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What are the signs of mental exhaustion?
Have you felt overloaded lately? Are you stretched too thin? Are your emotions a little erratic? When was the last time you remember doing something just for you? Not for your boss or partner. Not because you had to. If you can remember the last time, did you feel happy or guilty? Did you get to truly focus on yourself or did your mind wander? Are you concerned you might be have mental exhaustion?
A personal struggle of mine has been finding that perfect balance between life, work and play. In my journey I’ve noticed a difference, the more I act for myself, the better person I am towards others. Of course, it’s hard to rewire our brains and we easily fall into old patterns, which is why we should look out for these 5 warning signs that we have become exhausted mentally.
1.) Frustrated/overwhelmed
Do previously simple tasks feel more difficult to accomplish? Is frustration an emotion that knocks daily, even when it’s unwanted or unnecessary? This can be an obvious yet overlooked sign that our minds need some TLC too. If you notice that the things you love to do are now the things on the bottom of your to-do list, consider taking a mental health day!
2.) Short tempered/reactions
Do small things annoy you? Is your patience thinner than what it used to be? Are you quick to react and think later? This can go hand-in-hand with feeling frustrated. If there are unresolved feelings and bottled emotions, it’s easy for them to spill into negative activities. Keep a log of your emotions, do they seemed scattered? You might suffer from brain exhaustion!
3.) Change in appetite
Are you always starving? Or never hungry? Did you used to eat meals regularly and now it’s just a little snack here or there? This is incredibly easy to overlook if you’re a busy person, but it can result from brain fatigue. Sometimes squeezing a meal in takes too much time, but we must remember our bodies need nutrients to thrive. If your eating habits have changed for the worse, go back and see how much better you feel!
4.) No ambition
Do you want to stay in bed all day? Do you struggle to do the things that used to bring you joy? This can be a warning sign of a tired brain. When we suffer from brain overload, it will take any opportunity to relax. The things you used to love have become a chore that you want to neglect. A quick solution is to do something totally irrelevant, yet fun or interesting. There are adult coloring books for a reason!
5.) Attention seeking
Do you work really hard to impress your boss? Or maybe you stretch yourself thin trying to do everything in the house while maintaining a career? This might be confusing, especially if you have no ambition. The reason we do this is to seek validation from others. We know we’re not internally aligned and we don’t have it within ourselves to fix it, so we turn to others. This can create a vicious circle: the harder we work, the less validation we might receive, which worsens our mentality about ourselves. Seek the validation from yourself and watch how you flourish!
There you have it, 5 tips to look out for when you think you might need some me-time. As a word of advice, don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow your brain to relax and revisit your projects after some rejuvenation. Any tips you think we missed? We’d love to hear from you!
If you enjoyed this post, take a look at our post on writer’s block. Stay tuned for our next post this Wednesday on easy ways to incorporate me-time throughout the day.
