3 Possible Causes If You're Tired and in Your 40s

There are many medical reasons why a person experience extreme fatigue such as diabetes, anemia, menopause, and a heart condition.

It's important to see your doctor if you're having symptoms. However, if you have a clean bill of health and you still feel like you need a nap after meals, or can't wait to get home from work to crawl into bed, the answer to your fatigue might be simpler than you think.

Your forties can be a time of great enjoyment for some. Some people have been doing the same things for about twenty years, so they are now experts in their field. Their lives are very established.

However, stress can happen at any age. It all begins with your perception.

People in the same situation could be just as well established in their careers and have people around them they love and enjoy. However, day to day, they don't experience much enjoyment because they have a great degree of stress. Perhaps they are in a highly stressful career, or little things like traffic, a busy schedule, and bills get to them. Instead of enjoying life, everything seems more like a burden than a blessing.

While sometimes it seems like anyone would be stressed in some typical situations, the way you perceive these situations can have a large influence on how much stress you actually experience. Here are some examples on how you can change your perception for some typicla daily stressors:

• Instead of getting stressed over daily traffic, you can use this time to jam to some tunes you really love, listen to that book you've been dying to read on audio, or learn a foreign language.
• Instead of getting stressed out over an overbearing boss, you could try and assert yourself. No one deserves to be the recipient of abusive behaviors. If your boss is controlling, manipulating, or verbally abusive, using assertiveness techniques can help you express yourself instead of having to hold your tongue.
• For instance, you could say, "I am having trouble understanding how I can improve my performance when you are yelling. I would like to improve, but it's difficult to follow all of your points right now. Would you please make a list of ways I can improve, and we can sit and review them later?"
• Or, you always have the option of looking for another job, and in the meantime, if your boss gets out of control, you can just blow it off. In the end it won't matter anyway, because you'll be gone in a month or two.
• If the bills are getting to you, see what you can do to reduce your bills. For example, you could refinance your debt or slowly pay off your credit cards. Get your family involved and make it a game for the kids, such as, "Who can find the lowest priced paper towels this week?" Or have kids come up with creative solutions to save money, like buying a package of washcloths for $4 instead of buying paper towels every week. Often, what's good for the environment is also good for your wallet, so this can be an "ecofriendly" exercise.
• You may not even be aware of the fact that you're looking at yourself with a "glass half empty" type of perception. If you catch yourself doing this: "I can't believe I didn't get done what I needed to do this morning again. When will I ever be able to accomplish everything I want to do" - switch your thinking to this - "Even though I was interrupted every ten minutes this morning, I managed to get x, y, and z done. What a crazy morning. I hope this afternoon will be a little quieter.
• In other words, instead of thinking you're responsible for everything, take into consideration outside factors that could be affecting you.

If you experience stress with these issues, it zaps a lot of the enjoyment you can get out of life and zap a lot of your energy along with it. As you can see, you have the ability to control your own stress levels. It all begins with your perception, as well as having the ability to change your situation when it's not working for you.

The strategies you used in your twenties and thirties to deal with stress may no longer work for you in your forties. Start examining your life and see what you can do to reduce your stress in small steps.

This is a simple fix that could result in more energy for you. If you're in your forties, you might start to notice that it takes a bit longer for you to rebound after a night of bad sleep. It could affect your entire week.

At forty years old and above, we could have mattresses that are as old as our twenty year old children, or even older. Same goes for pillows.

A new mattress and a new pillow could make a world of difference for you. A bit pricey, but well worth it if you wake up feeling stellar rather than feeling like you spent the night in the cellar.

At this age, you might be finding that certain foods really don't jive with your body any more. If you get really tired after meals, for instance, so tired, you can't keep your eyes open, and your blood sugar is fine, you might want to take a truthful look at what you're eating.

Are You Getting Enough Water?

Getting enough water, pure, clear drinking water, can really up your energy. If you've been feeling sluggish after being up for several hours, and you haven't had any real water yet to drink, you might want to consider drinking at least 90 ounces of water per day.

If you add chemicals, flavored powders, or artificial sweeteners to water, it's no longer just water. Now you are giving your body more to process besides the water, and it kind of defeats the purpose - to detoxify the body.

It's your choice if you want to drink coffee, tea, juice, or milk, but these do not have the same detoxifying actions on the body as water.

Filtered water is very pleasant to drink and cheaper and more ecofriendly than bottled water, so you might want to think about investing in a filtering system.

So, water you waiting for? Try some water today and see how it makes you feel.

Consider Supplements

I've found that at 47, supplementation has made a huge difference on my energy levels. This includes multivitamins and powdered drinks.

I do not get paid to endorse these items. I personally use them in my arsenal to maintain my energy.

My favorite multivitamins are either Alive vitamins or liquid vitamins.

It used to be you could only find Alive vitamins from health food stores. Now I can find them at Walmart. Although they are a little pricier, sometimes paying more for quality is a worthwhile investment in your health.

Liquid vitamins are my secret weapon against colds and flus, both in prevention and during illness. In liquid form, the vitamins are more bioavailable for the body to use.

The other supplements I use nearly on a daily basis are Livfit Superfoods Protein Blend, which is a vegan protein powder, and Super Greens from Country Farms. I found these readily available at three different Walmarts around my area, and for much cheaper than what people are selling them for online.

These two products have made a significant difference on my entire family's energy level.

Try Cutting Out White Sugar and Wheat Flour

These substances can be very difficult on the body, even whole wheat flour. If you're ready for a big ole nap after a big plate of whole wheat pancakes and maple syrup, your body might be trying to tell you something. These substances can really zap your energy.

It won't hurt to find substitutes for a day to eat that will not overtax your body to see how you feel after you eat it.

It doesn't mean that you can't enjoy these treats. You might want to explore alternatives, such as agave nectar, which I have found to be a lot kinder to my body when I am craving something sweet, and gluten free flour, which is great to make bread once in a while.

Stevia is my go-to for an every day sweetener to use in my green tea. It used to be that you could only buy this no-calorie sweetener in the health food stores as well, but thanks to Coca Cola, their brand of stevia, Truvia, has popularized stevia. Many other brands have jumped on board since then, and we have many stevia choices on typical neighborhood grocery shelves. I like Truvia because it has the best taste and does not have any added sweeteners, like dextrose, which tends to give me a headache. It's a bit pricey, though, so a lot of times, I'll rely on Zing, which is very reasonably priced for really decent tasting stevia. Plus, when they offer a $1 off coupon on the face of their box, I buy as many as I can.

Your stress, your sleep, and your diet could be working together to deprive you of the energy you need to get through your day.

The human body is a really tough instrument. You can put your body through much abuse in your twenties and thirties and still recover from it. That's almost two decades of behaviors that could catch up with you in your forties.

The forties seems to be a defining moment. It's the time where your body begins to let you know that what you got away with in the previous decades will no longer serve you for the next four decades, or even longer.

If you're tired and over forty, your body is trying to tell you something. Start out with simple lifestyle changes to improve your health, and you'll still have enough energy to keep up with your grandkids.

• If you're tired and you're over forty, your body might be trying to tell you something.
• There are many lifestyle changes you can make to improve your energy levels.