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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Fighting the Pandemic Fatigue?

Let’s resuscitate your energy levels

by

1514 days ago
20210608

HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has changed a lot of things: the way we in­ter­act with per­sons, our sched­ules, dig­i­tal screen time, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial pres­sures and more so, our stress and fa­tigue lev­els. For some, these changes have not been for the bet­ter.

If you have felt like you are drag­ging late­ly, you may be won­der­ing what is go­ing on. If this seems fa­mil­iar, you may be strug­gling to get back on track and con­cerned if or whether you can. The good news is that in many cas­es you can make changes that will re­sus­ci­tate your en­er­gy, but you need to get to the root of the prob­lem to rem­e­dy it.

As we come to the close of an un­prece­dent­ed year that changed the par­a­digm of work-life-bal­ance, and stretched our band­width to cope, let us ex­plore strate­gies to nor­malise our en­er­gy lev­els.

Fa­tigue trig­gers

Part of the chal­lenge when it comes to a gen­er­al symp­tom like fa­tigue is that it is so com­mon­place and can be trig­gered by so many dif­fer­ent things. “Fa­tigue is a fre­quent symp­tom that can be caused by a whole host of fac­tors, from med­ical con­di­tions, in­ad­e­quate di­et, stress to poor sleep,” shares Dr Stephanie Tung, an at­tend­ing Psy­chi­a­trist, Har­vard Health. “This makes it hard to pin­point the root of the prob­lem. How­ev­er, there are a few main cul­prits that of­ten cause fa­tigue”, says Dr Tung. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, fa­tigue aris­es from jug­gling mul­ti­ple de­mands all at once and op­er­at­ing from a seem­ing­ly end­less place of threats to our health and con­tem­plat­ing the next steps to keep our­selves safe.

Med­ical con­di­tions

Nu­mer­ous med­ical con­di­tions, in­clud­ing in­fec­tions, anaemia, heart dis­ease, chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease, can­cer, neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions, and au­toim­mune con­di­tions al­so cause fa­tigue, says Dr Tung.

Nu­tri­tion­al de­fi­cien­cies

If the pan­dem­ic af­fect­ed your eat­ing habits and com­pro­mised a well-bal­anced di­et, it may re­sult in vi­t­a­min de­fi­cien­cies that can sap your en­er­gy. Two of the most com­mon are vi­t­a­min D and vi­t­a­min B12 de­fi­cien­cies. Fa­tigue is al­so some­times brought on by de­hy­dra­tion.

Hor­mon­al shifts

Hor­mon­al changes can al­so con­tribute to shifts in me­tab­o­lism and sleep dis­tur­bances, which lead to fa­tigue. Prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with the thy­roid gland, a but­ter­fly-shaped gland lo­cat­ed at the front of your neck that reg­u­lates your me­tab­o­lism, may al­so cause fa­tigue. When the thy­roid gland is un­der­ac­tive and pro­duces in­ad­e­quate lev­els of thy­roid hor­mone (a con­di­tion called hy­pothy­roidism), it can make you feel tired, in ad­di­tion to oth­er symp­toms. Women are more like­ly than men to have thy­roid dis­ease, and in­ci­dence ris­es with age.

Poor sleep habits or sleep dis­or­ders.

Per­haps the most ob­vi­ous rea­son you might be feel­ing tired is that you are not get­ting ad­e­quate sleep. The un­cer­tain­ties of the pan­dem­ic led to sev­er­al anx­i­eties that can eas­i­ly dis­rupt a com­fort­able night’s sleep. Poor sleep qual­i­ty can be trig­gered by stress or sleep dis­or­ders, such as ob­struc­tive sleep ap­nea.

3 TIPS FOR COP­ING WITH THE PAN­DEM­IC FA­TIGUE

1. Mon­i­tor your so­cial me­dia:

Stop ‘doom­scrolling’ and lim­it time on your screens.

“Your at­ten­tion is cur­ren­cy, and so­cial me­dia is de­signed to take as much of your at­ten­tion cur­ren­cy as pos­si­ble,” shares Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist Justin Ross, UCHealth Uni­ver­si­ty, Col­orado.

“Doom­scrolling, or pur­pose­ly tun­ing in to neg­a­tive sto­ries on so­cial me­dia, fu­els in­creased dread, un­cer­tain­ty, anx­i­ety, and fa­tigue,” Ross said.

His ad­vice: de­lib­er­ate­ly stay off so­cial me­dia. If you’re hooked on check­ing your so­cial feeds on your phone, re­move the apps. Try sched­ul­ing two, five-minute “check-in” ses­sions each day, oth­er than that, stay off so­cial me­dia. Lim­it your con­sump­tion. Pick one or two trust­ed sources for news that you are go­ing to re­ly on and screen out all the oth­ers.

2. Breathe and Med­i­tate

Breath­ing ex­er­cis­es - the sim­plest way to re­duce stress and anx­i­ety. Slow your breath­ing to tell your body that there’s no im­me­di­ate threat. We’re built to kick in­to gear quick­ly if we need our “fight or flight” re­sponse. But stress al­so can trig­ger the same sys­tems. And our bod­ies do not do well if we’re con­stant­ly on high alert. Breath­ing helps us man­age the anx­i­ety re­sponse on a phys­i­cal, phys­i­o­log­i­cal and men­tal lev­el.

One minute of deep breath­ing helps slow down the sym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem, the fight or flight re­sponse as­so­ci­at­ed with anx­i­ety. Deep breath­ing al­so helps turn on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem, which helps us re­store bal­ance and can pro­vide a sense of calm and fo­cus.

Sim­ple deep breath­ing ex­er­cis­es at least three times a day will make a sig­nif­i­cant change. Sched­ule them and en­cour­age your­self to slow down and breathe.

3. Re­flect and As­sess

Take time to check in with your­self and re­flect on how you are do­ing. If you feel ir­ri­tat­ed, im­pa­tient, an­gry, ac­cept that all these re­spons­es are nor­mal and un­der­stand­able dur­ing such a dif­fi­cult time.

Aware­ness must be the cor­ner­stone of any cop­ing toolk­it. We need to give our­selves per­mis­sion to ac­knowl­edge that what we are feel­ing is 100% nor­mal. It is im­por­tant to seek sup­port from a loved one or a health­care pro­fes­sion­al if the symp­toms are be­yond your con­trol.

Warn­ing Signs

How­ev­er, not all caus­es of fa­tigue are treat­able on your own. You may need to pay a vis­it to your pri­ma­ry care pro­fes­sion­al. “Warn­ing signs for fa­tigue in­clude se­vere or per­sis­tent symp­toms or when it in­ter­feres with your abil­i­ty to func­tion,” says Dr Tung. If this is the case, it may be time to make an ap­point­ment to get checked out. Your clin­i­cian will want in­for­ma­tion about your di­et, phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, sleep habits, stress lev­el, and mood.

Re­plen­ish your Re­serves: Ac­tive “Self-Care”

Dur­ing dif­fi­cult times, we need to con­scious­ly carve out breaks to re­store and re­plen­ish our re­serves. In or­der to take care of our­selves in restora­tive ways, we need to make de­lib­er­ate de­ci­sions to achieve a lev­el of equa­nim­i­ty.

“Peo­ple say, ‘I don’t have time,’” Ross said. “But if you make self-care a pri­or­i­ty, you will find a way to make it hap­pen.” “Sit­ting on the couch and bing­ing Net­flix can seem re­lax­ing, but it al­so can be avoid­ance be­hav­iour that isn’t ac­tu­al­ly restora­tive at all,” Ross said.

Re­con­nect with na­ture. Read a book. Med­i­tate. Take an aro­mat­ic bath. Do things that are de­lib­er­ate­ly calm­ing. An­oth­er way to re­plen­ish en­er­gy is through what is known as “ac­tive self-care.” Phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, ex­er­cise and any­thing that con­nects you to mean­ing and move­ment will be ben­e­fi­cial.

Find­ing a bal­ance and be­ing de­lib­er­ate about your choic­es is the key in re­sus­ci­tat­ing your en­er­gy lev­els and one you can ac­com­plish.


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