Beat fatigue

By Dr Sarah Brewer

Occasional tiredness is normal and affects everyone at some time in their life, but increasing numbers of women admit to feeling tired all the time - a condition often referred to as TATT

Tiredness tends to creep up on you, leaving you feeling washed out and exhausted. More women than men are affected - research suggests as many as one in four women lack energy. We are especially prone to tiredness when we are under stress and when our hormones are playing up (for example, because of PMS, the menopause, or after having a baby). Women are also more likely to feel tired when juggling different aspects of their life - looking after the home, working, caring for young children, organising meals - and have less time to sit down, put up their feet and look after their own health.

Common causes of female TATT

stress and anxiety
over-exertion
following an over-strict slimming diet
lack of exercise
pregnancy
breast-feeding
looking after young children
high-pressured job
poor-quality sleep
low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) from irregular meals.

When TATT is persistent and affects the quality of your life, it is important to learn to control it. By making small changes to your diet, improving the quality of your sleep and increasing the amount of exercise you take, you can often overcome TATT.

The right foods

You'll be surprised how much better you will feel if you eat a healthy diet. Cut out sweet, stodgy, fatty foods and eat more fresh fruit, vegetables and complex carbohydrates, such as wholegrain bread, wholemeal pasta and brown rice. Ideally, you need to include five portions of fruit or veg per day, not counting potatoes. This can easily be done by eating:

one glass of orange juice with breakfast
an apple mid-morning
a salad with lunch
a banana mid-afternoon
one or two portions of veg with your evening meal.

Take care if you are following the Atkins Diet, the popular high-protein, high-fat, low carbohydrate diet. As this provides very little carbohydrate, it quickly depletes the muscles' main fuel store, glycogen, causing muscles to tire easily, especially during exercise.