If losing sleep is the cause of your sleepiness, it may be that you need to plan out your rest periods a little better to enable your body its daily recovery time. Perhaps you had an extra long day and need to hit the hay a little earlier than normal to try and compensate for that. This is a common thing and it is in our nature of being human that unforeseen schedule changes may flip our sleep schedules upside down from time to time! What is most important though, is to realize when your sleepiness is more than just a momentary lapse in schedule or failure to recuperate lost sleep from normal fatigue.
Although I had thought of writing about fatigue in a more general sense recently, it was only after a compelling story from a new friend that I decided to help other people think about what very well could have been the thing that saved his life. It was the detection and treatment of a sleeping disorder, which many people can unknowingly have, that saved him from a possibly life-threatening situation. Most people would not think twice about things such as this, usually passing it off as a normal occurrence or just working too much and being dog-tired! Chronic sleepiness can be a sign that your body is not getting the rest it needs and that there may be an underlying cause for that lack of a rested feeling.
If you happen to suffer from occasional spurts of sleepiness or constantly being tired, do not prolong getting it looked at and treat it as a real issue. This type of thing could be a warning sign from your body trying to tell you something more is wrong, since this can be a symptom of some things such as narcolepsy, sleep apnea, idiopathic hypersomnia or restless legs syndrome, to name a few. Certain forms of depression may also disguise themselves in symptoms of being constantly tired or fatigued. Making sure you have the proper amount of quality rest is very important to alleviate being tired and will be very beneficial to your health overall in the long run. If proper rest, diet and exercise can not cure your feeling of being tired, look at the factors involved and consider getting it checked out to avoid something worse trying to down your number one asset...your health! I for one, am very glad this friend of mine was able to detect and correct the problem, as it could have been much worse if it had gone undetected and untreated! Do yourself a favor and know when to look for and spot the warning signs.