Nathan Butler of Active Health Clinic and David Cunnington from SleepHub discuss managing tiredness and fatigue across the day.
Transcript:
David Cunnington: So Nathan, I see people with sleep problems and managing tiredness across the day is something often they struggle with. What are some strategies I can use?
Nathan Butler: Well, I think the first thing, it’s really important to have the medical management down pat and that is obviously your role and looking just to make sure they’re stable in that sense. I suppose there are a few other factors that I would really consider. The first is the actual – the daily routine and pacing.
Now pacing really refers to a balance in your day and this is physically, cognitively and emotionally. I think if we miss out on one of these, then we’re not really looking at the big picture. So the very least, I would encourage someone to have a morning tea, a lunch and an afternoon tea and sometime in the evening.
Now this may sound strange to some people but it’s something that I think that we all need to do and this rest needs to be as I said physically, so that might be sitting down and even putting your feet up. Cognitively, it means moving away from the computer and in this modern world, we always have a tendency to sit in front of the computer and have our lunch and everything else.
David Cunnington: Yeah.
Nathan Butler: But actually moving away and getting away from that cognitively and emotionally as well. If we’re sitting there and we’re thinking about our worries and everything else, then it’s not going to be really good quality rest because I find that if we’re always on the go, then energy levels just tend to have these really big dip, whereas if we take these small breaks, we tend to have this sort of wave and we will feel better at the end of the day.
I often say that in our busy lives, we have these days where we have meeting after meeting after meeting and at the end of the day, we think, oh, I got through that; whereas if one of those meetings is cancelled or we actually give ourselves a break or even decrease the intensity in what we do in the day, then it tends to leave us having more energy at the end of the day. So first of all, pacing is very important.
David Cunnington: Yeah.
Nathan Butler: And I also say exercise is a very important factor as well. So exercise when you’re feeling fatigued or tired is not something that you’re going to want to do. But I think the first thing, we need to make it simple. A simple walk, a half hour walk each day can be fantastic and look, it could be parking your car farther away. It could be walking out for lunch, lots of different things. It doesn’t have to be complex. But with exercise it’s known in that dosage to have a significant impact upon your daytime sleepiness, sleep patterns, depth to sleep and even mood. So just getting some simple and basic exercise – it doesn’t have to be too much – is really important.
I think on the second side of things, sometimes with say obstructive sleep apnoea is where obesity is a factor in the person. Then actually doing this exercise and with a good diet can actually lead to loss in weight and therefore they can actually come off all the equipment and medications and actually have a better quality sleep as well. So I think it’s more than just one thing but very important things to do.
David Cunnington: Great. Thanks a lot.