{"id":4867,"date":"2026-10-27T15:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/?p=4867"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:38:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:38:52","slug":"ask-a-gp-should-i-be-this-tired-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/2026\/10\/27\/ask-a-gp-should-i-be-this-tired-all-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask a GP: Should I be this tired all the time?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We understand that getting a GP (general practitioner) appointment can feel like A LOT of effort, especially if you haven\u2019t had the chance to register with the University Health Centre<\/a> yet. Sometimes, this can make Chat-GP-T an appealing option, but we want to make sure you get legitimate information from reputable sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we\u2019ve done some of the heavy lifting for you and asked local GP \u2013 Dr Mark Isherwood – what the most common health questions they get asked by students this time of the year, and importantly, what they advise doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First things first though, if you haven’t already, get registered with a doctor’s surgery! We have guidance on how to do this here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, over to Dr Mark…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m tired all the time, even when I\u2019ve had a decent night\u2019s sleep. Is this just uni life, or should I be worried?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I see quite a few students complaining of feeling tired all the time. Some are understandably worried there\u2019s something medically wrong, like an underactive thyroid or anaemia. Others are perhaps hoping we\u2019ll find something straightforward, like a vitamin deficiency, that they can fix with a tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes we do. But actually, more often than not, when we start digging into things, it turns out there\u2019s a combination of things going on in their everyday lives that are having a much bigger impact than they realise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uni life isn\u2019t exactly designed around getting a good night\u2019s sleep. There\u2019s studying, deadlines, socialising, late nights and, particularly if you\u2019re living in shared accommodation, other people making a racket when you\u2019re trying to sleep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I find people really underestimate is caffeine. You might have a coffee or an energy drink at 3pm and think nothing of it. But caffeine has a half-life of around five hours, sometimes longer. So, by the time you\u2019re trying to get to sleep at midnight, there\u2019s potentially still a fair amount circulating in your system. Even if you manage to fall asleep, it can still affect the quality of that sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alcohol is another big one. People often tell me that a few drinks actually help them sleep, and to an extent they\u2019re right. Alcohol can help you fall asleep more quickly. The problem is that it disrupts your sleep later in the night, so you find yourself waking up at 2 or 3am, unable to get back to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throw in nicotine from smoking or vaping, recreational drugs, irregular bedtimes, stress and perhaps recovering from yet another bout of freshers\u2019 flu, and it\u2019s not particularly surprising that you\u2019re exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here\u2019s the bit people don\u2019t always want to hear\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite often there isn\u2019t a magic tablet that\u2019s going to fix everything. It\u2019s about how you\u2019re spending your days and nights, and doing a few things differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s only so much your body can take before it starts complaining. If you\u2019re persistently exhausted, particularly if it\u2019s affecting your studies, social life or ability to function normally, and if your tiredness comes with other symptoms, that\u2019s when you need to speak to your GP, to rule out any genuine medical causes as we certainly don\u2019t want to miss those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think the slightly uncomfortable truth is that we all quite like the idea of a quick fix, when quite often, what actually helps involves making some fairly unexciting changes to what you\u2019re doing every day. And unfortunately, that\u2019s usually a lot harder than taking a supplement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We understand that getting a GP (general practitioner) appointment can feel like A LOT of effort, especially if you haven\u2019t had the chance to register with the University Health Centre yet. Sometimes, this can make Chat-GP-T an appealing option, but we want to make sure you get legitimate information from reputable sources. So, we\u2019ve done … Continue reading “Ask a GP: Should I be this tired all the time?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":4887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":399,"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[438,24,5,405,406],"class_list":["post-4867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellness","tag-ask-a-gp","tag-health","tag-health-and-wellbeing","tag-sleep","tag-sleep-hygiene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4867"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4881,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions\/4881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/student\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}