleep quality. Instead, focus on sleep debt and keeping it as low as possible. This will make the biggest difference to your energy levels.

The fix: RISE can work out how much sleep debt you’ve got. We recommend keeping this below five hours to feel the most energy each day.

Had a lack of sleep recently? You can lower your sleep debt by:

• Taking naps
• Going to bed a little earlier
• Sleeping in an hour or two later
• Improving your sleep hygiene, which will help you fall asleep faster and wake up less often throughout the night (more on this soon)

RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click here to view their sleep debt.

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3. You’re Not in Sync With Your Circadian Rhythm

Your circadian rhythm is your body’s internal clock. It runs on a roughly 24-hour cycle and plays a part in when you naturally feel sleepy and alert.

If you’re out of sync with it, you may feel tired, even if you’ve been meeting your sleep need overall.

For example, research shows those with a regular sleep pattern feel less sleepiness than those who get the same amount of sleep at irregular times.

You might be out of sync with your circadian rhythm if:

• You work night shifts or do rotating shift work
• You have social jetlag, or an irregular sleep schedule (which about 87% of adults do)
• You’re working against your chronotype, like a night owl waking up early

The fix: RISE can predict your circadian rhythm each day and tell you when your body wants to wake up and go to sleep. You can then sync up your schedule with these times and aim to keep a regular sleep pattern.

You can also reset your circadian rhythm and shift your sleep cycle earlier or later if these times don’t match your lifestyle.

RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click here to see their circadian rhythm on the Energy screen.

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4. You’ve Got Hypersomnia

Hypersomnia is a sleep disorder that causes you to sleep for long periods of time at night and still feel sleepy during the day. It affects about 4% to 6% of the population.

The common symptoms of hypersomnia include:

• Daytime sleepiness
• Difficulty waking up
• Slowed thinking or brain fog
• Memory problems
• Irritability

The common causes of hypersomnia include:

• Medical conditions like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis
• Sleep disorders like sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome
• Drug or alcohol abuse

You may also suffer from idiopathic hypersomnia. This is when there's no known cause for your sleepiness.

The fix: Talk to your doctor or a sleep specialist if you think you’ve got hypersomnia. Treatment options include medication and lifestyle changes, like avoiding caffeine and keeping a regular sleep schedule.

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5. You’ve Got Insomnia

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder going. You might not think you suffer from insomnia if you’re sleeping a lot, but hear us out.

There are different types of insomnia:

• Sleep onset insomnia: When you have trouble falling asleep.
• Sleep maintenance insomnia: When you have trouble staying asleep.
• Early morning awakening insomnia: When you wake up too early.
• Mixed insomnia: A combination of the above.

If you’ve got insomnia, you might spend 10 hours in bed, for example, but only get six hours of sleep. You might find yourself not able to sleep, even though you’re tired. And if you don’t meet your sleep need, you’ll feel sleepy, no matter how long you spend in bed.

The fix: Talk to a doctor or a sleep specialist. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a common first-line treatment.

And, counterintuitively, sleep restriction is a treatment option, which involves getting less sleep in the short term to help you feel sleepier at night in the long run. Sleep restriction should only be done with the help of a CBT-I therapist or app.

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6. You’ve Got Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea is another sleep disorder that could be causing you to feel tired, despite feeling like you get plenty of sleep. Research suggests about 90% of those with sleep apnea could be undiagnosed.

Sleep apnea is when your breathing is temporarily cut off during the night. Your body wakes itself up to kickstart your breathing. This can happen 30 times or more an hour, and you may not even realize you’re waking up so often.

You might spend plenty of time in bed, but still be seriously sleep deprived from all these sleep apnea episodes.

Symptoms of sleep apnea include:

• Waking up gasping for breath
• Waking up with a dry mouth or sore throat
• Morning headaches
• Difficulty concentrating

The fix: Speak to a doctor or sleep specialist if you think you have sleep apnea. Treatments include weight loss, if needed, and sleeping with a continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) machine, which provides continuous air pressure to keep your airways open.

We’ve covered how to get rid of sleep apnea here.

Heads-up: Other sleep disorders can also be to blame such as restless leg syndrome, narcolepsy, or excessive daytime sleepiness, and circadian rhythm sleep disorders like delayed sleep-wake phase disorder.

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7. You’ve Got Anxiety or Depression

Mental health issues could be behind your fatigue.

Anxiety can keep you up and wake you up in the night. In fact, RISE users say stress and anxiety are the biggest barriers stopping them from getting a good night’s sleep.

Depression also interferes with sleep and can leave you feeling tired and uninterested in your usual daily activities.

Beyond getting enough sleep, anxiety and depression can make it harder to do energy-boosting activities like exercising or socializing. The result? You may feel low on energy, even after hours of sleep.

The fix: Speak to your doctor if you think you’ve got anxiety or depression. They may prescribe medication or therapy to help.

Lifestyle changes may also help. For example, breathing exercises have been shown to reduce anxiety and stress, and improve your sleep.

Here are three to try:

• Psychological sighing: A 2023 study (co-authored by one of our science advisors Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, co-director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at Stanford University) found five minutes of psychological or cyclic sighing, which includes extended exhales, can improve your mood and reduce anxiety.
• 4-7-8 breathing: A 2022 study found 4-7-8 breathing can lower stress and anxiety.
• Diaphragmatic breathing: A 2021 study found diaphragmatic breathing can help nurses lower their anxiety and fall asleep faster.

RISE can walk you through breathing exercises like diaphragmatic breathing within the app.

RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click here to go right to their relaxation audio guide homepage and get started.

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8. You’ve Got a Medical Condition

Medical conditions could be making you feel tired, even when you get enough sleep. And certain health conditions can make it hard to get the sleep you need in the first place.

These include:

• Heart disease
• Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid)
• High blood pressure
• Iron deficiency anemia (when your body doesn’t make enough red blood cells)
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Chronic pain
• Fibromyalgia
• Type 2 diabetes
• Joint pain
• Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis
• ADHD (which is tightly linked to sleep problems)
• An illness like the common cold or COVID
• Weight loss or weight gain
• Side effects from medications like antidepressants and antihistamines

The fix: Talk to your doctor to get tested for an underlying health condition. They’ll be able to prescribe the best treatment option for you.

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9. You’re Pregnant

Pregnancy is a common cause of fatigue.

One reason for that is because it’s hard to get enough sleep when you’re expecting. Hormones wreak havoc with your body temperature and mood, symptoms like leg cramps and nausea keep you up, and it gets more and more difficult to find a comfortable position the further along in your pregnancy you are.

But even if you do meet your sleep need, you may still feel tired when pregnant. Your body’s working hard growing a new human and carrying around extra weight, and you may be feeling anxious about impending motherhood or maternity leave.

The fix: Try taking afternoon naps to make up for any lost sleep at night. Check RISE for when your afternoon dip in energy will be each day. This is the ideal time to take a nap as it’s far away enough from bedtime that it shouldn’t make it harder to fall asleep at night.

We’ve covered more advice on how to get energy when pregnant here.

Heads-up: Beyond pregnancy, women and those assigned female at birth are more likely to have sleep problems in general, and therefore feel tired despite feeling like they spent a long time in bed.

You might get insomnia before your period or struggle to sleep during menopause, for example. We’ve covered more reasons for female fatigue here.

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10. You’ve Got Poor Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene is the set of behaviors you can do to get a good night’s sleep.

If you’ve got poor sleep hygiene, you may find it hard to drift off and find yourself waking up in the middle of the night. It’ll be even harder to meet your sleep need and, even if you do, the sleep you get may be broken and not as restorative as it could be.

The fix: Improve your sleep hygiene.

That includes:

• Getting out in sunlight for at least 10 minutes in the morning
• Avoiding bright light in the run-up to bedtime
• Avoiding caffeine, large meals, alcohol, and intense physical activity too close to bedtime
• Making sure your sleep environment is quiet, dark, and cool
• Making time to relax and unwind before bed

RISE can guide you through 20+ sleep hygiene habits each day at the time that makes them the most effective for you.

RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click here to set up their 20+ in-app habit notifications.

Stop Feeling Sleepy All the Time with RISE

If you’re feeling sleepy all the time, the first thing to do is to check your sleep need and sleep debt. You may need more sleep each night than you think, and you may have some sleep debt to pay back.

Next, check to see if you’re living in sync with your circadian rhythm. If not, this could be draining your energy, even when you’re getting enough sleep overall.

Still feeling sleepy? It’s time to talk to a healthcare professional. A sleep disorder, like sleep apnea or hypersomnia, or a medical condition, like depression or anemia, could be to blame.

The RISE app can help you get more energy. RISE can work out your sleep need, how much sleep debt you have, and predict your circadian rhythm each day to help you stay in sync.

RISE can also tell you when to do 20+ sleep hygiene habits each day to make getting a good night’s sleep even easier.

It works fast, too: 80% of RISE users feel more energy within five days.