COVID Fatigue
Fatigue is the sibling of anxiety. Generally speaking, if you’re dealing with anxiety for an extended time (let’s say 3-4 months or longer), fatigue usually shows up at some point. Anxiety is a “go” emotion and eventually the go-go-go aspect of anxiety also comes with a slow-slow-slow aspect.
If you look up the diagnostic symptom criteria of “generalized anxiety”, a type of chronic anxiety disorder, you’ll find on the list two candidates: poor sleep (not surprising) and being easily fatigued (surprising to some people, but not to anyone who has dealt with chronic anxiety). Between 80-90% of people with generalized anxiety disorder report experiencing significant fatigue AND about 80-85% report trouble sleeping (Zbozinek, Rose, et al, 2012). So let’s establish that if you are dealing with chronic anxiety, it’s not a stretch to say you will probably be dealing with trouble sleeping and fatigue.
Initially, the changing and sometimes confusing, often stressful demands of COVID-19 could have been thought of as a short term stressor. There was a time in early April, where I was thinking this all should be over by June. Well here we are in late August, this thing just keeps going. The initial waves of stress and anxiety start to morph into chronic turbulence and when that happens, fatigue starts to play a much more prominent role.
Let’s be precise. There’s fatigue and there’s tiredness from exertion or sleepiness from poor sleep. They are slightly different. If we are talking about tiredness then rest. Take a mental health day and “chill”, unplug. If you are tired or sleepy from poor sleep during the day, then start to get your nighttime sleep routine in order. You can get some help HERE.
But if it’s stress-fatigue, here’s what it can look like. There are different kinds of fatigue, and you can feel one, some or all of them. We typically think of fatigue as being physically tired out, or a sense that you can’t take on a lot physically. Then there’s mental fatigue, that can feel like it takes a lot of effort to do things that typically aren’t that effortful like looking up a place to get take out food. Then there’s motivation level - where you just don’t feel like doing anything.
With COVID, it wouldn’t be that surprising if you not only feel physically tired sometimes, or even feel like your motivation is out the window and rolling down the street. Tackling fatigue can be tricky, but it helps to start with the basics - looking at how you are sleeping. Not just how much, but also looking at your pre-sleep bedtime routine and how fast it takes to fall asleep. How much are you waking up in the middle of the night? How restful does your sleep seem? There are good places to read about how to sleep better. You can check them out HERE. Next, look at nutrition - are you eating well? There are a variety of eating plans out there but ask yourself - does your eating pattern involve good nutritional intake? Next, you might be too sedentary. Are you exercising? If not get that mask on and go for a walk, bike ride or run and work it into a daily routine. Sometimes you could be fatigued because you are too active. Overtraining is a major cause of chronic fatigue in athletes and even though you might not be an athlete, sometimes when we are stressed out we overtrain for our fitness level and that leads to the experience of fatigue.
Mental fatigue and feeling unmotivated connect more closely with emotional regulation and this might be a good opportunity to have a discussion; with your mind and body. They are talking to us all the time but often we tune them out and don’t listen, usually because we aren’t well versed in the language of the body. Fatigue can be your body’s way of saying “something isn’t going well motivationally, emotionally, situationally”. So, get out that journal, do a contemplative meditation, share where you are at with someone you trust, or get some therapy and explore what’s going on.
