How to Beat the “Tired”

Have you ever felt a song in your soul? It just spoke to you on such a deep level that you can’t sleep at night because you’re still reeling from it? That was me when I first listened to “Housewife’s Prayer” by Pistol Annies. Here’s a snippet:

“I’ve been thinking about
Setting my house on fire
Can’t see a way out of the mess I’m in
And the bills keep getting higher
All I need is a match and a gallon of gas
— I’m getting tired
Gonna set this house on fire

I’ve been thinking about
Going off the deep end
My man can’t get no overtime
And the baby ain’t been sleeping
All I need is a washing machine
These hands have gone faded
I’m about to go off the deep end”

Sometimes “being tired” is ALL I can focus on. Working 30 hours a week (three days from home, two in the office) with a four-year-old destructo maniac and a two-year-old punk diva princess and a husband, who bless him, thinks that if he puts everything in the hamper he’s doing me a favor, can be exhausting. I once found a hairbrush and a pair of shoes in there.

I’ve been told that it gets easier. And maybe it does — I’ll let you know when I get there. However, I just came off seven months of sick kids (KNOCK ON WOOD), so “easier” doesn’t mean much to me right now. If they didn’t have respiratory illnesses, they had ear infections; if they didn’t have ear infections, they had stomach bugs. Turns out, my oldest has cough-variant asthma (aka coughs a lot but actually is having an asthma attack) and is allergic to mesquite trees (seriously?). Once we figured out that weirdness, things calmed down — or they would’ve had the two adorable creatures not brought home stomach bugs that they passed along to everyone. (My sister asked me to Lysol my daughter before she came over the other day.)

Ergo, I’m tired. But it’s more than that. I’m MENTALLY tired, which means, all I do is think about how tired I am. I’ve been looking into this because I feel like if I can fix the mental exhaustion, the physical exhaustion will be less intense or not as noticeable.

So, I’ve come up with a plan for beating mental exhaustion. I haven’t started yet, so I can’t speak for whether it will work or not, but maybe we can all do it together and find ways to make it awesome. You can tailor this to work for your individual needs (be sure to share in the comments so we can all try different methods).

How to beat the “tired”

1. Meditation
   • I have never been one that looked to meditation as a solution for anything. It seems hippy dippy and unproductive to sit crisscross-applesauce and chant. Turns out the chanting is optional. I’m using an app called Calm right now. You can subscribe but they do have free sessions you can try out. Right now, I’m doing the gratitude session. I haven’t been consistent enough with the whole meditation thing to tell you that it’s life-changing, but it does make me feel better when I do it.
2. Gratitude Journal
   • I think one of my biggest issues and one of the reasons I’m so “tired” all the time, is because I’m not thankful for what I have. I tend to stray down the resentful and bitter lane, so to beat this, I’m meditating on gratitude and journaling about it. I have a great life. I have great kids and a great man and great house, but I fail to see that when I’m plunging a toilet (I do a lot of plunging) and the washing machine has backflowed all over the floor again. Meanwhile, the girl child has taken her diaper off, peed in her brother’s room, which he is now using as a lake to drive his monster trucks in, and sister has moved on to pooping in her own room. These are the times I need to start reciting my blessings; though, I’m still working on that.
3. Using my Community
   • I have a great network of moms who are going through this exact same junk. However, I tend to forget that and bury it internally instead of finding an outlet for it. I’m not saying join a husband- or kid-bashing group, but maybe find that mom friend you trust more than anything who can help you work through your frustration.

It’s a start anyway. Life is always going to be exhausting, so I’ve decided to accept this and manage it, rather than fight it.

Are you tired? I’m here for you. Let’s work on it together. Put your methods for beating the “tired” in the comments. I need to know I’m not alone in this!

KB