What You Need To Know About How Fatigue Affects You

Is it fatigue or sleep deprivation?

Fatigue is that feeling you get when you’re physically or mentally tired or both. A lack of sleep or sleep disturbances can cause fatigue along with a whole list of other lifestyle, workplace, and psychological factors. It’s important to keep in mind that fatigue is a symptom, not a condition. To resolve it, you need to find the underlying cause. Fatigue is often confused with sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is also caused by a lack of sleep or sleep disturbances. Both fatigue and sleep deprivation impact your behavior and body.

Your behavior

When you are consistently sleeping less than 7 hours a day, it can impact your mood and behavior in many ways:

• • Poor concentration and increased forgetfulness
  • Increased moodiness and emotional insensitivity
  • Impaired judgments and ethics
  • Elevated stress levels
  • Growing lack of empathy or concern
  • Reduced productivity
  • Lack of motivation
  • Increased chance of causing critical errors
  • More likely to cause or be involved in an accident
  • Resilience declines

• Increased likelihood of missing work or not completing work

Your Body

The lack of sleep can also have a variety of short-term effects on your body including:

• A headache or dizziness
• Sore, aching, or weak muscles
• Reduced hand-eye coordination
• Blurry vision and hallucinations
• Decreased speed, accuracy, and reaction time
• Increased susceptibility to injury

It can also have serious long-term risks for your health including:

“The feeling of sleepiness when you are not in bed, and can’t get there, is the meanest feeling in the world.”

-Edgar Watson Howe