How do You Fight Emotional Fatigue?
Many of us feel that there are not enough hours in the day to do what we need to do. Your daily tasks take up too much time and you’re constantly having to put things off. However, the key to getting rid of this feeling may not be just having more time. You also need to fight emotional fatigue.
Due to the frantic pace of the modern world, most of us live in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Stress, worries, and multitasking lead to a mind that doesn’t rest even for a second.
Therefore, fighting emotional fatigue can be a great way to make your day more productive. This article will show you several ways to fight emotional fatigue. It will also give you a better understanding of what it is.
What’s emotional fatigue?
Physical exhaustion is not the only type of exhaustion that exists. Although the body is rested, it’s possible that your mind just can’t take any more. But sometimes it’s hard to recognize this.
Therefore, if you want to fight emotional fatigue, you need to first know how to identify it. Let’s look at some of the most common symptoms.
- Lack of attention and memory loss. Emotional exhaustion can make you unable to pay attention to your surroundings. Therefore, it becomes more difficult to memorize things and concentrate on any given tasks.
- Hypersensitivity. When we have had enough emotionally, it’s easy to overreact in certain situations. People with emotional fatigue will feel sad, angry, or depressed more easily.
- Lethargy. In general, emotional fatigue brings about negative thoughts and a lack of motivation to do anything. For that reason, fighting emotional fatigue needs a more positive approach.
- Physical tiredness. Extreme emotional exhaustion can also lead to a feeling of chronic fatigue. People at this stage can sleep for 10 hours and still wake up feeling tired. No matter how much they rest, their battery will never be charged at 100%.
If you suffer from most of these symptoms, it’s likely that you have some degree of emotional fatigue. But why does this happen? How do you get to such an undesirable state?
Why does this happen?
According to the latest research, emotional fatigue comes from excessive and constant worry. For that reason, emotional fatigue is closely related to burnout syndrome. Both happen due to the stress of jumping from one worry to the next.
Emotional fatigue often arises when you obsess about your goals and then harshly punish yourself for making mistakes. This is completely counterproductive. By torturing yourself like this, you become overwhelmed, making it very difficult to do what you set out to do.
How to fight emotional fatigue
If you exhibit the symptoms of emotional fatigue, here are several things you can do to fight it:
1. Give yourself permission to relax
Without a doubt, the most important thing you can do to avoid emotional fatigue is to find some peace of mind. It doesn’t matter how much you have to do that day. You should take at least half an hour every day to do what YOU want to do.
If you have a hard time disconnecting from your worries, a good practice is meditation. Meditation increases your ability to control your mind and your emotions. On a more cognitive level, it’s also a good way to gain mental clarity.
2. Avoid overstimulation
We live in a hyper-connected, hyper-stimulated world. Our minds are constantly bombarded with large amounts of sensory information.
This means it’s practically impossible to not give our attention to many things at once. This goes hand in hand with the mind’s tendency to jump from one thing to another. Therefore, it’s increasingly difficult for us to concentrate.
If you want to fight emotional fatigue, try not to let everything get your attention. If you’re working, turn off all notifications on your mobile phone.
Also, try to avoid being distracted by your colleagues. And when you’re not working, relax and don’t think about work. Each activity has its own time. It’s important that they don’t overlap.
3. Be realistic
One thing that causes the most anxiety is setting the bar higher than you can actually reach. When you have a lot to do, you get overwhelmed and try to do a thousand things at once. This actually hurts your productivity instead of improving it.
Therefore, you have to know yourself. If you realize that you can’t do everything you’re supposed to do, don’t worry about it. Prioritize and finish the most important tasks. After all, worrying is not going to make you go any faster and may do just the opposite.
In summary, emotional fatigue is something that can affect us all. However, we can fight it. If you believe that you’re suffering from emotional fatigue, try and apply these tips to your daily life. Your symptoms will soon become a thing of the past.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
Pedersen, A. F., Andersen, C. M., Olesen, F., & Vedsted, P. (2014). Stress og udbrændthed hosalment praktiserende læger er stigende. Ugeskrift for Laeger.