Hints for beating fatigue and exhaustion

Fatigue is a common issue when living with a disability or illness. Unless you or someone close to you lives with a disability, it is hard to understand the extra time and energy that gets taken up with personal care, accessibility issues and trying to gain services and products from government institutions such as Social Services, the NHS, Occupational Therapy and Benefits services. If you are new to living with a disability, it can take a while to adjust to all these new stresses in your life and fatigue and exhaustion can set in.

A helpful way to start looking at fatigue in your life is to flip the coin and look at the amount of energy you have to spend each day instead, this is a way to frame it more positively. If you see yourself as a battery which can be drained and recharged, there may be activities that give and activities that take energy. An energy diary can help you to start looking at this: keep track of what you do every day. Try and think of the energy that you have available as a battery which starts at 100% every morning (if you had a good night’s sleep). You can find an example of an energy diary below.

Other things you may want to look at are exercise and diet.

Diet is another way you can help recharge that battery: is it varied, are you eating fruit and vegetables, are you drinking or smoking too much? Are you skipping breakfast? Are you eating too much fast food, sugar or fat? Choose things which take a longer time to digest and give you energy throughout the day. These foods are - unprocessed, organic, nutrient-rich whole foods such as apples, pears and berries and all vegetables, and also whole grains (oats, brown rice, wholemeal bread), beans and lentils. If half your diet consists of these whole foods, you are on the right track for natural energy. Avoid processed foods and refined carbohydrates such as white bread, biscuits, cakes and white rice.

Exercise is great for a number of things: it increases ‘happy’ hormones and makes you feel better; it also improves how your organs work, the digestion of food and your immunity (stops you from getting ill as often) as well as improving muscle tone to help against physical fatigue.

We also have a new posting on our forum about fatigue, so if you want to share your thoughts here, please visit this link.

Good luck with looking at reorganising your daily routine and your week. If you are struggling to do this on your own, a counsellor or life coach can help you to look at how you manage your time and energy in order to find a better balance.

Example Diary Record Sheet

Make an entry whenever you notice a definite increase or decrease in energy or complete this at the end of the day. Think of each day as a battery charged at (hopefully) 100% in the morning, decreasing and increasing throughout the day. When you sleep well the next day would start at 100%, if you don’t it may start at 80%. Try and complete this for an average week.

Date and Time	What were you doing? (Activity)	How much energy did it cost? (0 to 100%)	How much Energy is left?	Thoughts about activity	Coping methods: How did you cope with lack of time or energy?
Monday 9.00-9.15	Breakfast		100%
Monday 10.00-11.00	Washing	20%	80%