How to Recover When You're Mentally Exhausted: Self-Care by Writing Feelings Out

You slept well over the weekend, yet Monday morning your heart is still heavy. Nothing in particular happened, but everything feels like too much effort, and even things you used to love don't draw your hand. Your body should have rested, yet only your heart stays tired — do you carry that feeling?

Mental fatigue doesn't recover the way physical fatigue does. Unlike bodily tiredness that sleep clears, as long as worries keep moving in your head, the heart won't rest. This article introduces, as a way to recover from mental exhaustion, self-care that rests your head by writing feelings out — with the signs of fatigue and when it's worth reaching out.

Why resting your body doesn't rest your heart

What sleep and rest restore is mainly physical tiredness. Mental fatigue, though, is hard to shake by that alone. The reason is that what tires the heart isn't bodily activity but the thoughts circling in your head.

Even if you mean to rest, if you replay a mistake at work or turn over a relationship worry, the brain stays working. When rumination — the same care surfacing again and again — continues, no amount of lying down lets the heart enter rest. To rest the heart, along with resting the body, it helps to get what's circling in your head out once and stop the thoughts.

Get what you feel out by writing it

So what we'd recommend is to write a few lines about what you feel now. Recovery needs no special preparation. A notebook or your phone — one place to write is enough.

The trick is not to try to make it neat. "Tired." "Don't want to do anything." "I can't push anymore." List the words that surface, just as they are. When the swirl in your head becomes words and goes outside you, the circling thoughts quiet a little, and you take distance from what filled your heart. There's no need to convert it into something positive. Writing negative feelings and setting them outside you is enough.

Don't blame yourself for "not wanting to do anything"

When the heart is tired, we tend to blame ourselves: "I'm weak to get tired over this." But being unable to move isn't weakness — it's considered a sign that mind and body are asking for rest.

The first thing to do for recovery isn't to cram your schedule or force cheer. It's to narrow things to one you can do, and allow yourself rest for the rest. When you write, do it as if telling yourself "you don't have to push any further today," and write as you feel. If blaming words come, you may write those out too.

Take distance from work and worries

What helps in recovering from mental fatigue is to take some distance, for now, from whatever is causing it. One study reported that people who could mentally detach from work during their off hours fared better in recovery and mood.

That said, the more you think "I won't think about it," the more the care lodges in your head. That's exactly when writing helps. Write the care onto paper and set it outside you, and the head no longer needs to grip it, and can let go a little. Writing to take distance is a step that turns the heart toward rest.

When rest doesn't shake it

What's here is everyday self-care. If fatigue won't lift even after ample rest, your mood stays low for days, you lose interest in what you loved, or you can't sleep or lose your appetite — and this lasts a long time and disrupts your life — it's generally considered a sign to talk to a professional such as a doctor or mental health specialist without toughing it out. Lingering mental fatigue can be a sign from your mind or body. Reaching out is never an overreaction.

Set the heart down in a place no one sees

What surfaces when the heart is tired isn't always tidy words. Frustration at someone, words that blame yourself, the honest wish to just give up — those are hard to write where others might see.

We built Noroi Nikki for times like these. Without demanding a positive spin, you can write out what a tired heart carries in the form of a "curse," seen by no one. Put the stored feelings into words and set them down outside you. That is the surest shortcut to resting a tired heart, little by little.

References

• Sonnentag, S. (2012). Psychological detachment from work during leisure time: The benefits of mentally disengaging from work. Current Directions in Psychological Science. A study on the relationship between mentally distancing from work during rest and recovery.