How Tired are You?

Are you tired?  If you are anything like anyone I know, you are tired.  You are not alone.  Everyone is Tired.  I was recently listening to a podcast by Ruth Haley Barton and she mentioned a “tired continuum” as a way to measure how tired we are.  While explaining this to my graphics friend she came up with this illustration.

(I like that it looks like a gas gauge.)

In describing this continuum, Ruth mentioned that we should be operating somewhere between “healthy tired” (after a job well done) and being replenished and refreshed from real rest.

Unfortunately, most of us operate somewhere below “healthy tired” and  a lot closer to “dangerously tired.”  

Being in a continual state of exhaustion impacts our work, our lives, and those around us. It has become too easy to tough it out, have that fourth cup of coffee, and ignore how tired we really feel.

When we are exhausted, our ability to regulate our own emotional state becomes next to impossible.  Someone called me out on this recently.

“Your emotional buffer is almost non-existent today.”

“What do you mean?”

“You appear to be overreacting to just about everything.”

So, my question to you today is a simple one.  How tired are you?  Are you masking or ignoring the signs of being beyond healthy tired and running on empty?  Are those around you, at work or home, or elsewhere getting you at your best?  Or just the burned out shell of yourself?

Do yourself and those around you a favor: REST!

Seriously.  Go take a nap or something.