Depression and the impact on fatigue
Mood and sleep
It’s no surprise that sleep, or a lack of sleep, affects our mood. One sleepless night will cause most people to be more irritable, short-tempered and stressed. After a good night’s sleep, your mood often returns to normal. Whilst sleep does affect mood, mood also affects sleep. People suffering anxiety or stress will experience agitation,……
Getting enough exercise
We’ve talked about all the benefits of physical activity, but how do we know your fitness is causing you to lack energy and feel fatigued? Ask yourself these questions: Do you breathe heavily after walking up a short flight of stairs?Do you need to take a break or rest if you walk for 1 hour?Are……
Should burning fat kilojoules be my goal?
NO – burning energy whatever its source should be the major goal of exercise when trying to lose body fat. The reason is that 37,000 kilojoules of energy equals one kilogram of fat. So if we eat an extra 37,000 kilojoules in a week we would gain a kilogram and if we eat 37,000 fewer……
Mealing timing and fatigue
Our bodies perform best when given a regular supply of food throughout the day rather than one large meal. This means that to start maximising your energy you need to have a good think about when you eat your meals, and how much you have. Once you find a good pattern of eating you will……
Energy requirements & fatigue
Eating too much food will provide more energy than we need for metabolic and activity needs, leaving the extra energy stores as body fat (weight). The greater your body weight, the more chance you are of experiencing fatigue. The graph below shows that, as body weight increases above 86kg for an average height man, and……
Are you exercising hard enough?
A word of caution.If you have been inactive for a while, you may want to start with less strenuous activities such as walking or swimming at a comfortable pace. Beginning at a slow pace will allow you to become physically fit without straining your body. Once you are in better shape, you can gradually do……
What can you do to manage fatigue?
Taking action against fatigue happens in two forms: 1) the action you take when you experience fatigue; and 2) the action you take to prevent fatigue and therefore become more fatigue resistant. Figure 1 below summarises the causes of fatigue and identifies the areas that need to be focused on to build fatigue resistance. Although……
Managing mental health and fatigue
When trying to establish the cause of an individual’s fatigue, it is easy to get caught up in the end point, or symptoms, of fatigue. However, start digging a little deeper and you may be able to identify the factors causing fatigue. Once we determine the underlying causes of fatigue, we are better able to……
Sleep medication
Sleeping medication may be helpful to overcome short term needs or significant life events, such as grief or high stress events. Sleeping medication can be used to improve sleep quantity and quality but should only be used for short periods to avoid dependency, as dependency will only lead to longer term sleep problems. It is……
Dreaming
There are many theories about dreams including how they occur and what they may mean, if anything. Dreams may not serve any purpose at all and may be merely a by-product of two evolutionary adaptations – sleep and consciousness. The question about the function of dreaming is still unanswered. Dreams often involve the dreamer in……