Fatigue? Do you often feel tired?
Fatigue is a complaint which I hear more and more often in my medical practice. Sometimes it is a symptom of burnout or fatigue. Sometimes it is a symptom of depression. Sometimes it is an alarm signal or symptom of chronic fatigue.
When is fatigue a symptom of depression?
Fatigue which is most often experienced in the morning, and slowly lessens while the day goes by, is often a sign of depression. This fatigue disappears mainly with the help of the antidepressive techniques in our self-help program. You can find this by clicking and following the "depression" modules in the program.
When is fatigue a symptom of burnout?
Fatigue which gets worse throughout the workday, often points at an exhaustion of the brain. This fatigue requires rest, and asks as to take it easy. This type of fatigue heals fastest through usage of the "burnout" modules which you can click when following the self-help program. There you will, among other things, learn how you can get the same results which you are used to with lesser efforts, while not straining your brain as much as you did before.
When does fatigue lead to chronic fatigue or CFS?
Fatigue develops into chronic fatigue if you do not learn how to respect the limits your body sets, and therefore keep working at a level that crosses these limits. The reason why people with fatigue do not respect their limits consists of two parts:
- First of all because they have never learned how to listen to their body. They have not learned how to interpret and handle their body's signals. That is why we teach people in our self-help program how they can easily learn to listen to these signals.
- Second of all, they are afraid that they will not be able to take care of their job or responsibilities as well as they used to be able to. Because they are fatigued, everything goes more slowly which means they need to work harder to get the same results. This is a vicious cycle in which they are trapped. How do you get out of such a trap? By learning how to organize yourself differently, so you can get more done with lesser efforts, while listening to your body.
How does online self-help help you solve your fatigue?
In the online self-help program '15Minutes4Me.com' you do one daily session of fifteen minutes on your computer. During this session, the program helps you think about what you can do to deal with your fatigue. With the help of simple questions we help you create order in your mind so you can see your priorities more clearly. This way you can more easily focus on important things and do those first, taking more time for them, so your brain can relax. Participants notice that their fatigue starts to decrease rapidly after two or three weeks, while their energy and life joy increases.
How do you test the level of your fatigue?
You can do our free online self-test here now, and see which are the causes of your fatigue in 3 simple graphs.