How To Stop Fatigue From Depression

What Can You Do To Reduce Your Fatigue

Exercise regularly

• Exercise has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to fight fatigue .
• Staying fit can help you maintain muscle strength, boost your energy, improve your mood, and help you sleep better.
• Exercise can be done safely by people with disabilities but you may need some guidance. Talk to your health care provider before beginning a new exercise program.
• You can also talk to a physical therapist before you get started. He or she can evaluate your current level of fitness, and give you exercise ideas.
• Include both aerobic exercise and muscle-building exercises in your routine. Its also important to include some stretching and flexibility type exercises.
• Think about exercising with a partner or joining a group exercise class at a gym, community center, or senior center. Working out with other people can really help you stay motivated.

Take naps

Pace yourself and get enough rest

• Your mind and your body need rest in order to function at their best. Scheduling regular rest periods may help you manage fatigue.
• Be patient with yourself. You may not be able to do everything in a day that youd like to.
• Determine what is essential to do each day so you can learn how to reduce the number of daily activities such as errands.
• Pace your activities to reduce overdoing it, and stop BEFORE you are tired.

Other strategies for managing fatigue

Underactive Thyroid And Fatigue

Symptoms: Extreme fatigue, sluggishness, feeling run-down, depression, cold intolerance, weight gain

The problem may be a slow or underactive thyroid. This is known as hypothyroidism. The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland that sits at the base of your neck. It helps set the rate of metabolism, which is the rate at which the body uses energy.

According to the American Thyroid Foundation, about 17% of all women will have a thyroid disorder by age 60. And most won’t know it. The most common cause is an autoimmune disorder known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Hashimoto’s stops the gland from making enough thyroid hormones for the body to work the way it should. The result is hypothyroidism, or a slow metabolism.

Blood tests known as T3 and T4 will detect thyroid hormones. If these hormones are low, synthetic hormones can bring you up to speed, and you should begin to feel better fairly rapidly.

Tips To Deal With Fatigue At Work Over Time

You can’t deal with fatigue at work only when you’re on the job. These tips will help you manage fatigue as part of ongoing self-care.

Fuel Your Body to Prevent Fatigue at Work

When Im depressed, all I want to eat macaroni and cheese, but this only makes me feel like curling up and never leaving the couch again. Fatigue makes it difficult to put effort into anything, but its worth it to fuel your body with food that will give it more energy .

Prioritize eating a balance of protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods with lots of sugar and simple carbohydrates, like pastries, which might boost you up for 30 minutes before ending in a nasty sugar crash. I find it helps to think to myself, Is this ultimately going to make me feel better or worse? before I eat anything when Im depressed.

Pro tip: keep some almonds in your desk for a quick, convenient energy boost.

Practice Good Sleep Hygiene to Avoid Fatigue at Work

Exercise

Talk to Your Doctor

If you are experiencing major fatigue at work, you may want to talk to your doctor. Fatigue is a common symptom of many different health conditions and its important that youre getting proper treatment. Dont assume your fatigue at work is because of your depression, and even if it is, your doctor will have suggestions for dealing with it based on your individual needs.

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What Medical Conditions Cause Fatigue

Hundreds of conditions and disorders lead to fatigue. Some of the most common causes of fatigue include:

• Disease and infection: Cancer, kidney disease and multiple sclerosis are just a few diseases that cause fatigue. Fatigue can also be a sign of infections such as mononucleosis, HIV and flu.
• Mental health conditions: Fatigue from depression or anxiety may make it difficult or impossible to perform daily activities.
• Autoimmune disorders: Fatigue is a symptom of many autoimmune diseases, including diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
• Hormonal imbalances: Problems with your endocrine system can lead to exhaustion. Hypothyroidism is a common cause of fatigue.
• Chronic conditions:Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia cause severe, long-lasting fatigue.
• Heart and lung problems: Fatigue is a common symptom of cardiovascular conditions such as heart disease, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome , chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , emphysema and congestive heart failure.
• Deficiencies:Anemia and other vitamin deficiencies are often responsible for fatigue. Dehydration can cause fatigue because the body needs plenty of fluids to function.
• Weight problems and eating disorders:Anorexia, bulimia, obesity or being underweight can lead to fatigue and a range of other symptoms.

What Are My Options

Since depression is at the core of your depression fatigue, its important to look into ways that you might want to treat your mental health above anything else.

There are many options, and each type of treatment can offer a different approach in helping you to deal with the challenges that come as a result of your feelings of depression.

Here are two main treatment options to consider:

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Turn To Role Models And Experts

As you are working to streamline your life, remember that you dont have to reinvent the wheel. If there is some aspect of your life that is eating up your decision-making energy, turning to role models and experts can be a great way to simplify your life.

There are people out there who are successfully doing what youd like to be doing. Watching and learning from them can be a great source of knowledge and inspiration. Follow their success model if you think it will work for you.

Many people are more than happy to share what works for them, and even feel honored when you ask.

So if youre starting something new :

• Find out peoples best tips.
• Implement the ones that seem like they would work.
• Adjust, if necessary, for your life and situation.

You can repeat this process in many different areas of your life. This works with studying, job strategies, fitness plans, and even stress management.

Build Habits Into Your Schedule

You already have several things you do each day without thinkinglike getting out of bed, taking a shower, and eating breakfast. You probably dont think too much about how to get these things done you just do them.

If you can attach other decisions to your already-established routine, making them a habit, you wont have to think about them, either.

There are a number of different ways that you can build automatic habits into your day. Some ideas:

• Try eating the same thing for breakfast each day.
• Schedule what you will work on certain days of the week.
• Create a weekly exercise schedule so you’ll know how youll get your exercise each day.
• Pick one day of the week when you will do your laundry.

You can apply this same logic to a multitude of other choices that you may or may not have already automated. Whatever you can work into your schedule becomes one less thing you have to decide upon later.

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What Is Focused Meditation

Meditation is the practice of becoming self-aware through breath and attention to connect the mind, body, and spirit.Meditation as a whole can change the structure and function of our brain. That being said, focused meditation or a guided meditation for focus is by far the best one. Meditation for focus and concentration can come in different forms. Experienced meditators use the following:

• Mindfulness this meditation involves us to be focusing on your breath and observing thoughts. This allows us to focus on our feelings without becoming too absorbed in them.
• Concentrative a meditation that gets us to focus on a particular point be it a word, breath, object, or a point in the space youre meditating. This is meant for us to pay attention to that point and prevent our minds from getting distracted.
• Moving this meditation involves gets us to focus on slow and repetitive movements similar to yoga or tai chi. The goal is again to be focusing on your breath while relaxing your body and mind with the movements.

Focused meditation, also known as concentrative meditation, is the practice of meditating and bringing your attention to one single object. This object can be something practical and tangible, such as a mandala painting or a candle flame. It can also be something abstract, such as a phrase or a sound .

Meet Yourself Where You Are

Depression is common. It affects millions of people, including some in your life. You may not realize they face similar challenges, emotions, and obstacles.

Every day with this disorder is different. Its important to take your mental health seriously and accept that where you are right now isnt where youll always be.

The key to self-treatment for depression is to be open, accepting, and loving toward yourself and what youre going through.

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If You Think It’s All About How Much You Sleep You Need To Read On

What does it mean to feel energetic?

Watching children play, adults marvel at their energy. Can’t we feel energetic as well? The answer is yes, although as we age, it is normal to experience less vigor. This fatigue is not entirely due to the physical process of aging. Stress increases as we agewe may have big mortgages, car payments, increasing responsibility at work, ill parents, medical conditions, or children to raise. And we often play lessthose who are younger are often better at prioritizing socializing, trying new things and having fun, while we can become bogged down in responsibility and forget to do the things that fill us up.

Adults also tend to decrease their activities as they get olderand less activity is associated with greater fatigue. It can mean poorer physical conditioning, too, which means that less activity is needed to produce muscle strain. Fatigue is functional it can help protect us against overexertion. However, our bodies are also sensitive to too little activity. So although fatigue is often associated with not wanting to do anything, paradoxically, sometimes we need to increase activity to shake off the cobwebs.Too often we take the cues of fatigue as a sign that we must do less.

What can we do to feel less fatigued?

See Your Personal Physician

If extreme tiredness is getting in the way of your daily routine, the first thing you should do is see your doctor. They can rule out health-related conditions such as anemia, hypothyroidism, sleep apnea, heart disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, or certain medications that may cause excessive sleepiness. They can also talk with you about a referral to a mental health professional.

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Impact Of Fatigue On Your Life

There is no exact or precise way to measure fatigue, but you can ask your doctor to help you manage the fatigue you are experiencing. You can try to assess the level of your fatigue by rating on a scale the following: the severity of your fatigue, the level of stress caused by your fatigue, your physical and mental tiredness, your ability to cope with your fatigue, and level of effect you think your fatigue has on your life.

Dont be afraid to admit that fatigue is affecting your daily life. Experts say that 10% of people suffer from persistent tiredness and one in every 5 claims that their fatigue is severe and interferes with their daily life. Fatigue can prevent you from performing the tasks you need to do and can interfere with plans you made ahead of time. It can make you too tired and exhausted to the point where you feel as though you need to lie down and rest before you can carry on with your day.

How To Reach Out For Depression Support

Look for support from people who make you feel safe and cared for. The person you talk to doesnt have to be able to fix you they just need to be a good listenersomeone wholl listen attentively and compassionately without being distracted or judging you.

Make face-time a priority. Phone calls, social media, and texting are great ways to stay in touch, but they dont replace good old-fashioned in-person quality time. The simple act of talking to someone face to face about how you feel can play a big role in relieving depression and keeping it away.

Try to keep up with social activities even if you dont feel like it. Often when youre depressed, it feels more comfortable to retreat into your shell, but being around other people will make you feel less depressed.

Find ways to support others. Its nice to receive support, but research shows you get an even bigger mood boost from providing support yourself. So find waysboth big and smallto help others: volunteer, be a listening ear for a friend, do something nice for somebody.

Care for a pet. While nothing can replace the human connection, pets can bring joy and companionship into your life and help you feel less isolated. Caring for a pet can also get you outside of yourself and give you a sense of being neededboth powerful antidotes to depression.

10 tips for staying connected

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What Is The Treatment For Fatigue

Treatment of fatigue depends mainly on the cause of it. If the cause is physical, the patient should be treated depending on this physical cause. If the cause is emotional, its better to convert the case to a specialist in this field to treat it. If you suspect depression, tell your patient to consult a psychiatrist to arrange a proper management plan.If you have been diagnosed with depression, once you treat depression, your fatigue will improve. But keep in mind that some antidepressants may itself cause fatigue. Try to arrange that with your doctor.

Always remember that stimulants especially caffeine, are not a good way to treat fatigue. In fact, those may make your fatigue worse once you stop them.

How Do You Assess The Symptoms Of Fatigue In Mdd

Dr. Fava: First, I want to confirm that the patient actually has a diagnosis of MDD. There may be some patients who complain of many symptoms of fatigue but do not have MDD, or there may be some patients with comorbid illnesses that include some depressive symptoms and fatigue, but are not truly MDD. Second, it is really important to differentiate between symptoms of fatigue that have been caused by the drugs we are using to treat the MDD in contrast to symptoms that are present as residual symptoms of MDD.

I begin my assessment by obtaining a careful, detailed history of all of the symptoms that existed prior to the initiation of treatment, followed by identifying any symptoms that have persisted despite treatment, and then I ask about any new symptoms that have emerged during treatment. Treatment-emergent symptoms may or may not be caused by the medications we are using, but it is important to differentiate whether these symptom are new or were preexisting to the treatment. Obviously, it is also important to explore whether the residual symptoms are more or less severe than they were before treatment commenced.

patients with residual fatigue are more likely to get depressed again despite continued prophylactic treatment. There is a much greater likelihood that patients with MDD who have residual symptoms like fatigue will also have work, school, and/or social difficulties.

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Fast Fix For Mild Fatigue

Some of us are simply tired with no medical cause. The good news is that exercise may give us a boost. Studies consistently show that people who engage in regular exercise feel less fatigue than those who don’t. When exercising for energy stay in the low-to-moderate exertion range, such as walking, yoga, or light resistance training to fight fatigue.

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How The ‘lost Art’ Of Breathing Can Impact Sleep And Resilience

Another way that chronic stress makes us feel exhausted is by interfering with sleep, says Bufka. “When we’re feeling stressed, our sleep can get disrupted, which naturally leads to feelings of tiredness and exhaustion,” she says.

“We really rely on sleep to recover each day,” explains Epel. “And so for many of us, even though we might think we’re sleeping the same number of hours, it’s not the same quality. It doesn’t have the same restorative ability, because we’re getting less deep sleep, and we think that is tied to this chronic, subtle uncertainty, stress.”

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Take An Actual Break To Reset Your Nervous System

There are likely a handful of things in your life that youve been engaging in that have been draining your metaphorical batteries for a while now. In order to earn your way back to a clean bill of health, you must begin by taking a proper break from the things that have been exhausting you.

Take a two week break from work. Start saying no to social events that drain you. Pass off your least favourite responsibilities to someone else for a while.

Yes, people will be disappointed with you. But your health comes first. Full stop.