"Apathy is a sort of living oblivion" -- Horace Greeley
Between the school, soccer (whence the moms get their kitchy nick), and piano lessons, it appears kids are being worked too hard. I may be a little older than the grade schoolers this article speaks towards, but I too have begun to feel a sense of fatigue. My weekly schedule is busy: running 40 miles, lifting and practicing yoga at a minimum of three times each, and volunteering for five hours; all of this on top of the things that are supposedly "essential."
Depression becomes a concern when speaking about being "run down" all the time. Fatigue and depression, as it turns out, are clinically linked-- they're each part of a vicious cycle. Those who are depressed are four times as likely to experience bouts of fatigue, and those with fatigue are three times as likely to find themselves depressed.
Who'da thunk it? Over scheduling really is dangerous! In my personal life, I must confess, my own fatigue has begun to make me apathetic (and sort of a lousy friend).
I've been too exhausted to make it to birthday parties, dinners, and just about anything social. I've simply not had the energy, and on top of that, my energy level has been steadily going down, not up. And if Danielle is to be believed, Mercury is going to be in retrograde soon, adding to my trials. I noticed that I was beginning to not care about anything: not my nutrition, my running, nor many of the other things about which I supposedly care most.
What is interesting (especially to me, someone who has suffered from depression) is that the doctors are now citing fatigue and depression as independent risk factors for each other. I'm not experiencing depression, but I am most certainly exhausted.
I know I need to do something about it, lest my fatigue become depression; depression being, to me, a fate much worse than simply not caring about all the common crap I normally give a care. Then I'm not even apathetic anymore, I'm just kinda pathetic-- and not even in a pejorative sense.
I will not allow my fatigue to become depression!
I don't really believe that kids here in the States are really that over-worked (go talk to a kid in Surinam), but one of the suggestions that Kathy Lee and Hoda's guest shared rang incredibly true: eliminate 10% of your child's schedule-- today!
I did, and so far so good.
There, of course, is a cavaet: "Physical activity is known to have a protective effect on depression," writes researcher Pertos Skapinakis, MD. "It has also been suggested that physical deconditioning might be an important factor in the development of unexplained fatigue."
Such tricky buisness, fixing these feelings of apathy! You take away activity for fatigue, and you add activity for depression... unless you're slowly getting out of shape, which could lead to further fatigue! Ugh! How to tell?! If you're experiencing apathy or fatigue, be aware that there is no band-aid or single solution for everybody. Everybody's body is different, so choose your 10% carefully.
Or not at all.
I'm trying to be cautious in my personal solutions. If you, too, are experiencing some of these feeling of detachment, it is important to be sure you're apathy isn't coming from a different place: go volunteer, or visit an orphanage, and check back. See if flexing some empathy can "snap you of it," as it were.
And if not, come back here and compare notes. I'm sure I'll be going on about this stuff for a while
No comments:
Post a Comment