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I'm So Tired

SERIES: Health Series #1 of 6

2008-05-18

PRODUCTION #: 1081

SPEAKERS: Shawn Boonstra, Fred Hardinge,

You know, when I take my kids to the park, I just can't believe how much energy they have. I wish I could bottle the stuff. I actually get a little bit jealous because it wasn't that many years ago I had energy like that.

When you grow up, something happens and you hit adult life and wake up tired every morning. I have been asking myself, "Is that the way life is supposed to be? You wake up dog-tired every day and drag yourself from appointment to appointment. And if you're tired all the time, what does that do to your spirituality and your relationship to God?

Keep reading, because today I have some really good news for you.

Do you remember a time in your life when everything seemed exciting? When you actually bounced out of bed in the morning brimming with energy, ready for anything the new day might bring?

Let me ask you a question: What in the world happened? Why is it that you just can't seem to get excited about things like you used to? And why do you find yourself so tired all day long?

Personally, I am not convinced that God designed you to drag yourself from now to the grave.

Today, my guest is Dr. Fred Hardinge, a specialist in the field of health and nutrition. His doctorate is in preventive care and he is a registered dietitian. He also holds a Master's degree in theology and is an ordained minister. Incidentally, he is also a coworker of mine here at It Is Written.

(INTERVIEW)

SHAWN: Dr. Hardinge, it's really good to have you on the program today.

FRED: I'm delighted to be with you, Shawn.

SHAWN: Listen, Dr. Hardinge, everywhere I go, people seem to be complaining about the same thing. They say, "I'm always tired and I'm dragging myself around with not enough sleep. I drink too much coffee. The weekend comes, and I'm even too tired to go to church." Tell me something, is fatigue a real problem in America today?

FRED: Fatigue is a significant problem in our society today. A recent survey showed that two-thirds of Americans say they are very tired most of the time.

SHAWN: Two out of three of us are saying we are always tired.

FRED: That's correct.

SHAWN: Well, I have to admit that I probably fall into that two-thirds. I probably wake up tired much more often than I should. As a matter of fact, I've just finished a long itinerary. I am dragging myself around all the time, and the thing I'm curious about is, what does that do to us? If two-thirds of us are tired all the time, and we have jobs that place really high demands on us, what is it actually doing to us? Does it affect us?

FRED: It absolutely does, Shawn. A tired person is slower, they are less efficient, and they make more mistakes.

SHAWN: OK.

FRED: And a lot of research in recent years has demonstrated some of the reasons as to why that actually may be the case. We have observed for many years that tired people's performance slips. Tired soldiers don't make good soldiers, tired nurses make more mistakes, and tired doctors have more accidents on the way home. They, too, may make a few more mistakes even in their care of patients, although that's a difficult thing to prove sometimes. More and more research is looking at this kind of thing. However, probably the most fascinating kind of research to me has looked at why brain function seems to slow down.

SHAWN: Right. Now, I can understand, people make mistakes when they are tired. I say things I don't mean when I'm tired, I put this file in the wrong folder and so on, when I'm tired. But the thing I wonder about is, why? Why does fatigue do that to my mind, doctor? Because I'll share with you, I think of it as a computer. It ought to just work no matter how tired I am. I just plug it into an energy source and let it run. Why am I making mistakes when I'm tired? What is actually going on?

FRED: A series of studies have recently been done at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research over the last 10 years. And they have taken healthy subjects who are fully rested and, using modern technology that is non-invasive, looked at certain aspects of the function of the brain.

These individuals were tested when they had been fully rested, and then were awakened at six in the morning. Brain scans were done. They then were kept awake, but they weren't asked to do any difficult problem solving, simply remaining awake, a day at the beach twiddling one's thumbs.

SHAWN: OK, so they are not engaged in high thought processes, it's just day-to-day existence.

FRED: Very relaxed. Then on the same day, 16 hours after waking, the same tests were done, and when they compared the results, they found that the front part of the brain lost blood supply compared to when they were rested and first awakened.

SHAWN: So we don't have fuel going the to front part of the brain when we are tired?

FRED: Not as much.

SHAWN: So what does that do to us? I mean, why is the front part of the brain, you'll have to forgive my ignorance, but what does that front part of the brain do for us? What actually takes place there, and why is this affecting us?

FRED: The front part of the brain carries out the most important functions of the mind. It is where we make our decisions. And successful living is dependent upon good decisions.

SHAWN: Now, are we talking about the decision of which pair of socks to wear this morning, or are we talking about big or moral decisions?

FRED: It involves every decision, from the so-called small ones to the biggest one. And this research has demonstrated, given us a reason to understand, why the front part of the brain is so important to this decision-making process. There are what are known as the high-order mental functions, and there are five of them. The first is discrimination or discernment. It is the ability to recognize that there are choices we can make. And when you get up in the morning, a simple example is that you discern in your drawer between the white socks and the dark socks.

SHAWN: Yeah, you know, I always make the wrong decision. That's what my wife tells me.

FRED: That's why I ask my wife, and if it goes with it or not.

SHAWN: That's the discrimination or discernment.

FRED: There are no decisions to be made if there are no options.

SHAWN: OK.

FRED: I can't think of anything in life, any circumstance, that has no options at all. So, we make discernments all the time. We are exercising that. But when we are tired, we don't discern as well.

SHAWN: That can be dangerous when it gets into the moral realm, obviously.

FRED: Absolutely.

SHAWN: What are some of the higher mental order?

FRED: The net high-order mental function is judgment. That's where we evaluate those options that we have discerned.

SHAWN: Very good.

FRED: And we draw upon past experience, knowledge, etc., to choose which one is the best for the current set of circumstances. The next high-order mental function is initiative.

Initiative is the ability to start doing something now that we have decided we need to do. There are many times in life when we know what we should do, but we don't act on it.

SHAWN: That does happen all the time.

FRED: And when we're tired, discernment, judgment and initiative wane and we are not as effective in our decision-making. But it goes even further than that. Our ability to problem solve is a high-order mental function. And what happens when we're tired is we may look at the options and choose one that we think is the very best, based upon our judgment, but in reality, our field of vision has been narrowed, and we have missed the very best one. And that's because problem-solving requires the ability to look at all the possible options.

SHAWN: Now, that makes good sense to me. The other day I was exceptionally tired and somebody approached me and said, "What do you think about this? Should we do A, B or C?" And I looked at it, and you know something? I had only slept a few nights out of the previous week, and I couldn't make a decision. I looked at all the options and I said, "I don't know." I couldn't evaluate them. I couldn't do anything with them.

FRED: And E or F may not have even been within your vision, so to speak.

SHAWN: Absolutely.

FRED: And F might have been the very best one under those circumstances.

SHAWN: Right.

FRED: That is what happens when we are tired. The last high-order mental function is forethought, and this has much to do with efficiency. Forethought is the ability to begin doing something now that will save us time in the future. Tired people are not very efficient. It takes them longer to do the same things that they could have done when they were rested.

SHAWN: Now, that seems to make sense. In light of everything you have shared with me, we don't have the ability to make judgments in this state, we don't have the ability, our initiative is weakened, all of these areas are weakened. And so when you look at a task when you are tired, you can't always make the right decision to do it the best way or the most efficient way.

FRED: That is exactly what happens when we are tired.

SHAWN: Right. I think you have just described most people reading this script today. We have all lived with this, and we live with it much more than we ought to.

FRED: You have probably heard of Yo-Yo Ma, the world-famous cellist.

SHAWN: Absolutely, a favorite of mine.

FRED: He gave a concert in Carnegie Hall in New York City a few years ago, and following the concert, he got in a taxi to go to his hotel. He put his cello in the trunk of the taxi. When he got to the hotel, he paid the cabbie, he went into the hotel, went to his room, and then realized that his cello was left in the trunk.

SHAWN: Oh, my.

FRED: Now, he would not normally have done that. But in an interview with a newspaper reporter, he said, "I was so tired that I simply forgot it."

SHAWN: Now, I'm no Yo-Yo Ma, but the other day I left my camera on the airplane for the same reason. I was actually at the luggage carousel and mentally I was thinking, "I usually have three bags. Something's missing." And it took me 20 minutes or so until I realized my camera was still on that plane and it was leaving!

FRED: There is another area of the brain, Shawn, that is also affected by fatigue. It's called the thalamus, and it has many important functions, but relative to our decision-making, it passes all of the sensory information to the higher levels of the mind.

SHAWN: OK, so this is like a relay-switch from my sense of touch, taste, feel, hearing?

FRED: Exactly. And when we are tired, the funnel gets smaller, if you will. In other words, the same amount of information is coming in from the senses, but the funnel fills up because it's smaller, and some data is lost. When we make decisions on only partial information, that is when we tend to make catastrophic decisions. This is what happened with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Most people think it was because of the inebriation of the captain. The captain was actually in his quarters. It was the third mate who was on the bridge when the accident occurred.

SHAWN: I didn't know that.

FRED: He had been awake and on duty for 32 consecutive hours.

SHAWN: Oh my!

FRED: And when he finally was awakened from a stupor by navigational warnings, he made a quick scan of the instruments on the bridge and realized the great ship was off course, but he didn't have the full information because he had missed much of it while he was in this sleepy stupor. And when he made a decision to take corrective action, very interesting, he took action to turn the ship toward the reef instead of away from the reef.

SHAWN: He couldn't process the information.

FRED: Now, the National Transportation Safety Board said that wouldn't have made any difference in the outcome because he was already too close to the reef. But that illustrates what happens in the decision-making process when people are tired.

SHAWN: See, now, that is big, because most of us who are watching today are never going to steer a massive ship. But we are steering something much larger than the ship. We are steering our lives.

FRED: That's right.

SHAWN: And we have to get from birth to the grave if the Lord doesn't come before then. If we are not able to process information or make good decisions, we are not just making shipwreck of an oil tanker, we are making a shipwreck out of our whole lives!

FRED: Exactly right.

SHAWN: We are talking about mental function. Every time I go on a long trip overseas, to speak or such, I usually end up skipping several nights' sleep. It happens to me all the time and I get fatigued. And it seems that the first moment I get a day off and I relax, I get a cold, or I get the flu, or something. What does it do to our immune system? What is it doing to our physical health? Does fatigue put us at a higher risk for disease?

FRED: A number of studies have demonstrated that chronically being tired does increase our risk for disease. One of the most recent studies has demonstrated that in healthy young men, when they have been deprived of about four hours of sleep per night over a period of five to six days, their ability to handle glucose approaches that of a diabetic.

SHAWN: Really!

FRED: Yes. Now, the good news was that when they got rest it went back to normal, but we saw increased levels of cortisol, which is one of the stress hormones, and we are now beginning to think that being tired decreases our ability to handle the stresses of life as well, and makes us more vulnerable to the effects of stress. It's interesting that from a performance standpoint, a person who misses two hours of sleep per night for four nights has the equivalent performance of an individual who has skipped the whole night of sleep.

SHAWN: No kidding. I can't believe it's God's will for our lives in North America to run through life fatigued all the time, tired all the time, at wits' end all the time. And so the question I want to ask you today is, what do we do about it? Everybody is tired. There are millions of people watching today who are exhausted. What do we do? Is there a strategy? How do we beat it?

FRED: There are several things I would suggest that can help us fight fatigue. The first is to get an adequate amount of rest. And for most of us, that means around eight to eight and a half hours of sleep per night.

SHAWN: Very good.

FRED: All the experts agree that seven hours is enough to get by on, but I think the Christian is expected to do more than just "get by on." And so we need to make sleep a priority and make sure that we get enough sleep.

SHAWN: OK, sleep.

FRED: Number two is to get an adequate amount of exercise. We can't truly get a recuperative night's sleep without physical activity.

SHAWN: That is very interesting to me. And we live in a world today where most people come home at the end of the day, eat dinner, sometimes they don't even sit at the table, they flop on the couch with a plate, and they turn on the tube, and don't ever get off that couch, and then their sleep is terrible.

FRED: You are exactly right, and if they would get some physical activity on a daily basis, they would sleep much better.

SHAWN: What does it take?

FRED: It takes 30 to 60 minutes a day of physical activity. It doesn't have to be all together at one time.

SHAWN: Oh, really! OK, so I don't have to go for an hour's run before work every morning. I can break this up into three, four, five, 10-minute segments. Is this what you are saying?

FRED: You can, absolutely, and you will get the benefits from the relaxation as well as the physiological benefits that will help engender a good night's rest.

SHAWN: So, we've got sleep, we've got exercise. What are some of the other things we can do to combat fatigue?

FRED: We need, thirdly, to learn to control our stress.

SHAWN: OK, now you are preaching to a guy who lives on the edge of stress all the time, so I'm all ears, Doctor.

FRED: We need to learn to handle that positively, without letting it wear us down. Stress contributes to our fatigue. Long hours of mental activity contribute to fatigue, and stress is a function of mental activity.

SHAWN: Right, such as becoming absorbed in issues, letting things consume you.

FRED: We need to take some relaxing breaks, to be able to satisfy some of the worries and concerns, responsibilities that weigh on us, and truly be rested.

SHAWN: So we've got sleep, we've got exercise, we've got learning to deal with stress positively. Give me an example of how I could do that if something is eating at me, and I am awake worrying about it. Tell me how to deal with it positively.

FRED: Well, for many people, if they just go out and get some physical activity, then the sense of importance, of how important that thing that's eating you, will change. Physical activity, actually, in many ways changes the color of the glasses through which we look at life.

SHAWN: Amazing! So not only am I going to sleep better, but I'm actually going to look at the world with more optimism when I'm getting that exercise.

FRED: You absolutely will. You will also look at it with more optimism with adequate rest.

SHAWN: OK, so we've got sleep, we've got exercise, we've to stress management. What else am I supposed to do?

FRED: We also need to eat properly and drink an adequate amount of water. You would be very interested to know that in several studies, when people have become dehydrated by about two percent, which isn't very much?

SHAWN: Two percent seems insignificant to me.

FRED: They've already lost eight to ten percent of their cognitive performance.

SHAWN: You are telling me when our hydration level is down just two percent, I mean, that seems like nothing to me, we are losing up to 10 percent of our mental cognitive function.

FRED: That's correct. Let me remind you that you don't feel or perceive thirst until you are three percent dehydrated.

SHAWN: Oh, so we are already acting dumb long before we are thirsty.

FRED: Well, we could put it that way. Now, we get along in life most of the time. But if an emergency occurred and it required all of our mental resource, that eight to 10 percent could make a significant difference in the decisions we make.

SHAWN: OK, so how much is enough water? I have heard all my life, drink eight glasses of water a day, and so sometimes I resolve I'm going to sit at this desk and I'm going to drink eight glasses, and I just gulp them down. Is that how much water I need?

FRED: It depends on the environment in which you are in, and the amount of physical activity, but that six to eight glasses of water is a fairly good indicator.

SHAWN: Now, does the water that I get out of my apple count?

FRED: It does count.

SHAWN: Oh, it does, OK.

FRED: It does. And we get a lot of water from especially the fruits and vegetables that we eat. But that only contributes to part of what we need.

SHAWN: Well, does a glass of orange juice count? I have always heard, no, it has to be just pure water. Does that glass of orange juice count?

FRED: It contributes to the fluid needs of the body. But that six to eight includes the things we typically eat as well.

SHAWN: Very good. OK, we've got sleep, we've got stress management, we've got exercise, we've got water. What else do I need to do?

FRED: We need to avoid things like caffeine as well as alcohol and tobacco, because they all have a negative effect on the quality of the sleep that we get.

SHAWN: OK, well, we only have a few minutes left today, and you have given me a lot of positive information. Are there a few more points that we need to cover?

FRED: There are a couple of very important ones. One is that we need to take one day of rest per week.

SHAWN: Very good.

FRED: And scientists have recognized the importance of doing that.

SHAWN: That is remarkable, to me, because the Bible has always talked about that, remember the Sabbath day, and God himself rested on the seventh day. One day a week, you are saying.

FRED: That's right, and we should take a few hours every day, at least an hour, for relaxation as well.

SHAWN: Oh, I'm guilty. I never seem to do that.

FRED: We will accomplish more in less time and we will do it better and more safely when we do that.

SHAWN: OK, so rest one day a week. Is there anything else we ought to cover? You say one day a week, an hour a day.

FRED: The last thing I'd like to mention is that if people are truly having trouble or suspect they have a sleep disorder, they need to get a good evaluation and take action that way.

SHAWN: So go see someone who can help.

FRED: Absolutely. There are things that can be done.

SHAWN: Say I am exhausted, I'm fatigued, I'm on the road all the time. I don't have time this week for a good exercise program, I don't have time this week for any of the things we have talked about. I'm in a strange country. I'm not drinking enough water because I'm scared to drink it. Please give me a drive-through solution. What is the short-term fix? I'm really tired and I have to be on the go this afternoon.

FRED: Well, one of the most important things you can do for the short term, it's like a Band-Aid, but it is effective, is to take a nap. And that will restore performance in an otherwise tired person for a few hours.

SHAWN: Now Dr. Hardinge, you are on the show for a number of reasons today. You are not only an expert on health, but you are also a Christian, you are a minister of the gospel. This is more than just being tired. I'm talking about going at peak efficiency, and to me that becomes a spiritual issue. Is this a spiritual issue?

FRED: It absolutely is, for the Christian, although often we don't recognize that. When we are tired, we become more susceptible to temptation. We also see a decline in our willingness to study God's Word and to communicate with Him in prayer. And it diminishes our spiritual vigilance. And as you know, we live in a day and age where there is a battle going on, and that battle is going on in our minds. And if the enemy can sneak up on us when our vigilance is waning, then he gets the upper hand.

SHAWN: So that's why it's so important to maintain our mental function.

FRED: It is very important to get adequate rest and to maintain this optimal cognitive performance.

SHAWN: Dr. Hardinge, I'm delighted you have been on the show with us today. I'm afraid we are running out of time, but thank you so much. I know a lot of people reading this today are glad you were here.

FRED: Thank you.

SHAWN: Almost 2,000 years ago, Jesus said something really interesting that sheds a lot of light on our subject today.

Listen to what He says in John 10, verse 10 (John 10:10):

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

As you study the Bible, you quickly discover that there are forces at play in our universe that want you down, just as Dr. Hardinge has mentioned. There is a fallen angel who, against all odds, does not want you to reflect the glory of God in your life. He does not want it to appear to the universe that you have been created in the image of God.

You know, I think one of the biggest things you could do right now, if you have never done it before, is to claim the promises of God and restore your broken relationship with Him. Right now, at this very moment, He is holding out His hand and promising you a more abundant life.

Dr. Hardinge, I can't think of a better way to start managing fatigue issues in our life than to simply know that we have a loving heavenly Father who is on our side and wants to help those who are struggling. I'm wondering today if you would be willing to offer a prayer for those out there who are wrestling with fatigue and would love to have that more abundant life that Jesus is talking about?

FRED: I'll be happy to do that.

SHAWN: Great. Let's pray together.

PRAYER:
Our gracious Father, the Creator of each one of us, you have designed us in a fearful and wonderful way. We ask that you would grant us strength so we can make the choices in our lives that will give us energy, that will give us clear thoughts, that will allow us to make right decisions, not only in the every day things of our lives, but most importantly, in our relationship with you. And as we seek to serve you, we thank you that you are willing to help us with these things. In your precious name we pray, Amen.

Scriptures Used in “I'm So Tired”

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
—John 10:10

"Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.'"
—Revelation 12:10