Tired all the time? Let’s tend to the garden
Tiredness. Exhaustion. Weakness. Fogginess. No energy or vitality.
These are all ways to describe fatigue – that feeling of constant tiredness that doesn’t get better even after you rest.
It’s one of the most common reasons people see a GP in Australia.
And throughout my career, “why am I so tired” is a phrase I have heard time and time again.
But just because fatigue is common, it does not mean you have to live with it. It does not mean “that’s just how it is”. It does not mean that it can’t get better.
In fact, fatigue can get better on its own or with some lifestyle or management strategies.
As with all things health, it’s a journey. Let’s explore what yours could look like.
When we are fatigued, life can feel really hard.
It can take so much energy to do something small – to manage the basic administration and logistics of your life.
And invitations to the things you used to love – jam-packed weekends, hiking or surf trips, late nights with friends – can leave you feeling like an external pressure is pushing you down to sleep for eternity.
Fatigue can cloud the things that make you ‘you’ – your sensuality, your vibrance, your curiosity – and impact how you see yourself.
And even though it seems counter-intuitive, when you’re running on empty it might feel like you can’t stop running.
Because if you do, how will you ever start again?
It’s a vicious path to tread. And if you’ve done any online research for yourself, you’ll know that the common answers/tips you find can often just cause more confusion.
You might hear ‘eat less’ as much as you hear ‘eat more’.
‘Move more’ … no, ‘move less’.
‘Sleep more, but make sure it’s better quality.’
‘Make sure to rest, but don’t rest too much.’
‘Work on your trauma’ …. But ‘don’t get bogged down in the past’.
The truth is – managing fatigue can’t be boiled down to one of these (seemingly endless and contradictory) statements. It’s far more nuanced and complex than that.
And that’s a tough thing to face alone when we’re already so depleted.
The good news is, you don’t need to do it alone.
Here are the steps we could take together:
First and foremost, we need to make sure we are not missing any big, bad health red flags (these are the illnesses that can be cured or will kill you if not detected early enough). We will work with your existing care team to organise the investigations that are appropriate to identify these.
Secondly, we’ll look at the integrated and competing factors of fatigue the way a gardener might consider their garden – how is the soil, water and variety of plants? How do they all work (or not work) together?
Sometimes you are not moving or eating enough (or the opposite). Sometimes you are eating and moving just fine but all of your energy is going into caring for someone else. Sometimes, you have an iron deficiency and we simply need to take steps to remediate that.Thirdly, we might need to do the thing that you’ve been running from – we might need to slow down to speed up.
Together we’ll take a seat in the garden and consider how it should look, feel and grow. We’ll pull out the weeds. Plant new seeds. And give it everything it needs to thrive.
In this third stage, we go beyond medicine focused on 'assessment and diagnosis' of a pathological problem (meaning something we can test, give a simple cure to and retest to see if it worked). We look at the wider picture and consider:
Your dietary pattern, quality and quantity.
The way you move your body and how moving your body affects you and your energy.
Your quality of sleep.
What is happening in your closest relationships at home and at work.
Past or present life experiences and how they impact you day to day.
How you rest and recuperate.
Your relationship to pleasure and aliveness.
The environment around you, the natural world and the industrial world.
The patterns and ways you have managed to cope, fit in or be accepted, which ‘mask’ how you feel or act.
And as we start to go through this, it becomes clear which seeds need to be planted, which weeds need to be removed and how your garden interacts with the rest of the natural world.
We see what works for you.
If you’re here reading this list, I’d love to know what jumps out at you.
Do you know – what allows for more energy? More vibrancy? What allows for the full expression of you – as you? And importantly, what is getting in the way? Where is your energy flowing away? What seeds need to be planted?
If you’re facing fatigue (and the loss of vibrance and sense of self that comes with it) there are tools out there that can guide your journey, like these:
NPS Fatigue Management Plan (Medical Perspective)
And if you don’t want to go it alone, I’m used to working in the garden. I can spot a weed, suggest a new plant or provide expert advice on tending to the plants that are already there.
I can’t wait to see you bloom.