Are You Always Tired? You Could Be Suffering from Emotional Exhaustion
Are you doing your best to keep up your energy levels but still finding life exhausting? Do you dread the alarm clock going off despite eating well, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep? Constant tiredness can sometimes be linked to depression or other concerns that may require support. But in some cases, ongoing fatigue may also be connected to emotional exhaustion.
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People have long understood that emotional states can affect both mental well-being and physical health. Ancient texts describe people becoming weak or faint from love, anxiety, or grief. Modern biology helps explain how hormones such as adrenaline affect the body, and it also shows that emotions and physical health are closely connected. Human beings are complex, and our well-being cannot always be understood in purely physical terms.
Emotional exhaustion has two causes: the physical response to emotional stress and a lack of holistic self-care. Your body responds to your emotional situation by burning energy. If you've ever come out of an exam or a stressful interview and felt incredibly tired - even though all you've done is sit down for a while - then you'll understand this:
The brain uses one-fifth of all the energy you expend in a day. Thinking your way through a normal day uses upwards of 400 calories, the same as running 3 miles in 30 minutes. If your brain is especially active, you'll use more energy than you might expect.
Stress produces the "fight or flight" adrenal response, which increases your heart rate and prepares your muscles for action. This is the reason it's hard to sit still when you're angry or worried. Obviously, all these physical processes use up energy. So the first reason you may be feeling more tired is that you're simply using more energy than you realize. Although you're sleeping, exercising, and eating well, you're not allowing for the extra energy demands that emotional stress puts on your body.
The second aspect of emotional exhaustion can be more complex. You are not simply a physical machine moving through the day and burning energy. You are a whole person with many dimensions, including social, emotional, and spiritual aspects, and these can be just as important as physical health. Models of wellness, such as the Myers and Sweeney Indivisible Self model, suggest that coping, creativity, and meaning are important parts of overall well-being. Each area of life needs attention and care. When one or more areas are neglected for too long, emotional exhaustion can begin to build.
In the Myers and Sweeney model, you must take care of each aspect of your Indivisible Self
For example, caring for your Creative Self may include having time and space to think, acknowledging and expressing emotions, using humor in healthy ways, doing meaningful work, and developing a sense of control over your life. Other parts of identity, such as culture, gender, and spirituality, can also help support and sustain your overall sense of self.
The Indivisible Self can be a useful model for understanding how emotional exhaustion develops. As the name suggests, the different parts of a person are interconnected. If you take care of your physical body but neglect your Social Self, you may still begin to feel depleted. Even with a balanced diet, regular exercise, and enough sleep, a lack of friendship, connection, or support can leave you feeling just as run-down as poor physical habits can.
Some professions may be especially vulnerable to emotional exhaustion. Professional counselors can experience empathy fatigue from regularly listening to painful experiences. Call center staff may also experience emotional exhaustion when the demands of their work are combined with frequent negative social interactions. Likewise, anyone going through a difficult life change, such as a breakup or a move, may find themselves feeling unexpectedly tired all the time.
If you think you might be dealing with emotional exhaustion, it may help to look at the issue from a broader perspective. Taking care of your physical health matters, but it may not be enough on its own. You may also need purpose, connection, rest, self-awareness, and time for yourself. When you begin caring for all parts of your well-being, you may gradually recover your energy and feel more balanced again.
Resources
- Swaminathan, Nikhil. “Why Does the Brain Need So Much Power?” Scientific American, Scientific American, 29 Apr. 2008, www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-the-brain-need-s/.
- Myers, J. E., Luecht, R., & Sweeney, T.J. (2004). The factor structure of wellness: Reexamining theoretical and empirical models underlying the Wellness Evaluation of Lifestyle (WEL) and the Five-Factor Wel
