We have experienced a difficult year: we experienced the stress of the pandemic, combined remote work with family and household chores, and went to the office and production with the risk of getting sick. Not everyone managed to go on vacation in 2020 and change the climate, and recharge with the energy of the sea and the Sun. Perhaps the feeling of chronic fatigue, multiplied by spring hypovitaminosis, is now close to all of us. Sports and proper nutrition support, but global problems are not solved. Is it possible to somehow overcome the breakdown and increase your productivity? Here’re some steps to deal with chronic fatigue.
You have to take care of your own health like no one else. It is you who must become the best specialist in your well-being, and it is you who are fully responsible for it.
Our body requires rest, and it sends signals to the brain that it needs to recover: we tend to sleep, attention and concentration fall, we don’t feel like doing anything & sometimes muscles ache. But after a break or a good sleep, the strength returns, and we can continue to work.
This is what happens in the ideal scenario. In reality, as a rule, rarely anyone manages to always satisfy the needs of the body: we work, overcome fatigue, act automatically, drink coffee or energy drinks, and continue to finish something urgent and important. After such a “race”, it becomes more and more difficult to fully relax during the night or weekend.
How to be less tired
Admit you need a rest. Paradoxically, most people don’t realize how tired they really are: they’re so used to running that they don’t know how to take a break. Workaholics are completely sure that stopping is like death. As a rule, people always see external reasons that prevent them from stopping, but do not realize that they do not give themselves concessions.
In society as a whole, and even more so in a work team, many consider it shameful to talk about fatigue. People get so used to hiding it from others that they don’t even voice the problem to themselves. What’s more, many take the squeezed lemon state as a sure sign that they’re doing a good job, with full dedication.
In my practice, there was a client who was on vacation for only a week in five years. She said that it was customary in the company to be proud of the number of non-vacation days. By the way, she came with complaints that she allegedly does not work well and therefore she is not being promoted. But after a few meetings, it became obvious that she simply did not have the strength for a career, she sleeps little and therefore breaks down on her colleagues and makes mistakes.
✔ Stop and analyze your condition: if you get tired by the end of the working week or at t he moment of emergency work, this isunderstandable and should not cause strong fears. But if you are exhausted already on the first day after the weekend, this is a cause for alarm.
Also read : 5 things to manage your time at work
Find out what takes power
Once you’ve acknowledged that you’re ready for change, you need to “audit” your schedule and to-do list and understand:
- What can be optimized: for example, listening to a webinar while walking in the park, talking to a colleague in the car on the way to the store;
- What can be delegated: distribute household chores between households, share care of children with a spouse, buy ready-made food a couple of times a week;
- What takes the most effort: it can be individual tasks (e.g. making phone calls) or situations (e.g. talking to certain people).
We can be “eaten up” by little things. For example, every morning you pass by a colleague who jokes caustically after you. The day has just begun and you are already broken. Or you have an important meeting ahead of which you are very nervous and therefore overwhelmed and depressed from the very morning. If you figure out what exactly hurts you or what exactly you are afraid of, then the annoying factor will cease to influence you.
How to replenish strength
Take care of yourself. Fatigue is a signal to remember the basic needs: sleep, good nutrition, remember about the daily routine and walks. These simple points may be enough to make you feel energized. If fatigue does not go away even after that, it is worth looking to the therapist, as prolonged impotence can be a sign of some diseases.
Find what you love
The feeling of fatigue is often associated with an emotional background. Pleasant emotions provoke the release of a hormonal “happiness cocktail”, thanks to which we feel more cheerful. Remember what gives you positive emotions: a hobby, chatting with friends, a book or a movie, a walk or sports.
Psychologists recommend leaving at least an hour for yourself every day and giving yourself a full weekend.
Relax
In a state of fatigue and stress, we experience tension: tight muscles, concentration of attention, overexcitation of the nervous system and increased adrenaline in the blood. The problem is that, even when we seem to be resting, we often remain in this super-collected state. If relaxation does not occur for a long time, the body “burns out”: hence the illness on the eve of an important meeting, defense of a project or exam.
The simplest recipes for relaxation are a warm bath before bed or a regular massage. Special practices that calm the mind and body are gaining more and more popularity: meditation, yoga, qigong and body-oriented therapy.
I recommend paying attention to which areas of the body are in overstrain and learning to track it.
“When you work on a laptop for a long time, you may not notice how your hand is numb. Similarly, hundreds of muscles “numb”, the overstrain of which interferes with blood flow and the functioning of systems. Before going to bed, try to relax your body as much as possible, rub problem areas, and if possible, take breaks during the day to walk around a bit, stretch and ventilate the room. Then by the evening you will be less tired.”
✔ Don’t let fatigue become your normal state. Only a balance between work and leisure will help you remain both a successful employee and a happy person. And who will like an employee who has no strength for anything, and even the mood is always at zero? That’s why:
- Track the moment of fatigue;
- Allow yourself to rest as much as your condition requires;
- Don’t limit your life to work – find a hobby or just spend time regularly with loved ones or alone, but without talking and thinking about business matters.
And remember that no job is worth your physical and mental health. Feel free to take care of yourself!
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