Contents:
- Medical Video: How Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Related
- Various easy ways to overcome fatigue due to rheumatism
- 1. Get enough sleep
- 2. Balance your rest with regular exercise
- 3. Take enough water
- 4. Eat healthy and nutritious foods
- 5. Prioritize activities wisely
Medical Video: How Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Related
Pain and stiffness of rheumatoid joints not only make it difficult for you to move, but also makes you tired. People who have rheumatism even feel heavier fatigue every day than those who don't have the disease, reports a study from Arthritis and Rheumatism. So, is there a way to overcome fatigue due to rheumatism?
Various easy ways to overcome fatigue due to rheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. This condition occurs when the body's immune system actually turns against healthy body joints, instead of fighting foreign substances from outside the body as they should.
Because your immune system is too focused on attacking your joints, your body's endurance deteriorates so you feel tired easily. Even if your arthritis is severe, fatigue can interfere with daily activities.
Reported from the Very Well page, the Arthritis Foundation reported that around 98 percent of rheumatoid sufferers experience excessive fatigue. The risk of fatigue can increase if accompanied by obesity, depression, cardiovascular disease, and so forth.
If fatigue from rheumatism is not handled properly, over time it can inhibit thinking ability, cause mood swings (drastic and rapid emotional changes), to cause psychological problems. So it is important to know the various effective ways to deal with fatigue caused by rheumatism.
1. Get enough sleep
It may sound trivial, but fatigue from rheumatism can get worse if you get used to sleeping late and not feeling well.
According to Susan Goodman, MD, a professor of clinical medicine at Weil Cornell Medical School, fatigue due to lack of sleep is more often experienced by people with arthritis than people who do not have rheumatism.
For the sake of getting enough and quality sleep time, install an alarm to remind you when you have to sleep and get up early. Make sure you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night. Also keep cellphones and other gadgets from the bedroom. Make sure your bedroom environment is dark, calm and cool so you can sleep a lot.
2. Balance your rest with regular exercise
Even though you are encouraged to take adequate rest and sleep, then that does not mean that this can make you lazy all day.
A study in 2013 showed that routine physical activity was able to overcome fatigue from rheumatism. In addition, exercise is also useful to strengthen the muscles of the body so that it is more stable to support damaged joints, increase blood flow to the brain, and help sleep better at night, quoted from Healthline.
This finding is reinforced by research from the University of California, which states that people with rheumatism who routinely cycle and walk lightly every day tend to not be easily tired than other rheumatoid sufferers who do not exercise.
3. Take enough water
Although it sounds quite simple, drinking enough water has a myriad of benefits for the body. No exception for rheumatoid sufferers. Because dehydration (lack of fluids) can cause a person to experience fatigue. You are advised to drink about 2 liters of water per day.
4. Eat healthy and nutritious foods
Eating a balanced nutritious meal with a complete composition along with vegetables and fruits can optimize energy on that day to overcome fatigue from rheumatism.
You should not even miss the breakfast ritual. The body's blood sugar decreases when it gets up early, so that nutrient intake from the breakfast menu is believed to be able to increase blood sugar levels in the body. Low blood sugar can cause fatigue.
5. Prioritize activities wisely
Rheumatic people get tired faster than healthy people. So, you have to be smarter in sorting out the activities that you do.
Determine what activities are your top priority. Saving a certain amount of energy by not doing activities that are considered less important will be better for optimizing energy for other activities.
