Tired? That is an understatement. A life and happiness coach in Singapore shares how we should tackle fatigue and overcome it healthily
Singapore recently got voted the most “fatigued” country in the world. As an eternal optimist, it shatters me to think that this beautiful island has created the world’s most tired, fatigued, workaholic, addicted to the internet, sleep-deprived individuals. Based on studies of data accumulated over the globe, we ranked second in the most number of hours worked in the year, third-highest country of individuals using the internet daily, and first in the world of being perpetually fatigued.
Are we choosing tired as our default feeling?
See also: The World’s Most And Least Stressful Cities In 2021
Why We Feel So Fatigued
Recently I spoke to a friend who is a frontliner in Singapore. She dedicates all her energy and time to her job, sacrificing time spent with family and friends for the good of the community. As an ER doctor, with ungodly work hours, she is fatigued. As a non-Singaporean, she can’t leave the country so easily, and her team constantly fears catching the virus impacting their job. This constant emotional rollercoaster—knowing how important your role as a frontline worker is, versus the impact on your own mental health and overall sense of fatigue and burnout is never-ending. My friend heals by sleeping early when she can, waking up at 5am, meditating and journaling. Yet, I can’t begin to fathom the strain on her physical and mental health over time. In some ways, we are all facing this crisis here in Singapore.
As frontline workers, educators, or even people with the most mundane desk job, we all battle similar feelings. We get sucked into a black hole of communal cribbing where we dish the dirt on what’s going wrong in our lives. I can’t recall a conversation with friends that doesn’t start with the negative impact of Covid in Singapore and end with the same theme. Are we choosing this, does it make us relate to each other. Do we need to vent to feel better, or are we spending too much time just focusing on the negative?
The studies showing people in Singapore as the most tired in the world, I believe is the result of battling similar feelings of gratitude for what we have, and yet feeling wiped out with little motivation to get up in the mornings. As a happiness coach and advocate of seeing the silver lining in every situation, I think it is a daily journey to tackle what life throws at you. Looking in the future or even into the next month can be with immense trepidation that would even cause the most positive person to harbor some anxiety.