Mental fatigue: symptoms and remedies to counter it

What is mental fatigue?

We live in the society of fatigue. With this, no accusation is made, but only an objective observation: most people complain at least once a day of being tired, without clearly defining what fatigue it is. In fact, very often when we talk about fatigue we immediately think of the physical one, the result of an effort or an overload of work done with our body. However, the fatigue that "hits" more and more frequently today is mental fatigue.

Triggered by stress or other factors, similar or not, this asthenia - or lack of strength - at the level of the psyche reveals itself with some symptoms that we must be careful to recognize and has arisen from very specific causes. Being a condition of the mind, fortunately there are natural remedies and strategies to combat it, all of which aim at one goal: to regulate one's lifestyle.

What are the symptoms of this type of fatigue

Like many other conditions of the mind, mental fatigue also experiences both physical and psychological or emotional symptoms.

First of all, the areas of the body that suffer most from this fatigue are those related to the digestive system and the gastrointestinal tract. In fact, ailments such as colitis, stomach cramps, nausea and / or diarrhea are very common. Then, there are also muscle pains and a noticeable lowering of the immune defenses. Finally, mental fatigue also manifests itself with frequent headaches and cases of insomnia.

At the level of the psyche, on the other hand, one immediately notices mood swings ranging from irritability to sadness. It is not unusual to perceive as a deep melancholy or even a sense of anguish when you are mentally tired. To all this is added a worsening of memory and ability to concentrate.

Why do we perceive mental fatigue?

Mental fatigue can be the result of multiple factors, most of which stem from your lifestyle. Here are the main causes that determine it:

• Stress: the number one enemy that can lead us to mental fatigue is him, stress. We are increasingly at the mercy of a hectic everyday life, made up of both responsibilities and pleasant commitments which, however, in the long run weigh on our psyche . A high load of stress and tension translate psychologically into exhaustion. Even if you rest the right number of hours, when sleep is affected by "anxiety" it is not of good "quality" and does not allow us to recover energy during the night needed to face the next day.
• Lack of vitamins and / or mineral salts: knowing how to correctly balance the various foods is not only important for a physical matter, that is for the figure and for the aesthetics. With a good diet it provides us with those nutritional principles we need In particular, it has been noted that the lack of mineral salts, such as magnesium, and / or vitamins - especially B12 or vitamin C - affects our energies, leading us to a condition of mental fatigue. there are frequent mood swings and even states of anxiety.

• Irregularity or lack of sleep: This cause for mental fatigue may not be directly due to stress, but to an overly hectic and unbalanced lifestyle. In any case, however, the lack of sleep deprives us of our nocturnal "recharge" of both physical and psychic energies. In fact, it is thanks to sleep that we are able to rest the body and mind in the best possible way: other "relaxing" activities help, but do not fully cover its beneficial effects.
• Incorrect lifestyle: introducing minerals and vitamins into your diet is not enough to define a balanced and correct diet. Furthermore, physical activity must be added to a "healthy diet" because it helps to increase the amount of oxygen present in the blood. These two factors are essential both to have the right amount of energy for the body but also for those of the mind, preventing psychic fatigue.

How to fight mental fatigue

Whether the fatigue is only mental or that it is combined with physical fatigue, it is good to take note of some remedies to counter it. These are strategies that may appear simple and "obvious", but which help us to mark our life with less frenzy and to fully enjoy it with all the energy we need.

1. To decrease or alternate with other activities the amount of work or study

Taking on many commitments at work or engaging in intense study marathons before exams brings more disadvantages than benefits. Our advice is to reduce the workload as much as possible and perhaps vary it with recreational activities that are useful to relax the mind. For example, hobbies such as painting or playing a musical instrument can be a way to shift focus from everyday stressful thoughts.

2. Play sports

Any physical activity, whether it is running, swimming or even training in the gym with tools, helps us to keep our body healthy but not only. In fact, sport allows us to free the psyche from stress, pressure and tension , reducing the mental fatigue that generally accumulates during each day. Furthermore, as we have already said, an incorrect lifestyle is one of the main causes of physical and mental fatigue. Playing sports regularly is helpful in directly preventing this condition.

3. Eat healthy

Just like physical activity, a correct diet is also the basis for combating mental fatigue. It is not necessarily a low-calorie diet, but a regime in which all foods are present in a balanced way, obviously giving more space to healthy ones, such as fruit, vegetables, lean meat and fish, carbohydrates and whole fibers. As already mentioned, vitamins and mineral salts are those principles that help the most in terms of energy of the mind. Therefore, in cases of deficiency or to help your body get enough, you can choose food supplements.

We recommend Swisse Hemp + Vitality, based on yerba mate extract, nourishing and with a tonic action (to counteract physical and mental fatigue), with vitamins B3 and B12, which participate in the conversion of food into energy and therefore support energy metabolism.

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4. Regulate sleep

It should be noted that our advice is to regulate sleep and not to "sleep a lot". In fact, many people make the mistake of sleeping only a few hours during the week and overdoing it at the weekend instead. This sleep cycle is not healthy at all because excessive sleep has the opposite effect to the desired restful effect. Therefore, it is important to try to keep an average of 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to avoid the various symptoms of mental fatigue.

5. Meditate

Finally, it has been noted that meditation helps a lot to combat psychic exhaustion. In fact, if the "real" sport favors a release of tension and stress mainly due to adrenaline, disciplines such as yoga or mindfulness focus a lot on our mental energies trying to channel them in the best possible way. The negativity due to a particularly tiring day or period is transformed into positivity thanks to the control of thought and the bodily positions connected to it.