Mental fatigue is a condition that can be managed and overcome by making healthy changes in your life. These include prioritizing self-care or fixing your sleep schedule. If you don't want to do it alone, BetterUp can help.
People with emotional exhaustion also feel physically fatigued and may have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep at night. Otherwise, they may oversleep in the morning. Low mood and brain fog can make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning or to make it through the day.
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.
Everyone is different, which makes it hard to say how mental fatigue will affect your body. But you might get headaches, sore muscles, back pain, or stomach problems. If you have an ongoing illness, such as fibromyalgia, you may hurt a little bit more than usual.
It takes an average time of three months to a year to recover from burnout. How long your burnout lasts will depend on your level of emotional exhaustion and physical fatigue, as well as if you experience any relapses or periods of stagnant recovery.
Burnout is when a person reaches a state of total mental, physical and emotional exhaustion and it has some similar signs and symptoms to a nervous breakdown. Your doctor can prescribe medicines for many mental health conditions, and refer you to other healthcare professionals, such as psychologists or psychiatrists.
The biggest difference is that depression can manifest as feelings of loneliness and sadness with no apparent reason. Other symptoms manifested by depression (but not by emotional exhaustion) include low self-esteem, feelings of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts.
You Cry for No Reason
Two of these reasons are most relevant to mental exhaustion: stress and emotions. It is harder to check your emotions when you are beyond stressed out. Therefore, the easiest response to being overwhelmed with emotions and stress, is to cry.
Burnout doesn't go away on its own; rather, it will get worse unless you address the underlying issues causing it. If you ignore burnout, it will only cause you further harm down the line, so it's important that you begin recovery as soon as possible.
Depression. Depression, which research suggests is associated with an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, is commonly linked with fatigue. 1 The condition is also associated with disturbed sleep, which can also significantly contribute to tiredness.
Mental or Cognitive Fatigue (CF) can be defined as a decrease in cognitive resources developing over time on sustained cognitive demands, independently of sleepiness.
If you experience depression, you might also experience some psychotic symptoms. These may include delusions, such as paranoia. Or they may be hallucinations, such as hearing voices.
It's important to note that only a mental health professional can diagnose a mental health condition. Therefore, the only way to receive a definite answer to the question, “Do I have a mental illness, or am I overreacting?”, is to get in touch with a professional at an accredited treatment center.
Being burned out means feeling empty and mentally exhausted, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People experiencing burnout often don't see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress feels like you're drowning in responsibilities, burnout is a sense of being all dried up.
If you're mentally exhausted, you may experience brain fog, or difficulty concentrating. You could also feel physically tired if your anxiety causes muscle tension, and you might feel sleepy if anxiety interferes with your sleep. In any case, it's best to talk to a doctor or mental health provider about your concerns.
The main difference between someone mentally exhausted and someone lazy is that someone who is mentally exhausted feels numb and won't care about the consequences anymore (IDSMED, 2019). If this sounds like you, then it's very important that you acknowledge the fact that you're not just being lazy.
Orloff says there is "most definitely" such a thing as exhaustion severe enough to require a hospital stay, and she has treated celebrities for exactly that.