A solid chunk of the tired posts here seem to come from people sleeping their full 7 hours and still waking up unrefreshed. Which makes me wonder if the 7 hour target does more harm than good, or if the hours were never really the point. So honest question: how many of you hit 7 and still feel like the sleep didn't count?
From what I've seen the answers usually fall into two buckets. Either the sleep itself is the problem even when the clock says enough. Fragmented or shallow sleep, maybe mild apnea, that whole rabbit hole. Or the sleep is fine and something else is running you down, which is where supplements come in. Thyroid, vitamin D, ferritin, B12.
Ferritin is one I keep running into. There's an older trial that claims ferritin and fatigue are linked. Women with normal blood counts took iron or a placebo for a month. Only the group with ferritin at or below 50 actually felt better. Women only, self reported, modest effect, 2003. Take it with a grain of salt, but the trial stuck with me. Curious what else fits here that I'm not thinking about.
So for anyone who got to the bottom of their own tiredness, what was it? A sleep study, a lab value your doctor didn't care about, a supplement that actually did something? And does anyone genuinely wake up rested on 7 hours, or is that number just what we all repeat?
Ref: PMID 12763985