Tiredness is something we all experience. Usually, this is brought on by factors like stress, lack of sleep, or diet choices. It’s easy to brush off feeling tired as a small issue but feeling this way can impact you in many ways throughout the day. This is because fatigue can significantly reduce your focus, causing you to have a decreased attention span and reaction time, as well as making it harder for you to memorise things.
Of course, the extent these symptoms will affect you depends on how tired you are, but at it’s worst, tiredness can significantly impact your mood and ability to perform tasks throughout the day. For example, it is recommended that you avoid driving if you feel tired (particularly if you’d be driving a long distance) due to how it affects your reaction time. However, there are plenty of ways to deal with or prevent tiredness including:
- Eating frequently throughout the day rather than just having a large meal, to keep your energy up. It’s also important to ensure you’re eating a balanced diet.
- Exercising regularly, starting simple with short walks and gradually moving onto a proper routine
- Trying to increase your chances of getting a good sleep. This could involve going to bed earlier, turning off technology before you go to bed or even establishing a proper sleep routine.
- Looking into ways to reduce your stress levels
- Drinking less caffeine or alcohol in favour of water
However, it’s important to recognise that simply feeling tired is different from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which is a medical condition. CFS can be caused by infection, hormone imbalance or even your genetics. This condition tends to cause you to:
- Experience problems sleeping, for example, waking up throughout the night
- Still feel tired after sleeping
- Frequently feel exhausted after doing small activities
- Take a long time to recover from exhaustion
- Struggle concentrating or memorising things due to tiredness
If you feel this is something you’re suffering from, or your fatigue isn’t fading even after rest, it would be a good idea to speak to your GP. After that there are ways to help with this condition. For example:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a form of talking therapy aimed to help manage your thoughts and behaviours
- Getting advice on energy management and how to use it effectively throughout the day
- Medicine made to help combat symptoms such as pain and sleeping problems
Overall, living with CFS requires a lot of lifestyle changes, which can greatly impact your mental health and self-esteem, so it may be a good idea to be open with and seek support from friends, family or someone else you trust.
Written by Joe Perks
For Lyfeproof UK
