(Article Source: Mumbai Mirror)
COMPETITIVE TIREDNESS IS THE NEW GAME WE STRESSED OUT CITY SLICKERS ARE PLAYING
I met a friend for dinner, and in between discussing our love lives and Sidhartha Mallya’s latest pr gaffe, we found ourselves playing the “who has it tougher?” game. “I battled two major deadlines and meetings in opposite sides of the city yesterday, and ended up sleeping only for two hours,” I said. “the baby kept me up all night! I didn’t catch a wink, except maybe an hour, total,” she said. “I’m so tired,” I said. “I’m also so tired,” she said. We both gave an exhausted sigh and soldiered on, tearing into our steaks and fries with the resignation of the doomed.
Later, when I logged onto twitter, I saw at least 20 tweets featuring the word “tired”, mostly along the same lines — I did xyz and I did abc and I slept so little. I’m sooooo tired. Responses to these would also be the same. “so am I! I also did efg and lmn and so on. Life sucks.”
And suddenly, I knew. My friend and I weren’t only ones playing the “who has it tougher?” game. It’s already a rage, part of the collective public consciousness. It even has a name — competitive tiredness syndrome (cts).
“cts is a product of the changing work culture patterns of today, as well as the driving need to outperform the herd,” says Dr Sachin patkar.
“it causes a lot of stress on the neurotransmitter and hormonal systems of the body,” Patkar adds. “over a period of time, it can lead to major psychiatric problems such as depression.”
Some of us may complain that bragging about being tired and overworked doesn’t necessarily prove that we are indeed tired and overworked. Our experts, however, beg to differ. As a society, we’re a lot more tired now than we were, say, 15 years ago. A number of reasons have fostered this change — economic liberation, rapid technological developments, globalization and population explosion, to name a few. Not to forget our work hard, party harder lifestyle.
Dr Reema Shah, a psychotherapist with a private practice at Mahim, cites other reasons as well. “costs going up, traffic, pollution, weather and the likes are real factors we go through every day, and these contribute to our tiredness,” she says.
Shah goes so far as to equate cts with chronic fatigue syndrome, another condition that plagues our generation. If you feel tired all the time, if you don’t enough motivation to work, if you need to down cup after cup of coffee to simply get through your day, it’s probably chronic fatigue. It’s caused by stress, long working hours, and our efforts to juggle personal and professional lives, among other things.
According to Dr Shah, due the rapid surge in India’s population we also suffer from “hyper competitiveness”, an unhealthy brand of competition that’s a lot more than the recommended amount.
Add a dollop of chronic fatigue to a serving of hypercompetition and you’ll get cts, wrapped, beribboned and delivered to your doorstep.
But as we scream and shout and declare how tired we are and how little we sleep, we’re forgetting that neither of these qualities is good for our health and general happiness.
“sleep is the greatest restorer,” says Shah. “it is the time when your whole body recharges itself for the work next day.”
Sleeping less is like unplugging your phone from the charger before it’s fully charged. Your phone’s performance that day will obviously suffer, he says. Over a period of time, this lack of sleep creates chronic fatigue. It’s a vicious cycle.
When we boast about our lack of sleep, we’re trying to say that our body needs less time to charge, making us feel superior. This superiority is facetious — in truth, we’re slowly destroying our capacity to work. It is known that man will die faster due to lack of sleep than due to lack of food — something to mull over during our long hours of commute?
The average amount of sleep needed varies as per individual. You need to find that magic number and get those many hours in, as many times in a week as you can. You also need to think positive and take time out for yourself.
“even the first 15 minutes of the morning, when you’re enjoying a cup of tea is enough,” says Dr Parul tank of fortis hospitals.
She recommends physical exertion for a sound sleep, even though it’s practically difficult. She also warns against cts, and says that if we only heap one negative comment upon another and start believing that we’re as tired as we claim, it will only add up and increase our stress.
And that should be the last thing we want.
