Introduction
Fatigue vs sleepiness
Fatigue is the consequence of poor sleep. It is different from sleepiness, even though the two are often confused.
Sleepiness is the typical feeling you get when you need to sleep (e.g., heavy eyelids, regular yawning and muscle weakness). You will often feel sleepy when you are fatigued because sleepiness is a symptom of fatigue. Its other symptoms include slowed reaction times, bad mood, increased risk-taking behaviour and poor focus.
As sleepiness is just one of fatigue's symptoms, it is possible to experience fatigue without feeling sleepy. When this happens, it can be difficult to connect your symptoms (e.g. bad mood, poor focus) to inadequate sleep. In this way, the "non-sleepy" symptoms can be particularly dangerous to your health and safety throughout the day.
The only way to prevent fatigue is to get a good night of sleep!
A good recommendation from the Sleep Health Foundation encourages adults aged 18-yrs and over to aim for between seven and nine hours of sleep at night.