Fatigue can be fatal. Like grief, it hits every one of us in different ways.

The best we can do is work the process by way of exercise, rest, and diet, in order to manage a way through it.

While maintaining a healthy lifestyle adds another chore to the dad-list, being healthy-minded not only builds energy — it relieves stress, clears the head, and opens the door to more family activities.

Not being able to exercise, eat, or sleep well, due to work commitments, new dad limitations, and/or budget restrictions, can have unforeseen consequences.

Without a self-care plan in place to fight off fatigue, fatigue can harm family life, dragging us into an unrecoverable flat spin.

Signs that you might be facing fatherhood fatigue include:

1. Too Much Reliance on Caffeine

It’s far too easy to self-medicate. As the Good Book’s adage goes, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Caffeine-fuelled adrenal living comes at a cost.

For starters, there’s never enough caffeine to keep the overworked and underpaid from crashing in the end. If not self-moderated, caffeine can encourage stress and heighten anxiety.

Additionally, giving in to the temptation to end caffeine highs with beer-o’clock fosters fatigue, instead of mitigating it.

2. Impatience with Small Inconveniences

Snapping at the slightest irritation is a sign of fatherhood fatigue. Reasoned responses are compromised by foggy emotions, and might inhibit an ability to work through even the slightest of inconveniences.

Recognising the signs here can avoid rage-quitting and unnecessary strife in the home, and help communicate to loved ones the need for a short time-out after walking in the door straight after work.

3. Low Tolerance for Noise

Taxing weeks at work can drain any capacity to return the kind of love and joy kids have when dad returns home. I remember how, as a new dad, fatigue had numbed me to my kids’ excitement.

There were times I failed to embrace these priceless events.

Exhaustion is a sign of fatherhood fatigue. It can steal the soul of the moment from us. Helping kids understand work-related pressures goes a long way towards giving them our best. It’s a good way to avoid throwing them scraps of energy left over from the day.

4. Insomnia

Being sleep-deprived and being a father are almost synonymous. It’s also dangerous.

According to Deakin University, sleep deprivation can “impact fathers’ mental health, relationships, and workplace safety.”

Citing Dr Wynter from the Australian Fatherhood Foundation, Deakin asserted that “sleep deprivation and fatigue was clearly interfering with fathers’ psychological wellbeing and daily functioning.”

Dr Wynter stated,

“When people are sleep deprived to that degree, their functioning and safety is quite heavily impacted. There’s a real safety implication here for fathers, particularly as we’ve seen this can impact their safety procedures at work and their psychological wellbeing.”

The Father Hood group also asserted a similar conclusion, stating:

“Australian researchers investigated the effects of fatigue on 241 dads with new babies. The men were found to be 36 per cent more likely to have a near-miss at work and 26 per cent more likely to have an accident on the road due to their tiredness.”

The power of rest is a key ingredient in any good exercise regime. Learning to make the most of a power nap or holiday clears the fatherhood fog by easing the fatigue.

5. No Desire to Move off the Couch

Another symptom of fatherhood fatigue is turning the dad-life into couch life.

Binge-watching TV, or living in a videogame, has a time and place — it’s just not recommended as a permanent answer to the suffocating squeeze of the week-to-week grind.

To paraphrase: “Game hits marriage, causing 100% damage.”

In the words of a friend of mine who served 20 years in the US Navy: “If you don’t move, you die.” Finding family-friendly activities has more potential to recharge drained personal batteries.

6. Being Dad-tired

My kids were all born two years apart from each other. After helping care for them while juggling a career as a store manager, and looking after a sick wife, being dad-tired is written into my DNA.

It’s hard to find healthy ways to recharge if there’s no extended family around to help out — even harder when that extended family would rather make trouble from the sidelines than provide support and solutions.

If your focus is on immediate family, ‘It’s okay to be tired,’ writes David Saville, as long as it’s the good kind of tired.

He adds, ‘Being a dad is really hard work and it’s not for the faint of heart. It takes courage, and sometimes double when you’re trying to make changes.’

7. Depression and Anxiety

Fatherhood fatigue hits mental health the hardest. The Australian Government’s HealthDirect information page claims that ‘depression affects 1 in 8 men.’

The causes of depression, they said, range from ‘challenging life events or issues such as a family member dying, divorce, loneliness, facing unemployment, past or continuing abuse, or stress at work.‘

Fatherhood fatigue could be a sign of depression, as much as a symptom of it. Hopelessness, despair, and a general feeling of uselessness is a deadly mental fog that shouldn’t be ignored.

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Photo by Kristina Polianskaia.