Ways To Beat Mental Fatigue
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: There’s no quick fix for chronic fatigue. It is typically a level of depletion that results from draining your energy reserves over a period of time. It requires a commitment to refuel and restore your vitality. But the good news is that there are many tried-and-true approaches you can begin using right now that can start building up your energy level significantly. Let’s look a little deeper at what’s involved.
Physical, Mental/Emotional and Spiritual Fatigue
Depletion can occur physically, emotionally/mentally and spiritually, so what kind of tired are you? Fatigue can result from overwork, poor sleep, an unhealthy diet, adrenal fatigue, thyroid and hormone imbalances, medication side effects, anxiety or depression, experiencing an overall lack of meaning to life and the list goes on!
While there are always exceptions, general guidelines are that if you wake with energy in the morning and find yourself dragging in the afternoon, the fatigue may have a physical origin. If you wake up tired in the morning but get going as the day progresses, it’s worth exploring your emotional concerns. And generalized fatigue could point to a spiritual foundation — an overall lack of meaning and fulfillment.
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How To Heal From Empath Compassion Fatigue
Needless to say, compassion fatigue wears you down, and leaves you feeling beyond depleted. Its as if all the horror stories youve heard act like an sos pad on your life-force. So, how do you heal from all the secondary trauma, and regain your motivation and happiness?
Here are 3 steps to prevent and overcome empath compassion fatigue:
Treating And Moving Through Empathy Fatigue
In todays global pandemic, empathy fatigue can go hand-in-hand with caution fatigue. But its important to remain vigilant about slowing the spread of COVID-19. We must be mindful about what were doing to help and protect others, while also taking care of ourselves.
Empathy fatigue can eventually slip into depression, so its so important to pay attention to how youre feeling, address those feelings and move forward with caring for yourself and those around you.
When were talking about empathy fatigue in terms of treatment, we like to think about the ABC model, explains Dr. Albers. We need to work on our awareness, our balance of everything going on and our connection with others.
Here is more about what that means:
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Engage In A Nightly Routine And Get Good
“Our sleep quality can have a significant impact on energy, cognitive processing, emotional well-being, and more! Consider taking time each night to engage in activities that are relaxing to you on a holistic level and will help you in being able to sleep,” Assar says. This can look like putting away electronics an hour before bed and intentionally using that time to recharge with journaling or a mindfulness exercise.
Try To Get More Sleep
Quality sleep doesnt just promote good physical health. Its essential for overall health, which includes your mental and emotional well-being.
Aiming to get the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night can help relieve both mental and physical exhaustion.
One way to make sure you get a better nights sleep? Avoid spending too much time in bed throughout the day, which you might feel more inclined to do during periods of mental exhaustion.
A new bedtime routine can help you find relaxing ways to wind down, which can also improve your rest.
A few ideas:
- Take a hot bath an hour or so before bedtime.
- Try some yoga or gentle stretching before bed.
- Swap your phone or computer for a book, coloring book, or soothing music.
- Dim or turn off unnecessary lighting as youre getting ready for bed.
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How To Recover From Mental Exhaustion
The mind and body are quite resilient and are capable of making a full recovery from the most harmful of physical injuries, and this holds true for mental exhaustion as well. The biggest challenge is to admit a change needs to be made in order to recharge mentally and not feel guilty about it. The following are some simple tips that dont require much energy but will set you on a path toward mental rejuvenation.
Mohan Garikiparithi got his degree in medicine from Osmania University . He practiced clinical medicine for over a decade before he shifted his focus to the field of health communications. During his active practice he served as the head of the Dept. of Microbiology in a diagnostic centre in India. On a three-year communications program in Germany, Mohan developed a keen interest in German Medicine , and other alternative systems of medicine. He now advocates treating different medical conditions without the use of traditional drugs. An ardent squash player, Mohan believes in the importance of fitness and wellness.
You Feel Stressed And Anxious
Although mental exhaustion is not the same thing as stress, chronic exposure to stress can exhaust the body. Increased stress and anxiety are one of the most common signs of mental fatigue. High levels of anxiety over a long period of time can cause serious issues as well, for example, youll be more likely to experience panic attacks and suffer from diarrhea, nausea, jitters, and nervousness.
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Tips For Feeling Less Drained
The right strategy for dealing with mental exhaustion will vary depending on the reason for the exhaustion. For example, a person who feels burned out at work needs different support from a person who feels exhausted after a long recovery from an injury.
In general, however, these strategies may help:
- Changing working conditions: When a job causes a person to feel fatigued, making a change in their work life may improve things. For example, a person might need more time off, a reduction in their workload, or more support from colleagues.
- Practicing good self-care: Exercising, eating a healthful diet, getting plenty of sleep, and staying hydrated can all help improve a persons resilience. This may ease symptoms of mental exhaustion or prevent its onset.
- Trying mindfulness: Mindfulness practices, such as meditation, help a person become more aware of their emotions. This can make it
Physical exhaustion is not the same as mental exhaustion. A person who is physically exhausted may feel mentally alert but physically tired. However, physical exhaustion may lead to mental exhaustion especially in athletes who have rigorous training schedules.
For some people, emotional symptoms manifest as physical ones, such as when anxiety causes a persons heart to race . Moreover, chronic mental exhaustion may cause physical health symptoms such as headaches or muscle aches.
Some people
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Prioritize Important Tasks When Your Energy Is Highest
Chances are, you have some insight into when you are at your best. So, if youre a morning person, aim to stack meetings and important obligations first thing. If youre more of an afternoon or evening person, take care of the easier things before tackling more complex tasks. This will help to increase your mental energy.
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It Can Be Hard To Recognize Mental And Emotional Exhaustion
One of the big problems with mental and emotional exhaustion is that you often wont realize youre experiencing these problems. Being mindful of triggers can help. We all tend to stretch ourselves in times of stress and transition, Dr. Dannaram said.
Changes can disrupt your system, so youre at risk of mental exhaustion when you start a new job or roleyoure likely to set unrealistic expectations at these times, and mental fatigue can set in. Youre at higher risk for emotional exhaustion when you experience interpersonal changes such as the end of a relationship.
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We wouldnt run a marathon and then feel like failures when our legs are tired. So why do we treat mental fatigue so differently? Becky Kane, What to Do When Your Brain Is Too Tired to Think Straight
Hey, you.
Yes, you the one browsing for another how to work when you dont feel like it article and listening to the nth podcast on finding focus and getting into flow state when youre exhausted.
Take this post as a gentle reminder: Youre not dumb or lazy for not being able to create or produce anything today.
Give your brain a break.
Heres a deep dive on what mental fatigue is, why we experience it, and how we can build mental stamina. My takeaways are:
“No matter the size of the business, therell always be an unlimited number of tasks left to do, processes left to improve, and contingencies left to plan.
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Embrace The Power Nap
Finally, if your brain is on overload, or it feels like your mind is about to melt, shut it down, unplug it, and take a nap. Seriously.
Naps, especially power naps, are the equivalent of plugging in your smartphone in the middle of the day to get a little extra charge.
You may not be tired. You may still have plenty of gas in the tank. But a quick nap between 10 to 30 minutes can get your energy and performance back to their early morning levels.
Albert Einstein used naps to power his brain. His strategy was to hold something in his hand that would make a loud noise when it hit the floor. He would then settle into his armchair and nap until his hand relaxed and the thing he was holding hit the floor. This would allow him to drift into a light doze without falling into a deep sleep.
Mental Fatigue Vs Mental Burnout
Mental fatigue can be temporary and situational. For example, a college student often feels depleted and completely drained after finals week. Or, an accountant might experience mental fatigue during tax season. Usually, relief occurs after the identified stressor passes.
Mental burnout, on the other hand, tends to be more insidious, chronic, and damaging. Burnout can result in extreme apathy, pessimism, and isolation. In addition, it may coincide with worsening depression, anxiety, or substance use disorder symptoms.3
Mental fatigue can be a precursor to mental burnout. If you dont take care of your exhaustion, you might begin to feel helpless and discouraged these emotions are associated with burnout.
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Take Strategic Breaks Throughout The Day
Your energy levels will naturally deteriorate over the course of the day, but theres a simple way to recharge your batteries: take breaks.
Instead of pushing to the point of mental fatigue, give your brain a chance to relax and reset. Will your energy return to peak levels? Probably not, but a regular refresh will help you sustain your focus over a longer period of time instead of crashing by midday.
In his book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Daniel Pink gives this advice for taking more productive breaks:
Something beats nothing. High performers work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes.
Moving beats stationary. One study showed that hourly five-minute walking breaks boosted energy levels, sharpened focus, and improved mood throughout the day and reduced feelings of fatigue in the late afternoon.
Social beats solo. Research in South Korean workplaces shows that social breakstalking with coworkers about something other than workare more effective at reducing stress and improving mood than either cognitive breaks or nutrition breaks .
Outside beats inside. People who take short walks outdoors return with better moods and greater replenishment than people who walk indoors.
Fully detached beats semi-detached. Tech-free breaks also increase vigor and reduce emotional exhaustion.
Use Positive Coping Strategies
While it may be tempting to wash away the stress and emotional burdens of your job with alcohol or drugs, this can actually work in the reverse and compound stress in the long run. Consider making a list of positive coping strategies to use in times of stress. This might include deep breathing, meditation, taking a walk, talking with a friend, watching a funny movie, or relaxing in a hot bath.
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A Perfect Storm For Compassion Fatigue
Unlike other disasters that tend to bring people together to rebuild, pandemics make you fear your neighbor.
Pandemics cause compassion fatigue because the price is so high with getting sick and the fear it generates, explains Charles Figley, founder and leading researcher at the Traumatology Institute at Tulane.
The cost of caring is sometimes high, says Figley.
Every day we hear about the millions of Americans who have been infected by the new coronavirus and the hundreds of thousands who have died, often alone and away from family.
We hear the pain of their grieving loved ones, as well as the hardships faced by people losing their jobs, fearing eviction, and being unable to feed their families.
We get burned emotionally when we absorb trauma on a regular basis without a working plan to manage the consequence of the trauma memories and its wake of impact, says Figley.
This is why, throughout history, plagues have often led to loss of compassion. In the early 15th century and 16th century, plague victims were shipped to an island to die and buried in mass graves. In other cities, victims were sealed in their homes and no food or care was allowed.
In A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe wrote about an epidemic that struck London in 1665.
Everyone is struggling, and so its important to look out for each other, says Eric Zillmer, a professor of neuropsychology. Compassion creates a sense of belonging and a feeling of peace and mindfulness.
What Causes Mental Fatigue
Mental fatigue is complex and usually isnt caused by one thing. Contributing factors can be physical like poor nutrition, lack of sleep, or hormonal imbalances or cognitive youve been asking your brain to do too much.
That cognitive overload can take the form of intense focus on a single task over an extended period of time as is the case for those chess grandmasters who burn 6,000 calories in a day. But it can also result from spreading your attention across too many things all of the decisions you have to make, the information you have to process, the emails you need to answer, the tasks you need to keep track of, the chores you need to take care of. To make matters worse, worrying about a task can be as mentally taxing as actually doing it. That means even while youre procrastinating, youre taxing your brain.
All of that cognitive task-switching takes a toll. Imagine a chess player trying to plan out their next five moves and anticipate their opponents reactions while also checking their Slack messages, responding to emails, thinking about what theyll eat for lunch, catching up on the latest trending hashtags on Twitter, and worrying about that project due tomorrow that they havent even started yet.
Luckily, there are steps you can take to manage both the physical and cognitive sides of mental fatigue.
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Reach Out For Help If You Need It
Going through mental exhaustion alone can be, well, exhausting. And if there is anything to take away from this article, itâs that youâre not alone in feeling overrun and drained from overworking your brain with too much mental activity.
Though you might want to withdraw and isolate when you feel down â and taking time to rest and chill is important! â reaching out for help from your support system or from a professional is always an option when you need a little extra guidance.
What To Do If You Have Symptoms
Symptoms of adrenal fatigue can replicate other health issues, and your first step toward recovery from adrenal fatigue should be to seek the help of a medical professional. For example, these symptoms can also be found in those suffering from medical conditions like anemia, sleep apnea, autoimmune diseases, and mental health conditions. A functional medicine doctor can listen to your symptoms and run diagnostics to confirm whether you have adrenal fatigue or another condition.
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Pro Tip: Create Your Tribe Of Mentors
The community of medicine has fed us a steady diet of rugged individualism. Very early in our medical training, to our detriment, I feel, we are taught to be self-sufficient, independent, and the captain of ones ship. But, if we were honest with ourselves, we would never have achieved the success that we have had without the support of each other.
I feel every successful physician should create their own tribe of mentors. When success guru Napolean Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie about the secret of his success, he replied that it could be traced back to the sum total of the minds of his business partners. In his book, The Law of Success, Hill defines this mastermind group as a mind that is developed through the harmonious co-operation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any given task.
Create a weekly meeting with 1 or 2 close colleagues to have a quick meal or coffee. This act, alone, has such a powerful effect on our healthemotionally and physically. The camaraderie that a colleague has on your work-life balance is so critical it is a keystone method that a physician needs to heal from compassion fatigue. We do not live on an islanddont be a hermit. Seek social connections!
