How many times have you experienced mental fatigue without putting in a lot of physical effort? You are not alone! In today’s world where everything moves at breakneck speed, we use up all our energy processing notifications, talking, advertising, news updates, environmental sounds, and an enormous amount of content that we receive on social media.
When we are overstimulated, we receive too many stimuli for our brain to comfortably process. Overstimulation is different from physical exhaustion since it often manifests itself through irritability, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, restlessness, and even a desire to move from one task to another without accomplishing anything. Moreover, you can start reaching for your mobile phone by pure habit, but once again feel tired after looking at what you’ve been watching for some time.
Our contemporary lives hardly provide us with opportunities for our brains to relax. We start our day by getting notifications from different devices and applications, we spend a large amount of time using screens, we balance between many activities, and we finish our days watching the same content on our screens. The result of this is that our brain remains permanently stimulated and thus cannot really relax.
The great thing is that you do not have to create complete silence in order to help your brain relax, what you just need is some moments of recovery. Short pauses in the usage of screens, spending time in nature, meditation or simply sitting and doing nothing can all serve you well.
In a world that strives to grab your attention all the time, creating still moments does not mean being inactive, but is absolutely necessary sometimes.