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When You Can’t Shake Your Fatigue, This Is for You
Being told it’s ‘normal’ doesn’t help
“I’m just so tired,” the man said.
“I can’t shake it. This feels like the most exhausting year ever.”
Sound familiar? In various forms, it’s the catch cry of nearly every person I work with at the moment.
Exhaustion, mental, physical, right-down-to-the bones-fatigue, is everywhere. And, despite our best efforts to freshen up, it’s as stubborn as the pandemic that led us here.
Typically one of the signs of depression has been when people report they’re no longer enjoying the things they used to enjoy. But that’s been hard to gauge when so many of our “fun” or leisure activities have been ruled out of bounds.
What can we do?
Knowing it’s normal doesn’t help.
Aren’t you tired of hearing that? Extreme fatigue in a global pandemic is Normal. Sigh. It’s embedded in our language now, along with other things we never talked about two years ago, like lockdowns and R-values and testing stations.
But knowing you’re as weary as everyone else is one thing. It doesn’t stop you from feeling 20 years older than you are, from desperately wanting a nap slap in the middle of a sunny day. Or…
