Weary on the weekends?

People feel more tired on day-offs.
People feel more tired on day-offs.

For most of the people, weekends are a chance to rewind. On an extra day-off, they can laze at home, catch up on their sleep and reenergise themselves .

Interestingly, though, despite the extra hours of rest, fatigue can hit people badly and bring a surprising level of tiredness.

Why? Researchers have recently found some answers.

Firstly, researchers point out that holidays bring certain changes to our daily lives. As there is no need to wake up early for work the next day, people indulge into some extra activities - outings and chatting with family and friends till the late hours of night. Some watch movies or television till late. All this disrupts your ‘biological clock’. Thus, you often find it hard to keep your eyes open during the day.

Researchers suggest not making such radical changes to the regular routine during the weekends or sleeping late in the morning.

Secondly, people usually keep reserve extra tasks for the weekends. And for officer-goers,a day-off seems busier as they have a little amount of time for domestic chores during the office days.

Thus, try to reduce volume of the extra work, doing a little every day and try to be more relaxed at the weekends.

Thirdly, during the weekends people tend to eat more than normal. They eat richer food at invitations or takeouts from restaurants. Such changes can upset your stomach, and leave you tired.

Try to avoid overeating on holidays.

Fourthly, during weekends, regular exercise sees a break, too. This has a bad effect. So try to diversify your exercise on the holiday.

Finally, people often take a nap in the afternoon at the weekends. That hampers regular sleep at night. So, if you do not have the habit, skip it.

If you really feel like taking a nap, keep it to 30 minutes.

*This writer is a medicine specialist, Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital, Mipur, Dhaka.