Here's why you're so exhausted, despite doing less during the coronavirus pandemic — and how to feel better

Beth Greenfield
·Senior Editor
Updated ·8 min read
You're not lazy — you're stressed. That's why being at home during the coronavirus pandemic is making you feel so tired. (Photo: Getty Images)
You're not lazy — you're stressed. That's why being at home during the coronavirus pandemic is making you feel so tired. (Photo: Getty Images)

Life has changed in different ways for everyone during the coronavirus pandemic, and for some, that’s meant staying home, working less — if at all — and being way less active than usual, with no gyms or group sports or nights out or tiring commutes to the office.

So why then, you may ask, are you feeling so unfathomably exhausted?

It actually makes perfect sense, say experts in psychology, who explain that extreme tiredness is your body’s natural reaction to stress and trauma.

“There are a couple reasons why we are so exhausted,” explains Dr. Jen Hartstein, psychologist and mental health contributor for Yahoo Life. “First, we are on emotional overload. Many of us are feeling anxious, which activates our sympathetic nervous system. That system is responsible for our fight-or-flight response, and for triggering our adrenaline. The stress we are all under leads to some adrenal fatigue, which causes our bodies to need a break, and we automatically shut down.”

“Second, we are not interacting with the world in the same way. Often the things with which we interact are the things that stimulate us and get us excited,” she explains. “Losing that excitement also can cause us to feel more tired.”

“Third, we aren’t outside as much, which leads to a deficiency of vitamin D. This can cause us to be more tired, too.”

What is stress? What is trauma?

How our bodies react to stress and trauma is a biological mechanism, explains Rajita Sinha, Ph.D., a psychology and psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Stress Center. And it’s working on overdrive in these unprecedented times.

Stress, Sinha tells Yahoo Life, is a term “used for the processes that are involved when we are challenged or overwhelmed by stimuli or events, either external or internal. It’s tied to the body having a stress biology, and being hardwired to react … and to help the body cope and bring it back to baseline.”

Trauma, then, is “an extreme version of that,” she adds, noting that uncontrollable stress can be traumatic, “as with an event where the person is overwhelmed and feels like they have no control,” whether you are facing a direct threat to your safety, “such as being held at gunpoint,” or you have your body or mind violated in some way, or you are in an accident or lose a loved one and experience grief.

Or, are living through a frightening and unpredictable pandemic.

Stress and trauma affect us physically

“Depending on where you are and what you’re involved in and what your coping resources are, there can be a real variation in how people perceive stress,” Sinha explains, adding that each person can feel something different from a full range of options, “from fear to anxiety to panic …”

Your stress level, for example, could be “saying, ‘I’m OK, but then who knows when we will not be OK? And what about my job?’ That’s uncontrollable,” she explains. And then, at a different level, she says, “If you’ve had a past traumatic experience, maybe related to having lost something that’s been out of your control, you can go back and feel it again — seeing the hospitals overcrowded or bodies outside in a tractor-trailer could evoke images that are difficult for people who have gone through something [similar].”

Either way, she says, “fear, anxiety, stress and panic are taking tolls.” That’s because, Sinha explains, “there’s a stress biology.”

That biological reaction uses up a lot of energy

There can also be two types of exhaustion at play: mental and physical, either separately or together. “So, you can have health care providers working 14-hour days who are overrun by the sheer volume of work and patients,” says Sinha, noting an example of both. As for mental alone, “there are those who are at home and taking in news and not knowing what’s going to happen.” And with that, she explains, “there is a level of vigilance building up in the body — your body’s own readiness, physiologically, to be prepared for something.” And people who have been traumatized in some way in the past, she says, “can already be at a hypervigilant point.”

Any and all of that is tiring.

“When we think about vigilance, on a psychological level, there are components related to energy intake: Our brain cells are surveying the environment, either consciously or unconsciously, looking for ways to understand what’s happening in the world.”

A simple way to think about it, Sinha says, is that we are like a machine that has to remain on low-level “on” versus totally off. “We’re at least low-level on — and then, at different times, medium and high level,” she explains. “Part of you is saying ‘I’m OK,’ but the other part is going, ‘What’s going on, what’s next’ … It’s the perfect storm, in some ways, to have a low- to medium-level drone of the system, which takes up energy, which makes you tired.”

Further, taking in the constant flow of worrisome coronavirus news — while in this state of heightened sensitivity to threat — has your mind in a state more willing to attach to information, and that, she says, “makes you mentally exhausted, as well.”

Here are ways to perk yourself up, both mentally and physically, despite being stuck at home:

Stop obsessing over the news

Says Hartstein: “If we start with our anxiety, we focus on a huge area that triggers our fatigue. One way to reduce our anxiety is to decrease our exposure to the news. Create a schedule of when you check it and stick to it. Reducing exposure to the news can help you manage your anxiety more effectively.”

Create a routine, and stick to it

“As humans, we do crave structure and consistency,” Hartstein says. “Finding a routine during this time of uncertainty is also a way to navigate your anxiety and provide stability.”

And try to understand, says Sinha, that this new world we’re navigating “is a new space for all of us — we’ve not been here before. But try to build out an alternate set of activities and routines that would actually involve you in life,” such as building a morning routine, staying in contact with friends and family, having specific exercise times and healthy meal times — even taking time to create a list of “pleasant activities that would be good to engage in,” whether cooking, singing or dancing, she says.

Stay connected

Schedule Zoom meetings with friends and be sure to stay in touch with family. “Although we have to be physically distant, we do not have to be socially distant,” Hartstein says. “Connection is a powerful protective factor, and one we should try to create as much as possible.”

Move your body

Making sure that your routine includes physical movement — whether a full-on workout on a nice long walk — is key, Hartstein adds. “Movement is so important in helping one’s mood. This change in lifestyle may cause us to work out less or move less. It’s important to find ways to keep moving, as it stimulates our dopamine and helps change our mood to a more energized, positive one.

Ways to quickly rebuild energy level in a pinch, Sinha adds, is to do something as simple of five or 10 minutes of a yoga position, for example. “It’s slow, you get involved, and that starts to relieve some of the exhaustion,” she says, noting that simple mindfulness exercises, or meditation, if it’s something that works for you, also work. “It’s not one-size-fits-all, and knowing there are options is really important. Stretching … or lying flat on the floor and focusing on your breath is a way to give yourself permission to focus inward and find some peace. It’s a way of bringing down the machine.”

For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDC and WHO’s resource guides.

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