Aspergers and Fatigue

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I'm wondering if there is some association between Aspergers and being fatigued. I work with a religious body that recently had their national convention here in town. This meant a week away from my normal routine and in front of a lot of people. I ended the days feeling very tired, moreso than others around me.

Does anyone have any ideas?

What's causing your fatigue is the internal stress of altered routines, unfamiliar environment and probably most of all, the sensory overload of excessive amounts of socialization.

Because we struggle so hard (mostly unconsciously) to absorb and interpret all the nonverbal signals being transmitted around us that neurotypical brains handle fluidly and effortlessly, our entire nervous system is simultaneously tensed and on edge. If you're in a place that stimulates you intellectually and you enjoy it, you may not realize how much mental and physical energy you're expending in dealing with all the input, until you get back to your room where you have a little peace and quiet, then it all hits you at once and you're exhausted.

It's just the strain of exerting all the energy required to keep up with the NTs, not directly caused by the AS, but an indirect result of it nonetheless.

This happens to me almost everyday that I work becasue my schedules are very random.

I get overwhelmed very easily due to sensory overload.
My mind fills up with electric fuzzies, and I just want to go to my quiet room and dive under the covers.
My body doesn't feel tired, just my mind.

I have a dx of CFS; seems like it's more common than in then general population, but I don't know if that holds up scientifically. I've always felt like people and the world move way too fast, and to do ordinary things takes a huge amount of concentration/effort/energy. And I also I agree with comments about constantly dealing with sensory stuff. I've always wondered if the reason I never got hangovers is because my senses are already in a hyper-sensitive state and it can't get a lot worse.

There ought to be stress studies done on autistics to answer your question. I'm sure the baseline stress is very much above normal.

I suffer fatigue or what I call burn out quite easily and need to have quite a large amount of down time to be able to cope with doing my job. It is just who I am and I have come to learn that I need to take care of myself and have this down time or else I just don't cope.

I have a dx of CFS too. Have often thought it could be that the effort of living like you say the huge amount of "concentration / effort / energy" that goes into everything makes me physcially and mentally exhausted.

I'm ALWAYS tired. I wish I knew what the reason was.

I have Asperger's, ME/CFS and another neurological disorder, ALL of which make me prone to extreme fatigue, just add very hot or very cold weather to those three and I have trouble just staying propped up in the chair.

I get over-peopled so I know not to go out too much or I get stressed and pace and get more tired. It is exhausting.

I feel very fatigued in the summer months, because of the heat, and than add my job schedule on top of that, and than the social demands that I deal with, at my clubhouse, it's no wonder that I spend half of my evenings, alone on WP, with my headphones on, with a cold drink.

I used to have fibromyalgia and chronic exhaustion but then I did two things:

1. stopped being around people except when absolutely necessary (such as grocery shopping). I buy books and clothing online. If I can do it without sacrificing my grades, I skip classes. This strategy won't help me when I graduate and have to work every day, but for now it's been a great rest and healing time. I also, whenever possible, sleep until my body doesn't want to sleep any more. I think I overtaxed my adrenals and really needed a long period of quiet, non-stimulating, minimally stressful rest.

2. quit eating crap. Now I only eat things I know will cleanse my body and fortify it, especially my adrenals, thyroid, etc. I don't read nutrition labels because none of my food has nutrition labels. I only buy from the outside aisles of the supermarket and nothing that has been pasteurized or otherwise denatured. It took a while to adjust to this way of eating, particularly financially until I found the best bargains of calorie-per-dollar to eat as my staples. I also added a 5000 IU D supplement because my D was so depleted from living in the North and rarely going outside in the daytime. Once my D levels got back up, my hair started growing back in (my D was so low my hair was thinning because of it!) and I felt less depressed and more energetic. Every cell in your body needs D to function optimally.

It took some healing time but now I'm fibromyalgia free, diabetes free, filled with so much energy I just have to jump up and do something - hike, clean, dance. I think those of us on the spectrum are something like a "canary in a coal mine" in that we repond more quickly and more dramatically to the crap our culture encourages us to eat. Added to that is the pervasive anxiety that most people on the spectrum live with (to such an extent that many of us don't even realize how stressed we are until we remove some of those stressors.) Chronic, ongoing, unremitting anxiety will deplete your adrenals and run you down so fast.

We need to nurture ourselves and find the healthiest ways of being or we will rapidly sink into a downward spiral of depression and exhaustion.

I find this very important - I don't socialise too much but I will happily attend meetings where we are doing something practical for the good of others.

2. quit eating crap. Now I only eat things I know will cleanse my body and fortify it...

We need to nurture ourselves and find the healthiest ways of being or we will rapidly sink into a downward spiral of depression and exhaustion.
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I am in full agreement here.

I am only as well as I am because I take supplements (proven improvement) do a few careful yoga stretches every day and eat good foods, though I am fortunate here in that I am allergic or intolerant to most of the bad stuff My challenge is the resting and sleeping bit, I have had so much life taken away when I was seriously ill that I cannot bear to give up afternoons to doing nothing but sometimes I just have to because I cannot physically sit up any longer.

If I didn't do all of what I do to keep as well as I can, I would probably still be housebound and feeling very sick with headaches and pains.

I've been astonished at how I DON'T feel social fatigue as long as I stick to small numbers of people of my own choosing. There seem to be 2 kinds of people - those who tire me out, and those who don't.

Lot of good ideas being served up here. Diet & Exercise will most certainly mark an improvement.

Were I to offer up one of my own, I would recommend meditation. Done right, it's like first aid for the brain. By going out in the world your brain picks up plenty of wear, tear, and debris - mostly of the social variant for us. Before you start the day and when you come home, I recommend meditating for 15 minutes.

While meditation can be part and parcel of a religious belief system, it's not in any way integral to the exercise, makes no difference if you're a militant atheist or a Christian fundamentalist. If this sounds like something you're willing to try, I recommend any of the materials by Jon Kabat-Zinn to get you started:
http://www.amazon.com/Jon-Kabat-Zinn/e/ ... 169&sr=8-1

And if by chance you're also depressed, I can't recommend this book enough. I'm generally skeptical of self-help books, but this one changed my life:
http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Way-throu ... 195&sr=1-1

I really hope you get through your fatigue,

Meursault

I can relate to that, except that my body may get tired, too.

When I get home after going out to central London, I immediately change into light clothes and collapse on my bed, even if I haven't done particularly much there. I live in the suburbs of London.