When you woke up this morning how did you feel?
Maybe you stayed up past your bedtime binging the latest episodes of Stranger Things.
Maybe you’ve been having trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable time.
For whatever reason, when your alarm rang, the first thing you wanted to do was just turn it off and curl up under the covers, not caring if you’re late for your first meeting of the day. Is your tiredness just from a lack of sleep, laziness, or could it be something more?
If a good night’s sleep is all it’s going to take to get you back on your A-game, then you’re likely just tired. Fatigue is a different beast altogether, one that may have little to do with the time you go to bed and more to do with lifestyle and everyday factors.
So, what is the actual difference between being tired and fatigued, and how can you combat both of them?
Fatigued vs Tired
A hard gym session may knock you out until your next meal; getting a couple of hours less of sleep may leave you feeling groggy for your next meeting, and skipping your morning coffee might make you feel like snuggling back under the covers.
All of the above scenarios have easy fixes; a good night’s sleep, rest, and a little caffeine. That’s the big difference between tiredness and fatigue. When you’re fatigued, it’s a constant state of being tired and there are no shortcuts to fixing it; at least not without a lifestyle change.
What causes fatigue?
If being tired can be fixed, so can being fatigued. It’s just going to take some elbow grease.
Fatigue is typically caused by your environment and lifestyle, and typically manifests over a longer period of time. For some people, fatigue becomes chronic and after a while, it becomes their new baseline.
A good way to think about it is to picture a nurse on call during Covid. Her job was not only physically taxing, but also mentally taxing. She was working twelve-hour shifts regularly, only eating one decent meal a day, and only getting four hours maximum of sleep per night.
Over time, that grueling schedule caught up with her. Between the experiences of working in a hospital during the pandemic, the lack of sleep, and an awful diet, this nurse can’t seem to perk up during her time off, getting off the couch feels like a monumental task, and there’s no amount of caffeine that can fix this level of exhaustion.
If caffeine and sleep can’t fix fatigue, then what is the solution?
How to combat fatigue
Think about the way that a person gets to the point of fatigue. It doesn’t happen overnight, instead slowly chipping away over a longer period of time. The same approach has to be used for battling it. This only works if there aren’t other factors at play like depression.
Look at your lifestyle: are you overworking yourself? Are you eating the right foods for your body? Are you prioritizing your mental health?
Sometimes the remedies may seem too big to adopt, this is why we suggest that you take it step by step. Create a list, and every month, work on adopting a new healthy habit starting with what you put into your body.
Why your food matters
When people think of fatigue, they often think of lack of sleep. They rarely consider the correlation between the way that you’re fueling yourself and how you feel.
Food sensitivities wreak havoc on your body, and that’s putting it lightly. Think about how you feel after eating a massive family meal; usually, you’re ready to turn out the lights and take a nap. It takes an impressive amount of energy to digest your food; they don’t call it a food coma for nothing!
If cheese is your favorite food, and you have a minor food sensitivity to it, your dairy habit may be the reason behind that chronic fatigue. You’re not experiencing the intense symptoms of traditional lactose intolerance, but your body is using a ton of energy trying to digest something that is incompatible with you.
Chronic fatigue is something that plagues a large part of America’s population. Instead of wallowing in it and creating that new baseline, get back to where you were by tackling your fatigue in steps.
Start with a food sensitivity test that is not only medically backed, but is so detailed that it can identify if it’s the egg white or yolk that is giving you problems. Schedule an appointment with your doctor and ask about Immuno Labs Bloodprint Panels.
