How to Overcome Mental Exhaustion and Raise Your Energy Levels
Many of us suffer from burnout and mental exhaustion whether in our carriers or dealing with children as stay at home moms. This article will help you to overcome mental exhaustion with strategies that help to relieve stress and raise your physical and mental energy levels.
Suffering from mental exhaustion is not a fun experience. It can sneak up on you even when you think you’re doing fine.
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How to Overcome Mental Exhaustion
Let’s go through some steps to overcome mental exhaustion but also learn how to prevent it in the first place. After all, prevention is the best medicine of all.
Not sure if what you’re suffering from is mental fatigue? Click to learn the signs of mental exhaustion and medical conditions that can also cause fatigue.
Track How You Spend Your Time
If you don’t know how much you’re really doing, it can be easy to just keep going 24/7 and never take a break.
Take some time to track what you’re doing daily for about a week. You can use your smartphone to track your activities or you can go old school and carry around a small notebook to record your activities in.
A bullet journal comes in very handy for this purpose. Learn how to stay organized with a bullet journal here.
Drop Activities That Don’t Produce Real Results
When you look at the activities you did while tracking, note the things that aren’t really producing results, or that are busy work, or that are completely unnecessary.
For example, do you go to a lot of meetings? Do you have to? Do you spend a lot of time trying to help a relative, friend, or someone else without results?
Let go of anything that you can either just stop doing or outsource. Or if you must keep doing it, find a way to put limits on it.
Put Everything in Your Calendar
One reason people get overscheduled doing too much and become mentally exhausted is that they think they have time to do it all. Sometimes without thinking, you schedule 48 hours of work in 24 hours.
But, if you started putting everything on your calendar or your bullet journal properly, you would see that you just can’t.
First, schedule the must-dos. Then add in family time, date night, friend time, and “me” time to your day.
Don’t add anything to your schedule that will reduce these important things.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Don’t forget how important sleep is. Most adults should seek to get between six and nine hours a night.
It largely depends on your genetics how much sleep feels right for you. Work with what you know you need.
If you have trouble sleeping, consider taking lion’s mane mushroom capsules. Lion’s mane is a medicinal mushroom that can promote relaxation and cognitive function and provide digestive and mood support. Before getting into the habit, consult your healthcare provider to make sure these supplements are suitable for you.
To help get used to this process, go to bed and wake up at the same time every day for at least 30 days.
You can start with the least time and work your way up to find out which amount of time works best for you to make you feel rested each day.
Exercise Every Day
Schedule in exercise time each day. It doesn’t have to be strenuous exercise. It can be as simple as a brisk walk or a bout of yoga.
You don’t need to schedule in an entire hour. Look at your schedule so that you can determine if you have 10 minutes to get active six times a day, or three 20-minute activity sessions a day.
You can also separate that out into different types of exercise. The important thing is to get up out of a chair and move as much as you can.
Eat A Balanced Diet
Enough cannot be stated about eating the right type of food for your body.
What you eat often depends on what you need. Ask your doctor to test your blood levels for vitamins and then eat the things you need to avoid deficiencies.
Try eating cleaner meals throughout the day which will give you a break, boost your energy, and help you stay more focused.
Rest Your Eyes
It can be very easy to get dehydrated. Most adults should drink between eight and ten 8-ounce glasses of water each day to stay hydrated.
If you exercise strenuously you’ll need more. Tea, coffee, soda, and sugary drinks (even fake sugar) are all dehydrating and don’t do the same thing as clean, filtered water will.
Take the challenge and commit to drinking enough water for 30 days, and you’ll see a huge difference. Here are some signs of dehydration and healthy beverages if you’re tired of water.
Take Regular Breaks
When you are doing
But, it’s imperative that you take regular breaks. Since the brain works in 90-minute cycles, one way to accomplish breaks is to set up five- to ten-minute breaks every 115 minutes.
Set a timer if you must. Get up and stretch, go for a fast walk, grab a snack, drink some water, and you’ll come back refreshed.
Rest Your Eyes
Many people who are using their brains all day tend to sit in front of a computer. Computer monitors are very bad for your eyes. G
Understand That It’s OK to Do Nothing
A lot of smart, busy people tend to be uncomfortable with downtime. They feel as if they’re slackers.
But, even if you have a mentally exhausting job as compared to a physically exhausting one, everyone needs to get away sometime.
Schedule your yearly vacations and do something. Even if you just stay home and look at local sites, that’s okay – everyone needs downtime and everyone needs time to do nothing.
If you are currently mentally exhausted due to a project of some kind, and if it’s possible, take a sick day on a Friday or Monday, or take two vacation days – one on a Friday and one on a Monday.
Spend that time resting, doing nothing, eating right, drinking water, being kind to your mind, and just getting yourself back. Then start fresh when you go back to work or school.
Activities That Raise Your Physical and Mental Energy Levels
There are many activities that you can do to help raise your energy level, whether you need more mental energy or physical energy.
Your mental and physical energy are so intertwined that when you do something to help one you’re automatically helping the other. Here are some effective activities to try.
Develop a Daily Meditation Practice
Meditation is an important way to help reduce mental stress so that you can focus better.
Not only that; you’ll also learn to be more mindful of everything you do, which will help you avoid exhaustion in the first place, most of the time.
Meditation has many health benefits that will be advantageous to you should you incorporate it into your daily routine.
Move Your Body Every Single Day
Moving is something that is so important that even if you have a physical job, you should still find a way to get in more moving in an intentional way.
As said above, even if it’s just a few brisk ten-minute walks, it’s a way to clear your mind and get your blood flowing.
Anytime you feel a slump coming on, take a fast walk.
Keep a Gratitude Journal
Another way to stay energetic, both mentally and physically, is to be a positive person.
Not everyone is positive naturally, but you can start to trick your mind into being that way by keeping a gratitude journal.
Each night before bed, write down three things you’re grateful for. That will make it the last thing you think of each night.
You can make this even more effective if you use a journal that is also a coloring book. Coloring will soothe your mind and relax you.
Find Your Energy Music
Everyone has positive, uplifting music that they really enjoy and that makes them feel upbeat. However, some of it can also make you unproductive, so it’s important to try out different types of music for different activities.
If you think a song you sing to might not be the right one for work, it may very well be just the ticket for your ride home in the car.
Play a Game
Games and puzzles are great ways to have some downtime but are also good for your mind.
Do at least one type of puzzle each day (such as a crossword puzzle) to help keep your brain thinking and to get your mind off other things that are pressuring you and sucking your energy.
Sometimes it’s fun to play a game with another person too, such as a silly fast card game like Uno just to break the pace.
Start a Yoga Practice
One of the best exercises for both mind and body is yoga. There are all types of yoga that you can get involved in.
If you’re a member of Amazon Prime, you can get free videos for beginners to get started. Alternatively, you can join a class, which is a great way to feel more connected to the world at the same time.
Drink Water and Eat Chocolate
Sometimes, it’s impossible to take time out to do anything mentioned. If that’s the case, a fast way to improve your energy is to drink water so that you’re hydrated and eat a small serving of real, low-sugar chocolate. If you cannot eat chocolate, another alternative is a crunchy apple.
It might seem like these activities will take away from the time you need to spend on things you need to do. But the truth is, the more productive you are, the easier everything will be.
Productivity doesn’t mean that you need to take more time doing something. It means that you need to focus closely on what’s at hand, and not what’s to come.
By taking breaks with these activities, you can help yourself become far more productive and reduce mental and physical exhaustion exponentially.
