PTSD and Fatigue: Is It Normal to Feel So Tired?
I received an email from a client last week; he was very upset. Usually, he's the kind of guy who likes to travel on the drop of a dime but since PTSD began to control his life, he’s noticed that traveling takes an enormous toll on him.
After even the smallest trip, he wrote, "I have to sleep all the next day. Is this part of the PTSD profile?"
In a word: Yes.
Why PTSD Causes Fatigue
Let’s start with the mind/body connection. While modern medicine preaches the separation of your mind and body (I can’t tell you how many times my doctors said, "Your trauma that led to PTSD happened years ago, that can’t possibly be affecting you now!"), the truth is that your mind is capable of producing 50% more stress than your body can handle.
Think about that: If your mind is producing so much stress that your body can’t handle it, what will your body do? That’s right! Your body will let you know that your entire being is overly taxed. One way to do that is to feel enormously exhausted.
Then let’s add in depression. According to research, people who are depressed are more than four times as likely to experience inexplicable fatigue. Even without the research, I bet you know that from personal experience. You wake up in the morning feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Or as one client told me yesterday, "The thought of the day is just unbearable." Carrying all of that load is exhausting! PTSD depression is particularly heavy. Often tied to issues that involve the past, present and future, plus topics that have to do with the very core of who you are, depression can weigh you down like cement boots in a swamp of quicksand. It won’t take long before you just feel ready to curl up and take a nap.
Now, let’s get more scientific about it all. Cortisol is the stress hormone you most need to understand. Useful during a trauma, cortisol helps desensitize us so we feel less pain, increases short-term memory function, and acts as a quick energy boost. All good things, right? But here’s the kicker:
When present in higher levels for a prolonged period of time cortisol can be responsible for memory loss, fatigue, and reduced serotonin levels. Typically high during and immediately after trauma, some studies have shown that cortisol levels actually decrease later in the presence of PTSD. (We’re all unique and different so the only way to know how cortisol might be affecting you is through the results of a quick blood test done at any lab as prescribed by your doctor.)
Scientifically speaking a little further: The adrenal system processes stress hormones, including cortisol. When there’s an overload on the adrenal system a survivor might experience a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, exhaustion and an overload of stress. While the medical community does not recognize adrenal fatigue as an accepted medical diagnosis, the symptoms can’t be denied. (Like cortisol, the effects of adrenal overload can be identified through a blood test.)
Whatever is going on with you – be it emotional, mental or physical in origin – the bottom line is that fatigue (and often inexplicable fatigue) very often accompanies symptoms of PSTD. If this is the case for you, be your own best friend.
Give yourself the rest your body calls for. Reduce the amount of running around and other over-stimulation you allow. Also, reach out to your personal and professional support system to help develop a schedule that both honors and respects the fatigue while also trying to reduce and even eliminate it through proper PTSD treatment.
Michele is the author of Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity. Connect with her on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and her website, HealMyPTSD.com.
APA Reference
Rosenthal, M.
(2012, October 3). PTSD and Fatigue: Is It Normal to Feel So Tired?, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, April 29 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/traumaptsdblog/2012/10/ptsd-fatigue-is-it-normal-to-feel-so-tired
Author: Michele Rosenthal
I've had PTSD since was a small child. Sometimes I put out a tremendous amount of energy to make positive things happen in my life, but at least once a week I seem to need to sleep an entire day, and feel utterly powerless. I wish I had the proper balance to understand the right pace, especially since I have eight year old twins to care for.
[…] crawl my way out of. The level of exhaustion is hard to describe. I read somewhere that people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder feel so tired all the time because you are basically on high alert constantly. After nightmares all […]
All the above symptoms are so true. I do feel Guilty when I want to lie down; so I am more stressed out. I drag myself to do everything.It takes all my energy in my body to get going.
Fatigue is a specific symptom of Adrenal Fatigue and Adrenal Fatigue is related to PTSD...
Last year being diagnosed with Adrenal, Pancreatic, Liver, Kidney fatigue...it connected the dots for me. I no longer believe treatment for PTSD is simply EMDR, cognitive behavioral, and insight therapies..we must treat our bodies too because PTSD manifests on a real physical level within the nerves, tissue, and organs of our body. ??
We Correctional Officers in California use to have the luxury of living 5 years after retirement; now statistics back in the early 2000's show life expectancy is 3 years. 3 of my supervisors died of heart attacks within one year of retiring...another suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to talk. I was luck: 6 years after medical retirement, my body began to close down. Serious interventions by a team of neurologists, Immunologists, allergist, cardiologist, internal medicine, and functional doctor saved my life. I think also, us First Responders need to become advocates and responders to our immediate personal health ??. It should 't take an emergency medical situation in order to wake us up to this.
High blood pressure
High sugar levels
High cholesterol
High inflammation
Low organ functioning
Low blood pressure below normal (me)
I have complex PTSD due to a 10 year trauma when I was a child; being neglected by my own mother and step-father. Neglected; sexually abused, physically, verbally and emotionally, tortured and etc... Also by her X's friends that will come at night and other sitters that took care of us. At 15 my mother left her x; but I was still being abused physically and verbally abused by her. Then I ended up in violent relationship at 16 for 3 years where I was too verbally and physically abused. I became pregnant at 17 going to 18. Then I lost the true person I truely loved with all my being. My baby. That was my last straw. I was alone completely. It was hard. But for some reason despite all this I had hope. I thought I will grow and forget. I'm know 28 and getting therapy and bibble study. It's hard .
Before my trauma i had been taken way from my mother from the CPS at 2 weeks born due to physically trauma and then diagnosed with a seizure disorders around the same time. My seizure come and goes which makes it hard for recovery. But I'm still here and alife fighting a battle that I did not seek for.
I’ve only just realised 23 months after the birth of my first child that maybe I suffered from PTSD. Prior to my birth, which was traumatic, I had PTSD from three traumatic events in my
Life. I was sexually abused by my grandfather as a child and blocked it out for many years. I survived a major earthquake and started to have panic attacks and then I witnessed my friend losing her brother to suicide. At the time of my friends trauma I went to a counsellor as I started to have panic attacks again that were consuming my life. The counsellor said I had PTSD from the earthquake. Moving forward I had a good pregnancy but I had a panic attack about my ability to get sleep after the baby was born. Following her birth I was diagnosed with pna/pnd but it never felt right. The minute my waters broke -I could NOT sleep. It was like I switched a light on. I had a 40 hr labour that needed assistance (augmentation). I felt nothing when my baby was finally born. Like I was looking at a stranger. I remember begging for a sleeping pill at the hospital three days in. My fight or flight response was so severe I had to go on a smoothie only diet as I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t breastfeed etc - short story was it all went really wrong. I had to give up trying to breastfeed as I Still couldn’t sleep 3 weeks later and the dr put me in 3 zopilcone sleeping tabs and 3 phenergen to relax to ‘try’ to sleep. Even then it was a battle to sleep. I’d get 4-5 hrs on all those pills. They put me on anti anxiety meds but it still didn’t help my sleep. Fast forward 23 months later, I still struggle to sleep. I am constantly fatigued. I fall asleep and maybe have one sleep cycle and then I spend the night in a light state of sleep where I can just open my eyes at any time. I don’t ‘wake up’ anymore. It is exhausting. I don’t understand what is causing my sleep issues. I didn’t suffer flashbacks of the birth but I did block out a lot of the first 3-5 weeks of being a mother and I also got incredibly stressed having a smear test a year later. I cried and the nurse was confused - I tried to explain I had a traumatic birth but she thought I was being silly. I am confused- does it sound like I had PTSD?
This article made so much sense to me, I have PTSD from being sexually abused for 6 years. I get so frustrated with myself for always being tired even when I've slept for hours. Being stressed when things are going good, for having a hard time remembering things and such a hard time connecting emotionally to the people I care about. I have tried so hard to just be normal and not have so many issues but I can't. I know it's irrational but I feel like I am letting my husband and family down because there are so many placings and things I struggle with and no matter how hard I try I just can't get over it. I get so overwhelmed with the simplest tasks, staying focused can be impossible some days and it feels like my brain is always on overdrive.
Then we add in the bipolar and well I'm just a freaking mess. Somedays I just feel like I can't even function.
Hi Allie,
I’m not sure if you’ll see this response, but I wanted you to know I stumbled across your comment and relate. My trauma is not as big as yours, but I too have recently diagnosed bipolar and am going through intensive therapy, and I’m EXHAUSTED often. I hope you’ve gotten help since writing this comment. Happy to connect if you would like. All my best. ♥️
i was inured at work in 2015 when an overhead lamp came lose swung down and hit me on the head and neck, could this be what i am going through now ?