Fatigue is more than just a passing feeling of being tired. When you’re exhausted all the time and this starts interfering with your daily activities, it’s time to search for a solution. When you talk to your doctor about your tiredness, report any other symptoms you might be suffering, such as muscle pain or weakness, concentration problems, confusion and irritability. These can help your doctor identify the cause of the tiredness.
Medical Reasons
Being extremely tired all the time can indicate a medical condition or health problem. Anemia is a common cause of tiredness. So are long-term infections and inflammatory conditions, including Lyme disease, hepatitis and glandular fever. Life-threatening conditions such as HIV and cancer also can cause persistent fatigue. If you suspect a medical reason for your fatigue, your doctor can conduct a number of medical tests to determine the cause and then treat the problem. For example, you might need to take iron supplements to deal with the anemia or antibiotics to treat a long-term infection.
Lifestyle Causes
Lack of sleep is the most common lifestyle reason for fatigue. An adult needs an average of eight hours of sleep every night, though small variations of an hour or so are common. However, if you’re sleeping five hours or so a night, you might experience daytime fatigue as a result. Another cause of fatigue is a poor diet high in sugars and fats. When you eat sugar, you experience a peak of energy, followed by a sudden crash. These ups and downs can worsen your fatigue in the long run.
Solutions
Once you determine what’s making you tired, you can directly address the problem. A healthy diet and an exercise program is a good start. Stress from a recent divorce or the loss of a loved one can cause fatigue. While you might not be able to eliminate the cause of the exhaustion, you can find healthy ways to deal with it. You can try yoga or meditation or find a psychologist or a therapy group to help you deal with it. A 2008 study by the University of Georgia showed that people who exercise for at least 20 minutes three times a week can experience a 65 percent reduction in their fatigue levels.
Fatigue Treatment
If you’re tired all the time and nothing you do seems to alleviate the problem, you might be suffering from chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue is long-term fatigue not associated with any particular cause. It often happens in people who are perfectly healthy and have no underlying medical condition. A doctor can help alleviate symptoms. Cognitive-behavioral therapy and sleep management techniques are good places to start. If needed, your doctor might also prescribe medication to treat depression or anxiety, which can contribute to fatigue.
