There can be no doubt that we are in a time of crisis when it comes to our use of the planet鈥檚 limited energy resources. We have to leave our bad habits in the past and focus on more sustainable solutions. But while we are rightly concentrating on Earth鈥檚 delicate energy balance, we are ignoring the signs that our own bodies are running on empty.
Writer and computer scientist Cal Newport has called this the era of 鈥溾��. The pandemic sent stress levels skyrocketing and drained people in unique ways, some through and burnout, others via loneliness, grief or anxiety. Four years on, things are no better. According to a 2023 , one in five adults worldwide is living with fatigue unrelated to a medical condition.
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There are many reasons someone might feel tired all the time, such as a poor diet, lack of physical activity or a deficiency in a particular nutrient. Mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, can also lead to feeling exhausted or apathetic. In a few cases, something more sinister is going on: extreme fatigue can be an early warning sign of cancer, for example. But there are plenty of healthy people, eating well and exercising weekly, who feel burned out by the demands of life.
Current advice to keep fatigue at bay is almost always to 鈥渄o more鈥�. The idea seems to be that one can push through exhaustion by sheer will without repercussion. Top of the list of things you can do to help on the UK National 午夜福利1000集合 Service鈥檚 page for 鈥渢iredness and fatigue鈥�, for example, is to 鈥渉ave a healthy diet and exercise regularly鈥�.
But fatigue itself can perpetuate the conditions in which it thrives: 35 per cent of UK adults from having a healthier diet and doing more exercise. How can people put effort into finding, planning and cooking new recipes if their existing lifestyle leaves them without any spare energy? How can someone find the time to go to the gym or attend a fitness class when every moment of the day is already allocated by work, school, kids, housework, the admin of life鈥�
This isn鈥檛 to say people in general don鈥檛 need to eat well and keep physically active. But 鈥渄o more鈥� isn鈥檛 the only solution to our exhaustion epidemic. Instead, we need to 鈥渄o different鈥� or 鈥渄o smart鈥�. For example, if you feel incapable of dealing with all of life鈥檚 demands, swap the unnecessary for the achievable.
A 2018 showed that burnout and exhaustion are often marked by a lack of confidence in one鈥檚 ability to meet goals, face challenges and produce good work. If eating healthier and exercising more feels impossible, being told to do these things might only lower your belief in yourself further. To counteract this, focus on doing something you know you are good at. For me, this means taking my camera with me when I go out, something I don鈥檛 do often enough.
Importantly, don鈥檛 use all your energy on the stuff you have to do. If all your time is spent working, cleaning or looking after your own or others鈥� health, you will miss out on the benefits of recreation. And when work takes over your free time, research has shown that it leads to
It is time we stop avoiding the uncomfortable truth that it is our misguided ideas about energy that have got us to this point. Just like our planet, our energy supplies aren鈥檛 inexhaustible and we need to break our bad energy habits.
We have come to see how reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable and dangerous for the future. Now we must acknowledge that burning through our own energy supplies makes us stressed and exhausted today, and more at risk of serious health conditions later.
Amy Arthur is the author of Pace Yourself: How to聽have energy in an exhausting world
