Chronic fatigue is a condition that affects millions of people and can be incredibly debilitating. When you wake up tired despite a full night’s sleep, it can leave you feeling frustrated and unmotivated to go to work, exercise, or socialize beyond the minimal requirements. Since having the energy and motivation to go about your day is important to living a high-quality life, chronic fatigue isn’t a symptom to be overlooked.
While many factors can contribute to chronic fatigue, regulating your nervous system can help many people ease fatigue that’s tied to ongoing stress and get back to living their lives.
This blog post will cover what chronic fatigue is, signs you may be suffering from it, how to recognize if your nervous system is dysregulated, and healing chronic fatigue through your nervous system.
At the end of the blog, I’ll share the types of tools I cover with my clients to start the process of healing from chronic illness.
What is Chronic Fatigue?
Chronic fatigue is persistent tiredness that doesn’t go away, even after a full night’s sleep. It’s a symptom with many possible causes, and it isn’t the same as ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome), a medical diagnosis whose hallmark is post-exertional malaise, where symptoms get worse after physical or mental effort. If that sounds like you, work with a doctor who knows ME/CFS, read the CDC’s guidance on managing ME/CFS, and be cautious with any plan that pushes you to do more exercise.
Ongoing fatigue can interfere with daily life and wear down your overall well-being. It can leave you feeling bone tired, where everything in your body is so fatigued it’s hard to do anything.
While every individual case is different, there are a few common causes of chronic fatigue.
Common causes of chronic fatigue:
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Depression or grief
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Nervous system dysregulation
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Medicines, such as sedatives or antidepressants
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Chronic pain
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Sleep disorders, such as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, or narcolepsy
Any of the above can lead to chronic fatigue, and so can things like anemia, thyroid problems, sleep apnea or medication side effects, so it’s worth getting checked by a doctor. When those have been looked at and the fatigue is still there, a stressed nervous system is often part of the picture, making it hard for your body to find a rest and digest state.
Signs Your Nervous System is Stressed Out
A stressed-out nervous system often goes along with chronic fatigue. When our nervous system is in a state of chronic stress, it can contribute to fatigue, pain, anxiety, and other chronic symptoms.
Some common signs that your nervous system is stressed out include insomnia, anxiety, muscle tension, and mood swings. What you might write off as a bad day could actually be your nervous system reacting to high amounts of stress responses in your body.
Sadly, these two, a dysregulated nervous system and chronic fatigue, can go hand in hand. If your nervous system is stressed out, then you may develop chronic fatigue, and if you’re struggling with chronic fatigue, your nervous system can become stressed out.
This is why I love to use a holistic approach to healing chronic fatigue through nervous system regulation. Medication can be an important part of treating some causes of fatigue, and when you also learn to heal holistically you’ll have the tools to regulate your nervous system yourself no matter what life throws at you moving forward.
Heal Chronic Fatigue with Nervous System Regulation
The good news is that regulating your nervous system can be an effective way to ease stress-related fatigue. By calming down the fight-flight-freeze response and reducing the impact of stress on our bodies, we can improve our energy levels and reduce persistent tiredness and fatigue.
Some ways to regulate your nervous system include:
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Meditation
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Breathwork
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Brain training to soothe the nervous system
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Soothing the body with nervous system practices
If you’re dealing with chronic fatigue, you’re not alone. It is a condition that affects millions of people and can be incredibly debilitating.
By learning to regulate your nervous system and reducing the impact of stress on your body, many people find their fatigue eases and their overall health and well-being improve.
So, if you are struggling with chronic fatigue, consider learning more about how you can regulate your nervous system and experience the benefits for yourself.
Introducing the ‘Mindbody Healing Method’
While I go more into regulating your nervous system in this blog post, you can learn how I work with people like you in my group program: Mindbody Healing Method.
The Mindbody Healing Method (MHM) is my signature program that offers a unique approach to healing the root cause of your anxiety, chronic pain, fatigue, and other forms of chronic illness. The focus is on healing the root cause of your pain by regulating your nervous system and finding healing through retraining your brain’s autonomic stress responses.
The course is self-paced with lifetime access, and it moves through five phases with guided mind and body practices you’ll be able to fall back on to regulate your nervous system whenever you feel stuck.
There’s also an option that adds three months of chat and call support.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Mindbody Healing Method, message me on Instagram with any questions about it.
And if you found this blog helpful, please share it with a friend and leave a comment below!
Cited websites
For causes of chronic fatigue: https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/symptoms/fatigue#:~:text=Fatigue%20can%20be%20a%20normal,serious%20mental%20or%20physical%20condition