This thread actually made me feel better. I've had a long history of heart problems, which have gotten slightly worse during the pandemic. My cardiologist asks me if I'm tired at every appointment, and I always say no, because I think it's just life/ kids/ stress wearing me down, not the heart condition. But then I second-guess myself and wonder if I'm tired all the time because I'm dying of heart failure or something. It's hard to guess what "normal" tired feels like to other people-- but based on the responses in this thread, I'm probably just feeling the same malaise as everyone else. So I'll count that as a win.

Anonymous wrote:Ladies I went through this due to a combination of factors well before covid. You have to throw the book at it until you feel better, knowing that these efforts are temporary:

- Sleep, and if you can sleep, unisom, Benadryl etc.
- B complex, magnesium and calcium and zinc (at Trader Joe’s), fish oil, vitamin d
- smartest thing I did: massage every other week. Just do it for a month or two. Don’t take your phone, take a book, and too at least one hour before. Life changing.
- boiled egg and a carrot or green juice or smoothie every morning
-check into a hotel by yourself once a month- does not need to be fancy, just away from everyone, invite a girlfriend for a sleepover and be silly
- psychiatric help if you feel cloudy- the amount of long covid brain fog is severely under reported and easily treated with a variety of medicines

I’m sure I’ll get slayed for the above suggestions, but having been through this burnout thing, I know these work.

I know you are trying to be helpful, but sleep is not the issue here with most of the posters. I haven't posted yet but I could have written a lot of these posts. it's called burnout. I completely agree that sleep is crucial to health and believe in sleep hygiene, but we are dealing with is structural.

Wanted to add caution to the unisom/benadryl recommendation. Those drugs are supposed to be linked to dementia so I would use them sparingly.

Ladies I went through this due to a combination of factors well before covid. You have to throw the book at it until you feel better, knowing that these efforts are temporary:

- Sleep, and if you can sleep, unisom, Benadryl etc.
- B complex, magnesium and calcium and zinc (at Trader Joe’s), fish oil, vitamin d
- smartest thing I did: massage every other week. Just do it for a month or two. Don’t take your phone, take a book, and too at least one hour before. Life changing.
- boiled egg and a carrot or green juice or smoothie every morning
-check into a hotel by yourself once a month- does not need to be fancy, just away from everyone, invite a girlfriend for a sleepover and be silly
- psychiatric help if you feel cloudy- the amount of long covid brain fog is severely under reported and easily treated with a variety of medicines

I’m sure I’ll get slayed for the above suggestions, but having been through this burnout thing, I know these work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

No joking, I have wondered that for a long time. Except I feel no sadness, I am just tired. I go to bed early. When I wake up in the morning, I feel good, but within a few hours, I'm tired again. If I ever get a chance to take a nap, I almost always fall asleep. Do we all have undiagnosed sleep apnea?

Partly it’s having been swamped in necessity for so long with nothing to look forward to. I’ve started intentionally putting stuff I really want to do for me on the calendar and it helps.

I think this is part of it too. Travel was a big thing for us and we are still not fully back to our pre Covid comfort level, plus all the restrictions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

No joking, I have wondered that for a long time. Except I feel no sadness, I am just tired. I go to bed early. When I wake up in the morning, I feel good, but within a few hours, I'm tired again. If I ever get a chance to take a nap, I almost always fall asleep. Do we all have undiagnosed sleep apnea?

Partly it’s having been swamped in necessity for so long with nothing to look forward to. I’ve started intentionally putting stuff I really want to do for me on the calendar and it helps.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone wondering why women are disengaged politically (I'm looking at you, Washington Post) only needs to read this thread.

I get enough sleep (mostly). I have scaled back at work. We moved into a house that is smaller and requires far less work. My kids are more self sufficient. I have been depressed before and know what it feels like - and this is not it.

An older relative just texted demanding to make plans to get together IN LATE NOVEMBER and I was like, are you kidding me? I operate one week at a time. That is all I can manage.

No kidding. The chip that plans is broken.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone wondering why women are disengaged politically (I'm looking at you, Washington Post) only needs to read this thread.

I get enough sleep (mostly). I have scaled back at work. We moved into a house that is smaller and requires far less work. My kids are more self sufficient. I have been depressed before and know what it feels like - and this is not it.

An older relative just texted demanding to make plans to get together IN LATE NOVEMBER and I was like, are you kidding me? I operate one week at a time. That is all I can manage.

I am the same and have two ES kids. So how do these women with 3-4+ kids do it? What am I doing wrong?

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

No joking, I have wondered that for a long time. Except I feel no sadness, I am just tired. I go to bed early. When I wake up in the morning, I feel good, but within a few hours, I'm tired again. If I ever get a chance to take a nap, I almost always fall asleep. Do we all have undiagnosed sleep apnea?

Anyone wondering why women are disengaged politically (I'm looking at you, Washington Post) only needs to read this thread.

I get enough sleep (mostly). I have scaled back at work. We moved into a house that is smaller and requires far less work. My kids are more self sufficient. I have been depressed before and know what it feels like - and this is not it.

An older relative just texted demanding to make plans to get together IN LATE NOVEMBER and I was like, are you kidding me? I operate one week at a time. That is all I can manage.

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is that we were in crisis mode when we were all WAH and school at home. We just had to get through it, no time to think about it. Now that things are easing up, we can finally feel it all. And what we feel is exhausted.

You know what, I think this is it for me. One kid was really struggling before pandemic and then REALLY struggling at the beginning and I just got through every day by using every bit of energy to survive. And now things are better! Really they are! And I’m pushing myself to celebrate but also I’m just spent in a way that I can barely describe. Thanks for this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

I think it’s more school-closed-for-more-than-a-year-itus

Yeah, if someone told me that I just had to go to work and then hang out w the kids—and someone else would magically handle all the housework & cooking, and organizing and forms, and coordinating half-open childcare & activities (not to mention the complications of eldercare these days), and masks, testing and constantly-changing-plans-in-response-to-pandemic… I would be blissed out. I don’t think it is “depression” causing the exhaustion. (Tho perhaps it is working the other way around).

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

I think it’s more school-closed-for-more-than-a-year-itus

Check your Vitamin D levels also. Iron, B, magnesium, fish oil can help with that depleted draggy feeling.

Anonymous wrote:Could it be that we all have depression? That’s what I’m wondering.

Could be. Depression and anxiety have skyrocketed since the pandemic began.