8 Obvious Signs You Are Mentally And Emotionally Exhausted.

That’s because you can touch and feel your body, you can almost always tell when someone is really sick or when someone’s physical health has deteriorated terribly.

Emotional and mental exhaustion is so important yet the signs can easily slip through the cracks until it is often too late, you can’t see or touch it and so it’s easy to forget that it’s there and it’s very real. It’s as real as your physical health and your body too gives you subtle red flags that says “Hey, something is definitely wrong up here”.

It’s so so easy to tell when something is physically wrong with you, your body is built in such a way that it alerts you very quickly when something’s off.

It’s just easier to ignore or miss these signs than it is to miss the physical ones which leave us vulnerable to mental burnouts.

Healthline describes mental exhaustion as what can happen when your brain receives too much stimulation or has to maintain an intense level of activity without rest which affects your ability to think, solve problems, or process and regulate emotions which will eventually lead to challenges in your daily life and your relationships.

I think it’s easy to ignore the signs and believe that if we push the feelings aside and carry on, it will simply just vanish. Unfortunately, that won’t be the case.

That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to your mental health as much as you would your physical health. It’s important to not ignore those signs and to constantly nurture our mental health.

Learn to take care of Yourself, not just financially or physically but also mentally and emotionally because just because you can’t see something that does not mean it’s not there.

Related post: 10 Simple Ways You Can Take Care Of Your Mental Health Everyday.

 Here are some signs that you are mentally and emotionally exhausted.

1.You’ve Become Withdrawn And Detached

The very first sign of mental burnout is usually detachment. You stop spending time with your family and friends and you just want to be alone. You spent a lot of time in the bathtub and in your room just sitting.

And it’s not that you want to detach yourself from loved ones and your social life but you just don’t have the mental energy to entertain anyone.

 You no longer have the mental energy to pretend anymore and you don’t want to be bombarded with questions because you no longer feel like lying.

Because usually, your family and friends are the first people to notice that something is wrong. 

Depression forces us into isolation because it allows us to think that that’s the only way we will feel better when in truth, we need the support of a community.

2. You’re Easily Agitated And Impatient

You’re jumpy, everything annoys you and you snap easily. Even if you weren’t someone who usually loses their temper or gets upset easily, you do now. This is another sign of mental and emotional exhaustion.

Even among those that you love and care for, this can even be alarming for the persons at the end of your backlashes. I think this happens because you’ve reached your threshold and you’re just over it now.

You never want it to get this bad because you can really hurt the people closest to you. To avoid this, the minute you feel yourself getting upset take a deep breath and remove yourself from the situation.

Don’t repress your emotions and let them pile up.

Because words linger and the minute you say something out of anger or annoyance, you can’t take it back. And it’s especially common when you’re at work or with your spouse, both of those factors are… hard to find to say the least.

3. Lack Of Interest And Motivation

Things that would usually excite or motivate you no longer do, you start to think everything is pointless and make irresponsible decisions regardless of you knowing the consequences.

Like going to work, doing things you usually would enjoy and going to the gym. Just doing regular-degular you usually would on a daily basis.

This I feel like is one of the most common signs; last year I gained over 15 pounds during quarantine and was at the biggest size I’ve ever been, I let myself go and I knew this. 

It just didn’t matter to me, I was battling with depression and anxiety, I sure as hell wasn’t going to get up every day and get on a treadmill. God no.

All you feel is the effect of your mental exhaustion and so nothing seems of importance anymore. Humans aren’t like that; we need something to keep us motivated because life is hard. Of course, you know that you are mentally and emotionally exhausted, you might even know the remedies to pull yourself from it but do you have the motivation to do what you know needs to be done?

This is where self-compassion comes into the picture and why it’s so important to be kind and patient with yourself.

You work hard every day because you think you might get that promotion, you work hard because you want financial freedom to live the lifestyle you want and you might work hard to provide the life for your children you never had.

What if these factors didn’t exist?

Do you think you would’ve still worked as hard as you do now?

What if the one reason why you got up every morning just didn’t exist anymore? Think about that for a minute.

That’s what mental exhaustion does to you, nothing else matters.

4. Your Anxiety And Mental Health Are Worse.

During the first couple of months after the pandemic just started, I realized that my anxiety had gotten worse. I was anxious all the time, everything triggered me, I spent hours at night up rethinking how I could’ve handled situations better and I was having frequent panic attacks. Being in the house all day has completely evaded all distractions and the carpet was finally starting to slip.

All the coping mechanisms that I had spent years trying to improvise had gone out the roof, anxiety had really taken over my life. Every decision I now made needed to be run by my anxiety before I could actually carry them out.

Why was this?

I had been pushed over the edge, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and I have waited too long to address it. 

This is what happens when you’ve repressed your emotions for too long, shit just keeps piling up.

Related post: 8 Helpful Tips On Managing Anxiety That Actually Work.

It’s like when you let your credit card debt sit for too long. 

I do think it’s important to address how you feel, pay attention to things that bother you, and what your triggers are. Practice daily journaling and writing updates on your mental health. 

Or talk to someone that you feel comfortable with and trust,

This is something that has made a huge difference for me.

5. You’re Not Sleeping As Well As You Used To

This might be something else you’re noticing, you can’t seem to sleep at night. Your mind is uneasy and can’t seem to stop racing.

You often stay up late at night because you can’t stop thinking or you can’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

Insomnia can cause you even more misery, because you can’t sleep you are more agitated and not able to focus on basic tasks.

I wrote a detailed post about Insomnia and how you can overcome it using several techniques, click here.

6. You Tear Up Easily.

So, I’m a nurse and in the hospital, when someone has a weak immune system they become so susceptible to infection that we have to carefully plan their care.

Because their bodies are already battling with so much, it’s the same with your mental health. You’ve already been battling and repressing so much, everything is a trigger for you.

Someone just asking you if you’re okay will have you bawling your eyes out, you have several mental breakdowns a day because your mental health is susceptible and you have to plan for it with much care.

Related post: 10 Ways You Can Heal Yourself Mentally And Emotionally.

I didn’t want to get too nursey but I really hope you got this analogy: your mental health is just as important as your physical health and you need to take as much care of it as you would your physical one.

We all have “bad days” or “those moments” when we become so mentally and emotionally exhausted that we just break down and cry, I know because I’ve been there.

But they shouldn’t be taken lightly or ignored.

7. You’re Either Eating Too Much Or Too Little.

Several studies have proved that a decline in mental health can directly impact your appetite.

Many persons lose their appetite and many experience an unusual increase which results in either rapid weight loss or weight gain. This is where the term “stress eating” comes from, earlier I mentioned how much weight I gained last year while I was battling with depression and anxiety and that’s because I’m a ‘stress eater’.

Women are even more susceptible to this as researches show that women are more likely to turn to food as a stress-coping behavior while men are more likely to turn to smoking and alcohol.

Now, can I get an amen because if that ain’t the damn truth.

But this isn’t at all healthy, in fact it proves the importance of finding healthy coping mechanisms and not ignoring these signs.

Losing weight or gaining weight even makes your mental health worse because here come the body-shamers that’ll be the first ones to point it out and make fun of you, when in fact you’re struggling.

Related post: 5 BossBabe Ways To Handle Body-shaming.

8. You Fall Back Into Old Bad Habits.

Because you are now so emotionally and mentally burned out, you have absolutely no interest or motivation you are now in the most vulnerable place you’ve ever been.

So you fall back into old bad habits that you’ve probably worked really hard to quit. 

Related post: 8 Bad Habits That Are Secretly Making Your Mental Health Worse.

You start seeing back your ex, you start drinking again and you start smoking again and if you ever using before, sadly you might start back again. Whatever ever bad habit you had before, you run to that.

You look for every possible way you can comfort the hurt inside you and end up putting yourself in really bad positions. Please, don’t ever let it get to this point and if it has, know that you can always come back.

This is probably the saddest sign and it’s really one of the worst ones because now you’ve let it gotten this bad. If it does happen to get here, I do recommend you seek professional help, there’s nothing wrong with admitting when you need help and allowing someone else to help you.

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