While chronic tiredness appears to affect more women than men, doctors are now seeing an increase in men complaining of fatigue. Today's man often finds himself coming home to sharing housework duties after a busy day at work, where he has recently taken on extra responsibilities when someone left the company. Concerned about losing their jobs in today's volatile workplace, many men and women simply don't take holidays - a vital part of resting and rejuvenating the mind and spirit.
Taking Stock
If the sound of the alarm clock is the low point of your day, you need to take stock. To determine the source of your tiredness, you need first to determine the obvious: are you getting enough sleep? Many parents of young children, for example, are determined to find some time for themselves when the children are in bed, which often means staying up past their own bedtime. The optimal amount of sleep that an adult requires every night is between seven and nine hours. Most adults exist on six or seven hours sleep, and wonder why they feel exhausted during the day. However, as difficult as it may be convincing a child or teen that he or she needs more sleep, it's even harder to accept the fact as an adult. The result is chronic sleep deprivation, which saps the energy and gives rise to ongoing feelings of tiredness and anxiety.
It's not very hard to determine if you are sleep deprived. Just ask yourself, upon rising in the morning, if you feel refreshed and restored, or whether you would rather pull back the covers and go back to sleep. If you are able, put your head down at noon. If you drift off within five to ten minutes, you are needing more night time sleep.
Although it's tempting to blame various situations in your day - the kids' sports programs, additional work, running an errand for an aging parent - these things should not affect your ability to function normally if you have had enough sleep. Ask yourself if you are going to bed at 11:30, if you have truly had enough shut-eye. If the answer is no, plan on going to bed an hour earlier for a week and see how you feel. Many people have no idea that the 'dragging' feeling they have during the day is not normal and is due to chronic sleep deprivation. According to sleep experts, this lack of awareness compounds the consequences, because people remain undiagnosed for years.
Other Causes of Sleep Loss
Having enough sleep is not always the problem. If you are getting eight hours or more shut-eye, your tiredness could be due to poor quality of sleep or - more likely - a combination of factors. Poor quality of sleep (such as not being able to fall asleep, or waking up constantly once you have) is a problem that affects approximately one quarter of the Canadian population. Known as insomnia, the inability to sleep can often be remedied through over-the-counter medications or herbal preparations such as valerian.
Other measures that help are having a specific bed-time routine that coaxes your mind into sleep mode; avoiding caffeine after noon; not consuming alcohol, or smoking within a few hours of bedtime; having a warm bath and/or warm milk before retiring, and making sure your bedroom is used for the purpose of sleeping and not working or other stressful pursuits. If noise such as traffic or a spouse's snoring keeps you awake, use ear plugs.
Sleep studies show that even a tiny amount of light coming into your room (from a hallway, a street lamp, night light or digital alarm clock, for example) can inhibit release of the sleep hormone, melatonin. If you cannot block all light sources, try wearing a sleep mask. If sleep continues to evade you, you might want to try melatonin capsules, available from the London Drugs pharmacy.
Doing Too Much
Biting off more than you can chew can cause you to feel run down both physically and mentally. If you feel overwhelmed, you might want to find a friend, family member or co-worker who can help you with a chore or two. Most people are only too willing to help out - if you give them the chance! Rearranging the household budget to accommodate the services of a housecleaning team is also helpful, particularly if you work outside of the home.
Having too much on your plate, combined with not enough sleep, is a sure-fire recipe for exhaustion. Making matters worse, many people who are overly busy lie in bed at night, worrying about all they have to do.
If you think your fatigue is due to having too much on your plate, make the time to sort your commitments out on paper. Draw three columns, and head them, Things I must do, Things I can put off until another time, and Things that someone else can do.
Move as many items as you can to the second, and then third columns. Be tough with yourself. It may be necessary that you go to your day job, but is it really essential that you do a full vacuum before the guests arrive tonight? It may be necessary that you drop your son off to his hockey practice, but do you have to bake cookies for after the game? Many people, on practising this exercise for a month or so, have been able to significantly reduce their workload. Often, being Superwoman (or Superman) starts with being 'super' to yourself.
You may even note that the time you leave for, or return from, work heavily impacts your daily schedule. Since employers are becoming more and more flexible, you may be able to change your hours, or even perform part of your work at home. It's always worth asking, and will not reflect poorly on your work skills. Your employer may be more than happy to allow flexibility on hearing that this will allow improved performance/work flow.
Physical or Mental Factors
Sometimes, physical or mental health conditions can make you feel fatigued or exhausted. These include fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and depression.
CFS is a perplexing condition that causes severe tiredness for several months or more. It is usually accompanied by one or more of the following symptoms:
- sore throat
- tender or painful lymph nodes in neck or armpits
- unexplained muscle soreness
- pain that moves from joint to joint but doesn't include redness or swelling
- headaches that differ from the norm for you or headaches that involve the entire head
- problems with short-term memory or concentration
- feeling tired for more than 24 hours following exercise
- trouble sleeping
Complicating the diagnosis of CFS is the fact that people with this condition may also have other symptoms.
If you think you may have CFS, you should schedule an appointment with your doctor. Some of the symptoms, including muscle aches, sleep problems, anxiety and depression, can be effectively treated with medications. (Unfortunately, medications for CFS can only reduce your symptoms and allow you to be more active, not cure the underlying condition.) Most symptoms improve with time.
Medical professionals remain unclear about the cause of CFS. The symptoms may be caused by a problem with the immune system, or they may be caused by a virus. Research into the precise nature and cause of the disease is ongoing.
Fibromyalgia is a condition that causes pain in the muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons. These areas of pain are called tender points. The most common tender points are at the front of the knees, the elbows, the hip joints and around the neck.
Most people with fibromyalgia feel tired or fatigued. Often, the fatigue can be very severe, and be accompanied by trouble sleeping.
If you think you may have fibromyalgia, you should discuss your concerns with your doctor. Several medications can help relieve the pain and other symptoms of fibromyalgia and improve your ability to sleep.
Depression can also cause insomnia. In turn, the lack of sleep can cause the symptoms of depression to worsen, setting up a vicious cycle. People who are depressed may have trouble falling asleep, wake often throughout the night or wake too early and not be able to fall asleep again.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that comes with the shortening of daylight hours during fall and winter. SAD can cause severe disruption of the sleep/wake cycle, as the sufferer very often sleeps late in the morning and has difficulty falling asleep at night. This type of depression can usually be successfully treated with light therapy such as the Litebook®.
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