9+ ways to reduce the risk of fatigue from work
Here are 9+ ways to reduce the risk that work becomes a source of overtiredness.
If you’re an employee, the burden is on you to speak up to your manager when your plate is too full, when you need PTO, and when you’re too stressed to get enough good rest.
Communicate.
If you’re a manager, the burden is also on you to speak up to your employees when you notice the signs of fatigue, so you can catch it before ‘overworked’ becomes ‘burned out’.
Communicate.
(How? Ask, “How are you?” and sit back and listen without interrupting for 5 minutes.)
How to tell you’re more than tired
According to Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic, and Harvard Health, fatigue is different from being moderately overworked and tired. It’s persistent exhaustion marked by shitty sleep, “lack of energy and motivation", and sometimes “drowsiness and apathy”. If you are so tired it may affect your safety doing things that require you to be awake and focused, such as dozing off while driving, you need to address it; time to rest and reset.
Start with what you can easily control. Work is a big component of that.
There are other causes of fatigue that are medical in nature. If you also take medication, work weird hours, drink or use substances, or have other medical issues already, you’re at higher risk of fatigue.
I can’t stress this enough, see your doctors on a regular basis. This article is about controlling your work environment to the best of your abilities. Everything else should be done under the guidance of a professional.
Prevent
Setting clear boundaries and protecting all of your health at work is best done when you first start a new role. You set a precedent for your company at large and your manager for what to expect from you. After that, it’s harder to reduce your workload once you’ve given yourself the curse of competency.
Set boundaries and maintain them. Sign off after work. Schedule things into a loose routine (I’m going to start taking a short walk after work) so you aren’t tempted to fill empty time with work.
Don’t answer calls after hours unless it’s in your job description. You don’t need to be the first in and the last out. You do need to deliver on your responsibilities. Being constantly available is not one of them, unless you specifically signed up for that.
If you feel pressure to ignore those boundaries to deliver on whatever wacky vision your leader has, and therefore unrealistic quarterly goals, do not sacrifice these boundaries in some quest to save the company between the hours of 6pm and 8am. As my mother says, you cannot bail out the ocean.
“Do you” in terms of self-care. Drink when you’re thirsty, sleep when you’re tired, and wake up when you’re done. Move your body, eat food, laugh, socialize. Whatever is in your self-care toolkit; build it, and use it.
Build self-care into your WFH situation. Use acupressure mats on your feet, put your desk by the window, take breaks to make phone calls to loved ones. If you make it part of your day, it won’t build up as much.
Mitigate
See a doctor if you have any medical symptoms that are impacting your life.
If it feels like the boundary-setting train has left the station and you tried and tried to say no to this new super urgent project but somehow you’re still expected to do it, and still do that other thing, yet you barely can stay awake during a meeting. Believe me reader, I have been there. Like my whole life.
Do your due diligence and talk to your manager twice, then HR. Have a frank conversation about the realities around your workload, the physical time it takes to do each task, when they are due, and why that math doesn’t add up. For bonus points, offer a suggested solution for how to prioritize or re-strategize the projects.
Up the support around you. Get a real therapist, and talk to them about real issues in your life. Process emotions. Talk to people you trust, ask for advice, then filter it, and don’t take it all.
Take PTO. You don’t need to have a reason. It is perfectly okay to spend the day on the couch napping.
Fix your sleep. Get a dental dam, do the sleep study, wear the breathe strips, force yourself to cut your naps down, and set a sleep routine.
Go into nature. Close your eyes, breathe in fresh air, move your body, and practice gratitude.
If you are like most driven, self-motived employees, you’ll want to do a great job at work. And if you end up in a remote company, a startup, or a hybrid format, it might be very easy to take on too much. If you find yourself in this position, you may learn the hard way how to avoid work becoming a source of fatigue. Don’t let it happen again! Plan your prevention now.
