As Christine Hutton, our Interim DCE People and Culture noted earlier this week, fatigue is the most common wellbeing issue raised by our teams and indeed across Aoteoroa. And it is no wonder we feel that way. Carrying the weight of the pandemic for close to two years now has significantly depleted our surge capacity levels.
Surge capacity is the mental and physical resources that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But while recovery might be long, natural disasters occur over a short period. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely. So what happens when we struggle to renew the surge capacity because the emergency phase has now become chronic?
A well-written story, in Elemental magazine, which was highlighted by our wellbeing champions is probably the experience most of us share by now.
“[three months later] I couldn’t make myself do anything — work, housework, exercise, play with the kids — for that whole week. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. I know depression, but this wasn’t quite that. I spoke with my therapist, tweaked medication dosages, went outside daily for fresh air and sunlight, tried to force myself to do some physical activity, and even gave myself permission to mope for a few weeks. We were in a pandemic, after all, and I had already accepted that life would not be “normal” for at least a year or two. But I still couldn’t work, couldn’t focus, hadn’t adjusted. Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?
“Why do you think you should be used to this by now? We’re all beginners at this,” Masten told me. “This is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s expecting a lot to think we’d be managing this really well.” It wasn’t until my social media post elicited similar responses from dozens of high-achieving, competent, impressive women I professionally admire that I realized I wasn’t in the minority. My experience was a universal and deeply human one. “
Indeed, when our nervous system doesn’t get a break, we end up with not enough energy to keep fighting and an inability to truly relax and rest. Eventually our body gives up, shuts down and shifts into a default rest state. This is when we experience muscle and brain fatigue, fogginess, lethargy and overall low energy. You might also feel irritable, and have trouble trying to figure out your path forward.
Well-meaning friends and family would, at this point, advise us to take a break – make the time to rest. And they would be right to say that. Humans need rest.
But if you still end up feeling tired even after taking a proper break, you might start to worry and wonder – am I experiencing a burnout? Or is it depression? Either of these are possible, but languishing could also be the word you are looking for.
This was the exact topic of the free wellbeing webinar, ran as part of Mental Health Awareness week. As Sarb Johal said:
“On a mental health spectrum, on one end is flourishing, having a strong sense of identity, purpose and mattering to others. Depression is at the other end. Languishing is a middle child of mental health and might be what some of us are experiencing as a result of the epidemic’s emotional long haul. Languishing is absence of wellbeing, having no symptoms of mental illness but not quite being a picture of mental wellbeing either. Coined by a sociologist in 2010, languishing is chronic condition for people who are not depressed but are not thriving either. So if you are feeling joylessness, emptiness, and find yourself being indifferent to your indifferences, it might be languishing. Languishing thrives when we lose our focus and the will to regain it. We just kind of don’t care as much”
The 45min video is well worth your time and will remain available for viewing until end of October.
That’s some consolation, knowing that I am not alone feeling the different kind of fatigue from any other time in my life.
Thank you for this post.