What is Mental Exhaustion and How to Deal with This Common Problem

Mental exhaustion is, without a doubt, one of the most taxing feelings a person can experience in life. Physical pain stops as soon as irritation causing it. Sore muscles recover with good rest. Mental exhaust, on the other hand, wears down the person in more than one way and stays with us as long as we don’t start fighting back.

In the meantime, the resulting stress and lack of concentration wreak havoc on all facets of our personal and professional lives.

We should never expose ourselves to such an extent of emotional pain and aggravation. Let us take a look then at a couple of ways we can successfully treat mental exhausting and see if we can eliminate its causes in the first place.

What is mental exhaustion?

But, before we start dealing with this beast, we will first need to learn a thing or two about its nature. So, mental exhaustion, also known as burnout, is a state of feeling tired and drained. The body is tired and lacks energy while the mind feels forgetful and foggy and often lacks clarity to perform even the basic daily tasks.

As the name suggests, this mental state is brought on by prolonged taxing emotional experience, in most cases prolonged exposure to stress. Stress, in itself, is a natural part of life and occurs whenever we are exposed to new situations. In some cases, it can have a positive effect on your body. However, if we expose ourselves to it over a prolonged period of time, we will, much like a car, simply run out of gas and stop working.

Common signs of mental burnout

Now that we know what we are dealing with, let's see what are some of the common mental exhaustion symptoms so we can start acting as early as possible. Being a psychosomatic disorder, the early signs of burnout can be found in three areas:

• Emotional signs: depression, anxiety, anger, feeling of hopelessness, detachment, cynicism, feeling of dread, inability to concentrate

• Physical signs: stomach problems, chronic fatigue, lack of appetite, headaches, excessive weight oscillations, vulnerability to illnesses like cold and flu

• Social and performance signs: inability to keep personal commitments, poor work performance, social withdrawal

Treating the immediate mental exhaustion problems

Most of these symptoms can be attributed to a variety of mental and physical issues experienced by millions of people around the world. But, if you are experiencing more of them and experience them on a consistent base it is time to take decisive actions.

Break up the pace with slight changes

Improving your mental well-being is a long process that takes a lot of work. But, it all starts with a single small change to kick-start the rest of the journey. Why wouldn’t you make that first step a pleasant one? Instead of jumping out of the bed directly into work mode, take some time to get an energizing bulletproof mocha coffee or start the day with a quick yoga session. Or simply do whatever you find comforting. And then, change another thing. And another… Until your day is completely overhauled.

Start doing regular exercises

Physical exercises can have a very positive influence on your overall well-being. Putting aside the obvious physical benefits you will get, the scientific evidence that aerobic exercise improves the growth of nerve cell connections and stimulates the production of endorphin, or how we like to call it – the happy hormone. Essentially, endorphins are the body's natural morphine and they create an incredible sense of joy. Aside from that, you will start developing one healthy habit and start bringing the structure back to your life.

Prioritize high-value activities

One of the main causes of mental exhaustion is trying to do too many things with that little precious time we have at our disposal. One of the most efficient ways to deal with this problem would therefore be to organize our daily activities by their importance and give the most focus and mental energy to the ones with the highest priority. Once again, this level of organization will give our lives a healthy dose of familiarity and structure and relieve a great deal of pressure off our shoulders.

Use the benefits of the power nap

A quick nap, even if it lasts no more than 10 minutes can do wonders for your health and completely rejuvenate your mind and body. Also, Albert Einstein used these short naps to stay sharp while working – why wouldn’t you try the same? So, if you are feeling a brain overload, simply unplug yourself from everything and go to bed for about 10 to 30 minutes. As long as they don’t last too long (that will make you groggy), the power naps will quickly gear you up and get you back to your morning energy levels.

Of course, everything we have said above will have only limited success until you start addressing the main cause of the problem and remove the stressors from your life. Paying a visit to a trained medical professional can prove to be of tremendous help in this process so it is highly advised to pay a visit to one. But every journey starts with a small step. And, now that you know what mental exhausting actually is and what you can do to fight it, you are more than ready to walk the path.