Sunday, April 10, 2011

Difference between being fatigued and tired

I often wondered if I knew the difference between being tired and fatigued because of my general lack of sleep - but there is a difference. Being tired is quite gentle and at the end of the day it can feel nice and relaxing and is about being weary. Mentally one perhaps starts to feel "slower" and not able to retain new things. Fatigue, is, by contrast a much more extreme, sudden and violent form of being tired. It as is if someone has pulled the plug on you. My muscles all ache, my postural control sharply diminishes - particularly in thoracic spine and shoulders. My body craves sleep and being in bed like a state emergency. Last night became one of those.

Yesterday, during ballet, I started to feel "tired." This could have been because I went for a long walk in the afternoon and then had relaxed in the warm sunshine, and had just started on annual leave frrom work. Additionally, I had just been given some new exercises from K particularly focussing on spinal extension work and all these factors combined could have contributed to feeling tired. The studio was warm, and my lumbar spine was really hurting. I did a "good" class and a great deal of allegro, pushing into a real training zone and getting a good cardiovascular workout - something I haven't been able to achieve for a long time.

Straight after class, I usually feel quite "high" and buzzy, but I started to feel fatigued almost immediately and wanted to get straight home. I ate supper and watched the TV, struggling to keep awake until 9pm, then had a hot bath as I had done a lot of exercise, including spending a good 5-10 minutes in spinal extension (seated, cross-legged). My back hurt a lot, but because I was so fatigued, I thought the fatigue would drown out the pain.

I woke 3 times in the night and was in bed for over 12 hours, but still feel wiped out today. That is fatigue.

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