coping mechanisms for work related exhaustion/fatigue

September 4, 2024 11:17 PM

Looking to hear from people who may be introverts, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent, but have demanding jobs that involve interacting with the public for several hours a day. At this time, quitting is not an option.

(content note for ED)

Due to various disabilities I have never worked full-time, only part-time, but this year I decided to go FT because A) I thought (hoped?) I was ready, B) I needed more income to keep up with all the COL increases, and C) my free time was making me feel bored and restless. Now I have a new set of problems!

The work itself is interesting and feels meaningful (and got me out of doing sex work, which was a goal), but it's also very draining and involves being "on" around other people all day. After I come home, I do three things: first, I crash from fatigue and nap a few hours. Then I wake up stressed and binge eat. I don't keep "triggering" foods in my house, but I will binge fruits/veggies/proteins until I feel digestive pain. Sometimes I also engage in dermatillomania. (I rarely do any of these behaviors on my days off or on weekends, as I don't feel the impulse to).

I need to figure out how to better cope with stress and exhaustion that I know comes from exerting myself physically and mentally at work. I already do all the following: breaks to stretch and take some deep breaths, short walks, workouts a few times a week, healthy filling snacks, decent sleep at night, staying hydrated during the day. I don't smoke or drink and have maybe half a cup of coffee before work. I avoid other stressful stuff (doctors, phone calls, bills) to the extent possible on the days I work. When I get home I try to unwind with music, tv, and a bath, but none prevents my other behaviors.

All suggestions are welcome except for meditation (not my thing) and therapy (already in it). What works for you? (especially fellow spoonies).

I wonder if ADHD meds would help me now, but in the past they've made the "crash" worse at night, causing more fatigue and hunger when they wear off, as well as make the skin-picking urges worse. But I'm open to med suggestions.

posted by cboggs to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

Is the change recent? Going from anything less than FT to FT will take some adjusting, as will specific nature of work. So if this has been a month, you may still be adjusting. If it’s been six months, probably less so.

If part of the problem is constant human interaction, figure out how to get time alone during your lunch break for example.

How do you structure your days? For most FT work that takes place during daytime hrs, there simply isn’t an awful lot of time or energy for yourself left after work. I know the temptation to ‘do something for yourself’ at the end of the day can be great but may not be realistic for all of us.

For example, I might try changing what you do when you get home. Take a shower, stretch and feed myself before sitting down. I might even go to bed very early - napping for a couple of hrs, eating and then going to bed a couple of hrs later would not work for me. So yes, not much of an evening but on the flip side, you can get up very early, mornings before the hustle and bustle starts are magical and you can now do your non work stuff refreshed before work.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:43 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]

you find the work meaningful. that’s wonderful!

getting ready today, a song i hadn’t heard in a while happened on the radio. i turned it off at the end, let it resonate. now, i’m gonna play it a few(...) more times before i have to stop & listen to other people. music

‘public’ is how i think of the world when i go outside. the thing about work is that it is a subset of that. the individuals & spaces i encounter when working are something other than public (see e.g. “participants underscored the importance of natural light, temperature, noise, air quality, and view parameters as essential and relevant, confirming what science asserts” [strategic design research journal]). i also find my work meaningful. part of my job is to communicate why i find what i do meaningful to others

abstracted, the communication of meaning might be a helpful way to to think of work. sometimes, for whatever reason, what i’m trying to communicate doesn’t connect. maybe the other person is dealing with something else entirely. that’s alright. i’m listening to the music really

if the meaning of what i’m doing somehow makes sense to the other person, then a new kind of music happens. that’s fun. i hope this is a helpful way to think about things for you. i’m gonna turn up my speakers & start my day :)
posted by HearHere at 3:16 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]

I suspect you're giving too much of yourself. Limiting work hours is one way to limit what you give, and perhaps the easiest option for many of us, but you can learn to dial back what work is allowed to take out of you. I'm not saying it has to be a drastic cut: even going down to 95% effort for a few hours per day might make a substantial difference in your ability to do something besides haul yourself home and crash. The point is though, if every day you run out of spare spoons by the end of the workday (which I'm claiming because you routinely have none for less essential things like to resisting bingeing: the idea "not even occurring" to you is a subconscious form of resistance that ime is getting jettisoned when you run out of coping capacity), you're overspending them. Even if technically you have a few for things like feeding yourself, that's not enough and the solution is more/better budgeting up-front, not just trying to make the dregs last longer.

What 95% effort looks like is something you'll have to figure out, but I'd guess it'd be masking your neurodivergencey and/or introversion just slightly less. I feel like that's been the answer that's bought the most breathing room for myself and folks I know, at least.
posted by teremala at 5:28 AM on September 5 [8 favorites]

There are non-stimulant ADHD med options (for instance, bupropion aka Wellbutrin). If you think ADHD meds would help but don’t want to deal with the stimulant crash, you might ask your doctor about alternatives.
posted by ourobouros at 5:55 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]

Then I wake up stressed and binge eat.

What is the stress about?
Do you feel like there's something you need to be doing?

I will binge fruits/veggies/proteins until I feel digestive pain

Do you feel like you're hungry when you do this, or is it strictly anxiety?

I'm open to med suggestions

I don't think anyone here can really do that - that's a medical question probably for a psychiatrist (not a therapist/psychologist).


Is there any activity you can do or place you can go to unwind and eat dinner before you get home? And then come home, get straight into bed for the night, and sign off of 'doing things' mode until morning?
posted by trig at 6:02 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]

I would try to make a different break between work and home, and also flip the script at home.

So after work, make a transition time -go for a walk, go read at the library for an hour, visit galleries (if you can afford a year’s membership it can really pay off for this, but here libraries also give out passes), visit a park or a coffee shop. The purpose of this time is to reset your mind and give you time to get back in touch with your own goals.

Another trick I have just recently remembered is journaling. If you take 10 or 15 minutes when you get home to have a cup of herbal tea or a cool drink and spend a few minutes journaling - your feelings, what you’re feeling in your body, what your long-term interests and goals are - that can also get you out of reactive (to customer needs) mode and get yourself back in the driver’s seat.

Also make sure that you are drinking water and having the food that is right for you earlier in the day.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:10 AM on September 5 [4 favorites]

I do think it is worth cautiously exploring medication. I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year, and as a chronically ill introvert in a helper job, I have found medication helpful for my fatigue symptoms. I had a bad experience with the first prescription I tried, but there are many options that may have different side effect profiles (including nonstimulants).

For your evening crashes, my non-expert hunch is that your brain is trying to complete the stress response cycle, and that passive "wind-down" activities aren't stimulating enough to accomplish this. I've found the Feminist Survival Podcast a helpful resource for tackling this (transcription at the link if you're not a podcast person).

For me, getting out of the house and taking a walk in the evenings is often helpful, but if this is not available to you, is there something else that would help you more actively resolve your stress? Definitely talk this through with your therapist, but perhaps you can find an activity that's less relaxing and more stimulating - for instance, playing a video game, doing a puzzle, journaling, or singing/playing a musical instrument.
posted by toastedcheese at 6:59 AM on September 5 [6 favorites]

Yeah my one idea is a transition activity before home - I'm thinking yoga classes 3 nights a week. You could start with restorative (although there is a chance you will fall asleep) or at least a beginner level class. Thinking something where you use your body but doesn't feel like a big amount of work. Another idea is making some meals in advance on the weekends so you have specific foods ready. So my thought is for example: Mon/Wed/Fri you go from work, to yoga, to home where you eat your already made meal, then it's time to actually go to sleep not just nap?

But overall I wonder if you can decrease your work hours again. Seems like too much!
posted by latkes at 8:19 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]

I find it difficult at first to calibrate myself to a new work environment and always struggle when I'm finding the level that lets me have anything else in my life but if I had to sum up my strategy it's "do less."

I don't know the nature of your work, but if it's like mine then helping people is the goal, and fully having a personality is not helpful but actually in the way. It is more important to make space for the needs of the client, so be more of a blank. Run your personality at 60-70%. Most interactions run on a script-- just do the script, nothing extra. A lot of people also appreciate just getting in and out efficiently and find personal interactions with strangers as tiring as I do. You might be "on" but it's the same level of "on" that is walking around in public around strangers-- you're maintaining, you're available, but not reaching out, per se. I figure that work hired me to do a job, and I don't need to be more than sufficient because that is what they pay me for.

An active commute-- walking or biking-- helps me a lot. If I can't have an active commute, then stopping at the gym or getting dinner out on the way home also helps. Also, if you can define a work "uniform" (boring functional clothes for work that you don't hate) and immediately shower and change when you get home, that can also draw the boundary in a restorative way, kind of like how Mr. Rogers changes his sweater and shoes-- it activates "home mode."

Also, how's your sleep? When I got a CPAP drawing a boundary and not caring about work so much got much easier.
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:23 AM on September 5 [7 favorites]

Meal prep on non work days.

Try shifting your sleep schedule so that you go to bed earlier and get up earlier.

Consider eating a larger breakfast/lunch and a smaller dinner.

If you can do so safely… don’t go straight home after work. Come home with just enough time to have a small dinner, a relaxing bath, and then bed.
posted by oceano at 12:00 PM on September 5 [1 favorite]

I have ADHD and one of the best changes I’ve made in my life is around standardizing and simplifying a meal - in my case, it’s breakfast, and it’s a vegetarian protein shake with vitamins and minerals and fiber and I add coconut oil and cinnamon and turmeric and black pepper and drink it and then that choice is over and my body doesn’t remember to get obsessed with lunch until lunchtime. I add water, powders, oil, all in a quart Mason jar, mix, drink. 5 minutes start to finish.

In your case, what about trying some easy-to-make, high-protein and high-fat snack immediately after work, in the hopes that it will help your body feel partially-sated when you wake up from your nap? I’m sure that mileage varies, but it’s a relatively low-stakes approach to try, with relatively minor upfront costs that represent calories you’d already need to feed yourself anyways.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:53 PM on September 5 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've found that developing a "worksona" that I put on and take off like a uniform allows me to cope in environments that the "real me" finds overwhelming.

Then it feels less like "I am working in customer service" and more "I am an an actress who plays a character who works in customer service" and for some reason that makes the whole experience significantly less stressful.

Then when you encounter difficult customers, coworkers, bosses etc. you don't need to fret about your interactions with them much beyond "the writers sure came up with a memorable antagonist for this episode!"

Situations that would normally be super aggravating become "plot twists," conflicts finally coming to a head are "season denouements," etc.

Ideally we could all work in environments that our authentic selves thrive in, but when that isn't an option then switching from caring about "doing a good job" (impossible when you're working in dysfunctional organizations that set people up to fail) to "delivering a convincing performance" can save your sanity.

I accidentally stumbled across this technique when I was younger and working at McDonald's and store management switched my schedule to opening shift. I was soon so chronically sleep-deprived that I stopped giving a fuck and just started acting completely unhinged within the "letter of the law" to see what would happen. I ended up creating a persona of someone who loved McDonald's more than life itself and would startle sleepy 6am drive-thru customers awake by belting out "GOOD MCMORNING!!! WELCOME TO MCDONALD'S!!! WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE FOR MCBREAKFAST TODAY????" over the radio etc. In my mind, I was mocking the brand and subtly fucking with everyone around me, and I assumed it was just a matter of time before they caught on and fired me. Instead, I was such a good actress and so committed to the bit that I got promoted to management. lol
posted by Jacqueline at 6:28 AM on September 6 [5 favorites]

If there is anywhere you can physically lie down for ten minutes during the day (I have done this on park benches, in my car, and in weird stairwells when I don't have better options), it can be more refreshing than you might expect. Being horizontal and closing my eyes improves my energy more than anything else.

Is there a reason you can't go to bed for the night as soon as you come home, instead of napping? Eat something during your commute, brush your teeth, and just go to bed? (No this isn't much of a life on workdays, but it sounds like it may be preferable to you over what you're doing now, and the additional rest might get you back on track so in time you'll have a little more energy.)
posted by metasarah at 2:03 PM on September 8 [1 favorite]