![brain power rhythm doctor brain power rhythm doctor](https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/7288334-3x2-large.jpg)
That means even while you’re procrastinating, you’re taxing your brain.Īll of that cognitive task-switching takes a toll. To make matters worse, worrying about a task can be as mentally taxing as actually doing it. But it can also result from spreading your attention across too many things - all of the decisions you have to make, the information you have to process, the emails you need to answer, the tasks you need to keep track of, the chores you need to take care of. That cognitive overload can take the form of intense focus on a single task over an extended period of time - as is the case for those chess grandmasters who burn 6,000 calories in a day. Contributing factors can be physical- like poor nutrition, lack of sleep, or hormonal imbalances - or cognitive - you’ve been asking your brain to do too much. Mental fatigue is complex and usually isn’t caused by one thing. Identify the root causes of your mental fatigue and take proactive steps to manage it early on. However, if left unaddressed, acute fatigue can snowball into chronic fatigue and ultimately lead to burnout. Most of us experience acute fatigue during an afternoon slump or at the end of a particularly hectic day. Acute fatigue is short-lived and is relieved after a brief period of rest. Things that would have rolled off your back in the morning become more irksome and you get impatient with coworkers. You can’t concentrate, even simple tasks take forever, and you find yourself rereading the same paragraph or tweaking the same line of code over-and-over again. Mental fatigue is the feeling that your brain just won’t function right. I can’t promise you’ll never feel mental fatigue but you can experience it less often, less severely, and with fewer negative consequences for your mental health and productivity.įirst things first, what do we even mean when we say “mental fatigue”? What is mental fatigue?
![brain power rhythm doctor brain power rhythm doctor](http://www.styrowing.com/images/GATESFAUCI.jpg)
Think of this article as your marathon training program for your brain.
![brain power rhythm doctor brain power rhythm doctor](https://i1.wp.com/jamesmaas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/power-off.png)
So why do we treat mental fatigue so differently? Our brainpower is exhaustible, but it’s 100% renewable if we manage it wisely. We wouldn’t run a marathon and then feel like failures when our legs are tired. It’s easy to forget that our brains require energy to function. Why can’t I just focus? What’s wrong with me?! If I had more willpower, I could power through and get this done. Too often, our mental energy - or lack thereof - feels like a moral deficiency rather than a physical one. When I reach a point of mental exhaustion, I like to reflect on that fact. Chess grandmasters burn up to 6,000 calories a day during tournaments, just by sitting there and thinking.