Tired of being Tired? Top 3 Causes of Fatigue



Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007

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Mackie Images

You wake up feeling tired. Your workday is filled with cups of coffee and no time to take a break. After work you go to your kid’s ball game. It’s been awhile since lunch but you’re not eating dinner until you get home, so you hastily consume a candy bar.

At home you eat a huge dinner and can only think of going to sleep even though you’d planned on going for a walk.

Sound familiar?

There are various physical and mental reasons that people can experience fatigue. Many medical conditions and medications can have side effects of fatigue. But in today’s culture feeling chronic tiredness is becoming more commonplace. We have families that need us and jobs that often have us working more than 40-hours per week. The house needs to be cleaned and errands need to be run. Feeling tired gets to be just another fact in a busy life.

Symptoms of fatigue

The symptoms of what we would consider garden-variety fatigue could also be symptoms of disorders that might require medical attention. Talk with your doctor if you experience these symptoms – don’t brush them off just because you think you might be “a little tired."

Common symptoms of fatigue include: Lethargy, Drowsiness, Weakness, and Listlessness

What causes fatigue and what can you do about it?

If you’ve checked with your doctor and are not suffering from a physical or mental cause for fatigue, it’s time to start looking at how you’re living your day-to-day life.

  • Are you eating properly? Drinking enough water? Poor nutrition is high on the list of fatigue factors. Insufficient vitamin and mineral intake along with poor protein balance can trigger tiredness. A diet too high in fat and carbohydrates can also contribute to a general sense of lethargy. If your fluid intake is poor, this can cause headaches and effect organ functions. Eating and drinking poorly often ties in with other fatigue factors such as not having enough time and too much stress.
  • Are you getting regular exercise? Many people believe that exercise will make them more tired, which isn’t true. Exercise can increase overall levels of energy. One reason for the increase is that aerobic exercise makes your heart stronger and more efficient. A fit cardiovascular system delivers about 25 percent more oxygen per minute at rest and up to 50 percent more oxygen during physical exertion than an unfit one does. Building stronger muscles allows you to move through your day more easily. Exercise can also improve the quality of your sleep, so you feel more rested even after spending the same amount of time in bed.
  • Can you reduce your level of stress? There is a lot of talk these days about ways to reduce stress. Two things that are on the top of the stress reduction list are better organization and doing less. And, of course, exercise.

    Exercise can increase overall levels of energy

    The thought of getting organized can actually cause stress for a lot of people.

    What can you do to break a cycle of disorganization? Start by learning what would work for you. You do things in your own way; it stands to reason that there is an approach to organization that would work better for you than others. Take the time to learn about different ways to organize. Up until now you may have thought that you’d never be able to get organized – it’s probably more likely that you just haven’t found a system that works for you.

    Becoming better organized can lead to living simpler and better time management; these in turn can lead to less stress and less stress can help increase your level of energy.

    So now it’s back to exercise again – outside of the physical benefits of exercise, there are also mental and emotional reasons to work out. Hard strenuous physical activity can clear the mind of clutter. People often problem-solve while exercising because their focus becomes clearer. Activity can also be an emotional outlet. Emotions that can build up and hinder you from functioning at your best can be diffused with exercise.

    There are no magic bullets here. If there were, we’d all be abounding with energy. You’re not going to create an abundance of energy over night. Start small. Eat a vegetable with dinner. Take a walk during the day. Imagine your store of energy is like a bank account – the better you handle your account, the more energy you’ll have. If you overdraw it, you’ll be working with a deficit. Work on keeping your account balanced and “tired of being tired" will become a saying of the past.

    BIO:

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