Ep 107 Why You’re So Tired and How to Feel Better Without More Sleep

In this episode of The ARTwork of YOU, host Lori Gouhin explores the hidden reasons behind why you might feel so tired even when you’re getting enough sleep. It’s not about your bedtime routine or your coffee intake; it’s about the mental clutter that quietly drains your energy every day. 

Lori dives into the concept of “open loops” those unfinished tasks, unmade decisions, and avoided conversations that your brain refuses to let go of. From unread messages to unspoken words, these small, unresolved things build up over time, creating a constant sense of fatigue and restlessness.

You’ll learn why your mind struggles to rest when things feel incomplete, how this ongoing tension affects both your body and self-trust, and what small steps you can take to finally reclaim your energy and focus. This episode offers a powerful reminder that sometimes, the key to feeling better isn’t about doing more it’s about finishing what’s quietly holding you back.

In this episode, Lori shares:

• Why feeling tired often has nothing to do with sleep
  
  
  
• How unfinished tasks (open loops) drain mental energy
  
  
  
• The psychology behind why your brain clings to incomplete things
  
  
  
• Simple daily ways to close open loops and feel more grounded
  
  
  
• How completion restores clarity, creativity, and calm
  
  
  

You don’t need another nap, you need closure. By completing one small thing at a time, you’ll begin to rebuild energy, trust, and a deep sense of calm within yourself.

If you’re ready to find focus and ease in your days, book a strategy call with Lori at theartworkofyou.com.

Thank you for sharing your time with me and remember to show up in your life like the masterpiece you are because YOU are the ARTwork!!!

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Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. I am so glad that you are here with me today because today I want to talk about why you might be tired both mentally and physically, and not because of the work or your workouts or your full calendar or anything like that. I don't know if you're familiar with this idea, but I came across a post on X recently that mentioned the idea of open loops, and it immediately made sense to me, and [00:01:00] so I thought it would be a great thing to talk about.

And by open loops, they were referring to the exhaustion that comes from not finishing things. Things like the text you haven't answered, or the decision you keep postponing, maybe the conversation that you've been avoiding. Or the things that are on your list that never seem to get crossed off. And so when we think about rest, we tend to think that rest means stopping, but sometimes rest means completion because your mind doesn't let go of something until it feels completed.

And all those open loops, even the tiny ones, can keep you from ever feeling fully rested. And I'm talking about anything that's unfinished, but still taking up space in your mind. Again, it could be like a task, a message, a promise, or even a thought that keeps resurfacing because you haven't done something about it yet.

There are the small things that don't feel like it's a big deal on their own, but [00:02:00] together they create this, I would say, low level kind of mental noise, like background music that doesn't turn off. I guess you can say it's quiet enough that you can still go on with your day, but definitely distracting enough that you never feel completely clear. And 

There's actually a name for this, psychologists call it Zy, Garic Effect, and it's your brain's tendency to hold onto unfinished things more tightly than the ones that we've completed, which definitely makes sense because. Your mind doesn't like loose ends, so it keeps reminding you about them, but instead of helping you finish, it often just keeps you in a loop.

So you're half focused, maybe a bit uneasy, and you're not fully present. And what I find interesting is that most open loops aren't about being lazy or disorganized or anything like that. They're usually about avoidance. We avoid replying to the message because we don't wanna deal with someone's reaction or [00:03:00] we delay a decision because we're scared it might be the wrong one, or we postpone a conversation because we're hoping that somehow it's going to resolve itself if we wait long enough.

Every open loop points to something we're uncertain about how it will go, how it'll be perceived, or what might happen if we finally face it. And because we don't resolve it, it lingers and it's subtly asking for attention that we keep pretending we don't have time for. What makes open loop so tricky is they disguise themselves as small things, but they often hold emotional weight.

 The reminders of things that we don't feel ready to deal with and the more we collect them, all these little things, the heavier life starts to feel, and the problem is we mistake that constant mental noise for being productive. We think we're keeping on track, but really our minds are doing. I don't know, more like an unpaid [00:04:00] project management for every unresolved thing in our lives.

And so if you've ever ended the day feeling completely drained, but you can't really point to what you did. That made you so tired. Chances are you've got too many open loops running. It's that weird kind of tired where you didn't actually do that much, but your brain feels like it's been in a meeting all day.

You finally sit down to relax, but the second you do, your mind starts rolling through all the unfinished things like the package you meant to return, or the appointment you need to reschedule. The text you still haven't answered and the guilt for not answering it yesterday. Your brain treats all of those things like active tasks.

 It doesn't know the difference between, I'm thinking about doing it and I'm doing it, so it keeps sending energy there. Every time something pops back into your head and you think, oh, I still need to do such and such, it's your mind trying to tie up a loose end [00:05:00] and your body feels it too. You might not be running errands or lifting anything heavy, but you're still carrying the mental weight of all those open loops. That's why you can't get a full night's sleep. That's why you still wake up tired. Your brain didn't rest. It was too busy running through tomorrow's to-do list or imaginary conversations, and the 14 versions of how you might handle that thing you're avoiding.

Again, even the smallest unresolved things add up. You think you're just putting off cleaning the junk drawer, but every time you walk by it, your brain gives you a little reminder that it's still there. Ask me how I know, and then multiply that by every undone thing in your life, and no wonder you feel exhausted.

Sometimes we keep these open loops because in a strange way, It feels safer than closing them. Leaving something undecided gives us the illusion of control, like we still have options or time or wiggle room. If we don't [00:06:00] send the text, then we can't be rejected. If we don't make the decision, then we can't make the wrong one.

If we don't start. Then we can't fail. You can usually feel open loops in your body before you even name them. In your mind, it feels like that small tightness in your chest when you think about something that you need to do, or maybe that little drop in your stomach when you see someone's name pop up on your phone, or that tension in your shoulders when you walk past the pile of things that you keep saying you're going to quote, unquote get to later.

Those feelings and sensations are not random. That's your body keeping score. That's a great book, by the way. I think it's called Your Body Keeps the Score, something like that. It remembers every unresolved thing. Even when your mind tries to move on, you might tell yourself, it's fine, I'll handle it later, but your body doesn't buy that.

It keeps waiting for closure. like it's holding its breath until you actually finish what you [00:07:00] said you would. And that's part of why you can't think your way out of this kind of fatigue. You have to complete your way out of it. brain gets relief when the body feels like something is done, not when it's just thought about. And yeah, we all tell ourselves we're thinking it through, but most of the time we're just avoiding discomfort because we think that the moment we decide.

There's going to be no turning back, and that finality can feel uncomfortable, even if it's what we need. So we live in this middle space where nothing's really happening, but everything feels very heavy. It's exhausting because indecision still requires energy. Again, you might not be doing anything, but your brain is working overtime, trying to hold every possibility open at once.

And we all have our version of it. here are some examples that might seem like nothing, like the pile of mail on the counter that we pretend isn't there, or the closet that we'll organize this weekend [00:08:00] for the fourth weekend in a row. We laugh about it, but underneath the humor is the truth that we're tired from carrying the mental weight of everything we've left unfinished.

And here's something important that I think most people don't realize. Open loops aren't just about clutter or time management. They actually slowly chip away at how much you trust yourself, because every time you say, I'll take care of that later, and you don't, your brain quietly makes a note. Not in a judgmental way, just kind of in a subtle one, almost like it's checking to see if you really mean what you say.

And after enough of those moments, you start to feel this low grade self-doubt. You start hesitating before committing to things because part of you already suspects that you won't follow through, and that's what makes open loops so sneaky. They don't just keep you tired, they make you question your own reliability.

Now, I'm not saying that you must be perfect. It's more about [00:09:00] consistency when you close loops, even small ones. You remind yourself that you can count on you. Think about how good it feels to finally do something that you've been putting off, making the phone call, sending the email, cleaning out the drawer that's been haunting you.

You're not only being productive, you are restoring a sense of trust in your own word. The moment you start finishing things, you feel a tiny shift. There's less noise, more calm, more confidence, and you start to believe your own promises again. And that's where self-respect and momentum both come from.

And now, again, I'm not saying you have to suddenly clear out your inbox or complete every unfinished thing in your life. That's not the point. Closing loops doesn't mean becoming hyper-efficient or anything like that. It's more like reclaiming energy that's been leaking away. I would say a good place to start, like everything else, is with awareness.

Notice the things that nag at you most often. The [00:10:00] ones that pop up in your mind when you're trying to relax. Those are usually the loops that want your attention first. Next, make one small decision at a time, and I really mean small. Maybe you finally decide whether you're keeping or returning something that you bought, or maybe you write the message you've been putting off, even if it's awkward or maybe you delete a project that you're not actually going to finish.

All of that counts. Not everything needs to be done right now, but it does need to be decided. Sometimes closure means giving something an answer, a yes, a no, a not now. And once you've made that call, your mind can stop going back to it over and over again. And one thing that helps, at least for me, is to write it down.

Not a big to-do list, more like a short still open list. Seeing those things on paper makes them less overwhelming and more tangible. You're basically turning the open loops into a checklist. Then each day, close one loop, just one. [00:11:00] It's enough to build trust again and create space for new energy to come in.

I promise. You'll feel the difference, not necessarily in your schedule, but in your mind. I also think one of the most overlooked forms of self-care is to not add anything new before you finished what's already there. So often we are looking for ways to feel lighter or clearer, but what we miss is that often the real relief and clarity comes from bringing things to completion.

Again, when you close a loop, even a small one, you send a message to yourself. Something like I keep my word and you start to feel integrity with yourself and your confidence rebuilds and something else happens when you start closing loops. Your creativity wakes up. When your mind isn't busy rehearsing unfinished thoughts, it finally has room for new ones.

That mental noise, it starts to quiet, and that's when ideas and intuition focus and creativity all [00:12:00] return. It's not that you suddenly have more time, it just stopped wasting energy on things that didn't need to stay open. So completion creates space, and in that space you can finally hear yourself again.

And so to wrap it up, what I've noticed is that open loops, they rarely feel urgent, which is exactly why they pile up. They're small, they're quote unquote later things, but they're also the reason so many of us feel mentally cluttered, distracted, or even tired for no clear reason at all. When you start closing them, even a few.

You notice how much later everything else feels. It's like your mind finally, exhales takes a deep breath. There's more focus, more calm. You can actually rest without that low level background noise of the unfinished business. And maybe that's the real reset. Most of us need not a week off or a new routine, but the relief that comes from finishing [00:13:00] something that's been subtly asking for your attention.

So maybe today isn't about doing more. Maybe it's about doing one thing all the way through. Send the text, make the decision, have the conversation, cross off the thing that's been sitting there for way too long. That's how you start closing loops and that's how clarity, calm, and confidence all come back in.

If you would like help doing this, I am here for you. You can book a strategy call with me at the link in the show notes. Or on my website, www.theartworkofyou.com. Let's get you on track so that you are living your best life.