What is Mental Burnout and How to Overcome It
Why does it come to mental burnout, how to deal with it and overcome it?
Daily stress from high-stress jobs and high-stress environments. Hundreds of errands every day. Millions of things to do and to focus on. Having concentration on many different projects at the same time. Constant inflow of new information and stimuli from our environments, news and social media.
Mental burnout amongst employees, creators, entrepreneurs and freelancers is becoming increasingly common and more and more problematic.
In this article I’m going to talk about mental burnout: what it is, how to differentiate it from physical burnout, what are the signs and symptoms of mental burnout and how to prevent it or overcome it if you’ve experienced it or you’re currently suffering from it.
What is mental burnout?
Burnout is becoming an epidemic: more and more people are suffering from it and the problem isn’t going away. — quite the opposite, in my opinion, it’s here to stay and will prevail more and more in the future.
One of the most common types of burnout — alongside physical burnout — is mental burnout.
Mental burnout occurs after a longer period of increased mental demands. When we’re under a lot of mental stress. When we do a lot of deep mental and creative work. When our work requires a lot of mental concentration. When we at the time consume and are exposed to a lot of information and mental stimuli. And when we mentally push ourselves for too hard and too long without a proper break or quality rest.
Simply put: Overactivity of the brain leads to brain cells becoming exhausted which results in mental fatigue and mental burnout.
Our minds and brains are a powerful machine that can handle a lot, but in today’s world of ever increasing mental workload, information and stimuli,
When we’re continuously walking on the edge of mental exhaustion and we don’t take a step back, at some point something will break and mental burnout can occur.
What does mental burnout look and feel like?
Depending on the intensity and stage of mental burnout, signs and symptoms can range from light — lack of concentration and ability to do best mental work — to severe signs of mental and physical burnout: severe mental and physical fatigue, inability to focus, concentrate and do mental work and even problems with mental health (anxiety, depression, etc.).
Some common signs and symptoms of mental burnout include:
- feeling mentally and physically tired and exhausted,
- having hard time to focus, concentrate and do mental work,
- experiencing “brain fog” and inability to think clearly,
- loss of drive and motivation,
- feeling irritated, frustrated and overwhelmed at the same time,
- feeling “empty”, “numb” and not caring,
- problems with sleep: racing mind when trying to fall asleep, waking up during the night with racing thoughts, insomnia,
- problems with mental health: anxiety, melancholy and even depression.
Like I talked about in my article Is Burnout Real or Not, the problem with any kind of burnout — be it physical, emotional or mental — is that it doesn’t affect just one area — just physical, emotional or mental area — but often affects all of the areas of our health: both our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.
So in the case of mental burnout, alongside signs and symptoms of mental burnout, we often experience signs and symptoms of physical burnout or adrenal fatigue/dysfunction.
My recent experience with mental burnout
Like I wrote in my last article, my previous week was pretty difficult: both physically, emotionally and mentaly.
At first I thought that it was accumulated stress and stored emotional stuff that was coming up because I hadn’t do a good job feeling and accepting my emotions and I’d been pushing my body and mind too much and I’d been numbing my fatigue with caffeine and hadn’t been accepting and feeling my emotions for too long. That’s why last week I published the article on how to overcome emotionally challenging times by letting go of control, accepting and surrendering to what we’re experiencing.
Although I was right in that assumption that I hadn’t been suffering emotionally, I felt like I was missing something. The missing piece was that I burned myself out mentaly a bit.
I got the realization on Friday. I couldn’t do any of my work, I didn’t have the concentration and motivation, it felt like a bourdain to work and therefore I decided that I would take the holiday weekend completely off and away from my work.
Lying on a lounger on our terrace, staring at the beautiful Brda countryside, chilling, relaxing, taking a mental rest and talking to my mom, I got the realization that I’d burned myself out mentaly and what I was experiencing were symptoms of mental burnout.
Ever since I quit my full-time job in the supplement store, my work consisted primarily of mental type of work: writing, problem solving, coming up with new ideas and creating content. All of this includes deep work sessions and requires a lot of concentration and mental energy.
Don’t get me wrong: I love this type of work, but I was overdoing it.
So if I wanted to make more money, I had to work more, which meant more mental work, more concentration and more mental exhaustion.
That hasn’t been a problem for me since, but during the last period I haven’t been resting the right way.
Choosing the right type of rest
Not all rest is created equal — different types of rest affect different areas of our health.
In her book Sacred Rest, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith writes about 7 types of rest that we need based on what we do.
These 7 types of rest are:
- Physical rest
- Mental rest
- Emotional rest
- Spiritual rest
- Social rest
- Sensory rest
- Creative rest
If your job and work requires a lot of physical work and physical strain, plain and simple physical rest — sleeping, napping, lying on the couch and watching TV — will do the work.
But if your work encapsulates primarily mental work, reading, playing games or watching movies or series that require concentration isn’t the rest that you need. Spending more time on social media and consuming — consciously and unconsciously — a lot of information is also counterproductive.
In my case, currently my main work encmopases mental work and I wasn’t choosing the right kind of rest. My main rest had been lying and watching series, reading books and playing games that required a lot of concentration — ex. Formula 1 PC game.
I thought I was resting, but my mind was active and I didn’t give it a chance to turn off completely.
At the same time, I was feeling guilty because I wasn’t reading and consuming new ideas from books and podcasts and wasn’t thus failing the goal for 2022 to read 12 books and listen to one podcast each week.
But now I know why that was so and going forward I’ll adjust my goal and won’t feel guilty about not learning new things and not reading a book every month and listening to a new podcast each week.
So to overcome burnout, we have to choose the right rest according to your needs, requirements and knowing which type of burnout it is that you suffer from.
How to overcome mental burnout?
To overcome mental burnout, we have to focus on mental, emotional, creative and sensory rest. We have to create space where and when we don’t do strenuous mental work so we can “turn off” our minds, allow it to process all of the information that it has been holding up to and recover and regenerate itself.
Some of these activities for mental, emotional, creative and sensory rest include:
- Choose relaxing activities that are not mentally strenuous: hanging out with friends and having relaxing conversation, spending a relaxed and chilled evening, spending time in nature, watching simple, relaxing and funny series and movies, etc.
- Choose activities that help you quiet your mind: breathwork, naps, including:
- Practicing mindfulness and meditation,
- Create a place and space where and when you can let down your guard and rest your mind
Support your mind with your lifestyle:
- Prioritize your sleep: aim for 7–8 hours of sleep, sleep in a fully-dark room, avoid blue light and screens at least one hour before bed,
- Exercise regularly: regular exercise can have a huge benefit on your productivity, energy level, and outlook.
- Spend less time on social media and mobile phones or even do a digital detox.
Also, take regular breaks from work. That could mean:
- Taking regulars breaks during your working session: 5 min every 25 mins of work, of 10 min for every 50 mins of work (that’s so-called Pomodoro Timer),
- Taking longer breaks between working sessions for lunch, to meditate, to go for a walk in nature, to watch some TV, etc
- Taking regular days off: Chriss Kresser calls them a “Free Day” and consists of a 24-hour period completely free from work, including work-related reading, problem-solving, and communication. It’s sort of Sabbatical and works well for so many people.
You can support your mind with nutrition:
- eat whole-foods and reduce or eliminate industrial processed foods,
- reduce your sugar intake and replace it with naturally occuring sugars in eg. fruit,
- eat enough healthy fats: olive oil, avocados, coconut oil, red meat, fish and omega 3 fatty acids,
- eat enough leafy green vegetables and support your gut with plant foods,
- dark chocolate, blueberries and other foods that are high in polyphenols.
And you can also support your mind with supplement:
- adaptogens (ashwagandha or rhodiola rosea),
- vitamin C,
- omega 3 fatty acids
- creatine
- amino acids: l-tyrosine, l-carnitine, l-theanine
- nootropic formulas that include Alpha GPC or other forms of Choline, Huperzia Serata or other forms of Huperzine A, Bacopa Monnieri, Ginkgo Biloba, Lion’s Mane, etc.
Personally, going forward I’ll also change up my routine and add different types of rest to help me turn off my mind and help me rest mentaly.
Hanging out with friends and having a relaxing conversation. Watching simple, relaxing and funny series and movies. Spending more time in nature, being more mindful and trying not to think about anything constructive. Meditating more for mental rest and not physical rest. Taking regular days off from my work and not doing any kind of strenuous mental work on those days.
I’ll also support my mind with a good nootropic formula, so it will function and recover better. I ordered this nootropic formula: I’ll report back my thoughts about it.
I’ll also try to find another part-time job or opportunistic work that won’t require a lot of mental work: That way my income won’t be dependent entirely from mental work and hopefully I’ll prevent mental burnout from reoccurring.
I’m working on a course about how to prevent and recover from burnout. In the course I’ll teach you everything I learned from my burnout journey, including how to improve and elevate all four pillars of the body in much more detail.
The course is in the making, but you can join the waitlist and get updates on its progress and when it’s about to launch.
Members of the waitlist will get a limited special offer when the course launches, so make sure to secure your spot and grab that special offer!
Join the waitlist!
Now it’s turn: Have you ever experienced a mental burnout? What was your experience? What helped you overcome it? Tell me by leaving a comment on this post.
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Love and take care of yourself, forget about worries and enjoy life!
~ Jani
