Having worked with poor sleepers now for over 15 years, I’ve come across a lot of people who really prioritise their sleep and reach their sleep goals, however, they still find themselves feeling tired during the day.

If you’re feeling exhausted during the day, your sleep isn’t always to blame. There’s actually another big culprit for tiredness that’s often behind this fatigue. Stress.

I always say to people you cannot out-sleep stress. So, if you find yourself always feeling tired, it’s important to not just focus solely on improving your sleep, it’s time to look at your wider lifestyle. What’s your diet like, are you hydrated? How do you manage stress? I believe stress is the biggest factor impacting on our energy and our tiredness levels, yet we often try to by-pass working on how we manage stress in favour of focussing on sleep.

If you’re mentally running at 100mph all day it doesn’t matter how much sleep you get at night, or how good that quality of sleep is, you’re going to feel exhausted during the day because you’ve had an adrenaline response, you’ve been in fight or flight for far too long, and this is an exhausting way to live.

So of course, look at improving your sleep, but don’t pin all your hopes on this. Make sure you’re looking at your wider lifestyle too, in particular your stress levels.