Slowing down and napping are difficult for busy people. Patients may rush or neglect some of their daily activities and skip or skimp on their naps. Either way, performance is hindered. An often neglected social factor associated with fatigue is financial stress. After treatment, tension can rise when patients overextend themselves trying to assume a full load at work or home in order to make ends meet.
Spiritual difficulties can also be a factor.
Subtle tension, a crisis of faith or debilitating primal fear may contribute to fatigue, directly or indirectly. Even when faith is unwavering, discussing patients' fatigue in the context of their spiritual selves may facilitate hopeful acceptance. The root of patients' frustration with fatigue is the complex nexus between fatigue, expectations, anxiety and depression. Fatigue can trigger a cascade of practical, social, financial and emotional problems that interfere with patients' ability to function and rest. This, in turn, exacerbates the fatigue.