All good suggestions so far. Spyware and other junk programs can cause these types of problems. Also, many people who start their computers up and shut them down often will find that there are a variety of updates trying to happen: MS updates, Java updates, Virus scans to run, google desktop indexing... sometimes, just leaving it on for a day or so will bring things back to a bit of equilibrium.
If your hard drive is too full, your computer may not be able to use memory efficiently through swapping. Check available space. Also, if your habits have changed, and you're now running several programs simultaneously, consider upgrading your RAM.
Toolbars in your browser can also cause problems in some cases. Usually I try to strip some of those out of the equation.
Lots of people get a new computer with Norton or another "security suite" installed on a time-limited offer. Some of these are quite resource intensive. Worse, some people let those expire and install another anti-virus program without uninstalling the original program correctly or completely. If you have a resource-constrained system, consider switching to a product like AVG or the excellent AVAST.
Delete all temporary files from all your temp directories.
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