The mental fatigue factor
It’s not that you don’t care — it’s that you’re emotionally exhausted
Comparing your pre-pandemic self to your current self is a slippery slope. While you might have once been a creative, enthusiastic professional who eagerly took on new projects and opportunities for growth, these days, putting on pants can feel like a feat. Especially for those who traditionally classify themselves as type-A overachievers, going through a low-energy period may be frustrating and scary since it’s so out of character.
Before you start to doubt your abilities, remember that nearly everyone is suffering from mental fatigue right now. That’s when we find it difficult to focus on a task because we are emotionally maxed out, said psychologist Yvonne Thomas.
Many people are feeling this way and for a good reason. The pandemic presents the difficult challenge of accepting how little control we have over our dayto-day lives — or knowing when life will return to a more relaxed state.
Plus, Thomas said, because of the ongoing threat of potentially contracting COVID-19, many of us may experience mental fatigue because we’re on high alert everywhere we go.
Last but not least, you might be lonely. Even if you are quarantining with family or roommates, not being able to do all of the things that bring us joy and release, such as attending concerts, sporting events or dining at your favorite restaurant, can leave you feeling depleted.
We spoke to experts about the key signs of mental fatigue and how to cope:
Mental exhaustion signs
1. You’re inefficient: Sure, we all have days when finishing a slide in a presentation would take us half an hour, max. And others when it’s a two-hour ordeal.
Everyone goes through productivity ebbs and flows, but if everything takes you far more time than usual lately, Thomas said you could be suffering from mental exhaustion.
2. You don’t feel compassion for others: You used to have empathy for the colleague who always arrived late to Zoom meetings because they were juggling a toddler and school-aged kid while working. But now that you’re eight months (and counting) into a state of lockdown, your emotional tolerance could be waning.
According to licensed marriage and family therapist Laura Rhodes-Levin, this is a key signifier of mental fatigue, since meeting the needs of others requires forethought, energy and consideration.
When you don’t have enough motivation to do routine tasks, giving extra to those around you is all but impossible. “Compassion fatigue is the sense that you just don’t care enough to make this much-needed exchange,” she said. This doesn’t make you a bad person; it just signals that perhaps you need more selfcare time within your week.
3. You’re procrastinating more than ever:
Some people thrive by putting off everything until the last minute. However, if this isn’t your style and suddenly you’re procrastinating every part of your day, you could be overloaded.
“When a person continuously has high emotions or stress, it is hard to simultaneously feel energetic, motivated or invested in tackling tasks,” Thomas said. “Instead, a person can feel unfocused, exhausted and/or pessimistic.”
4. You’re struggling with sleep and appetite:
We may observe shifts in our sleep routine and our eating habits, Rhodes-Levin said. Usually, it’s demonstrated in extremes: excessive overeating or no appetite at all. Sometimes, it’s insomnia since you can’t get your mind to stop running. Other times, all you want to do is stay in bed all day, every day.
How to cope 1. Create “countdown” strategies:
Part of the cause of mental fatigue is having way too much information to process. In addition to topics you usually have to think about — going to work, grocery shopping, planning holidays, strategizing your work calendar — there’s a whole new level of data.
For instance, grabbing a mask before you head out the door. You may not realize how taxing this is on your mental processing system. To solve this, you should write down every task and then create a “countdown” strategy for checking it off, suggested learning specialist Rebecca Mannis.
She recommends using an old-fashioned planner or an app such as Evernote to file away your thoughts. “Put hard deadlines in red and soft ones in yellow so that there is a visual cue to reinforce the goals,” she said. Then break down all of your items into digestible sections so that you can have mini-wins throughout the process. By doing this, Mannis said, you strengthen your mental muscle, and you’ll feel less stress.
2. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day:
There’s no replacement for the happy endorphins produced by physical activity. It can feel overwhelming to get started but once you do, Thomas said, you’ll see a breakthrough in your mental fatigue since it will kickstart the good hormones and energy levels. “Try to do some cardio for at least thirty minutes around the time when you feel the most mentally exhausted to help reinvigorate your mind and body,” she said.
3. Engage with nature and your senses:
When we are feeling mentally exhausted, it’s often because we are trapped in a cycle of fretting, worrying and entertaining anxious thoughts and ideas — mostly about the future. To relieve this pressure, you need to bring yourself back to the right-here and the right-now, Rhodes-Levin said.
Do this by focusing on your five senses: What do you feel, hear, see, taste and smell? “Look at the sky, run some water on your face, take a break and listen to some music, exchange a few jokes with a friend. Reconnect to the world around you,” she said. “There is a lot more to the world than our worries, if we take the time to find it.”
It can also help to practice breathing techniques designed to lower your heart rate, clear your mind and release tension. Meditation and mindfulness coach Christine Argo recommends the 5-5-5 method that forces us to count rather than to entertain anxious mental queries.
“The process of focusing equally on the length of inhalation and exhalation helps regulate the nervous system. Just as our nerves can impact our breathing, our breathing can impact our nerves,” she said. How do you try it? You simply breathe in for five seconds, hold for five seconds and exhale for five seconds. Repeat as often as you need.
4. Try 5-5-5 balanced breathing: