Category: Thinking Clearly

When we exercise our body to fatigue, it takes less to get back to that point of fatigue if we do another set of the same exercise within a close enough timespan.

And even after we’re done with our workout, it can take anywhere between 24 – 72 hours before our body is fully recovered… which means we’re in a prolonged state of it requiring less to get us back to that point of fatigue.

This is how it is for mental fatigue as well.

If we push our minds to a point of complete mental fatigue, it’ll require less to get back to that point for at least a day thereafter. And the closer in proximity we are to that initial point of complete fatigue, the easier it’ll be to become re-fatigued.

The reason this is important to understand is because in life… we’re constantly getting hit with mentally fatiguing tasks, challenges, and experiences.

And if we’re not mindful of where we are on this Fatigue Threshold Spectrum… then we might not act in alignment with what our mind needs to perform optimally and most efficiently.

Just like the muscle group that we fatigued needs 24 – 72 hours of rest to fully recover… so, too, do the mental muscles we flexed to similar points. And if we don’t follow this protocol, then we’ll just hit fatigue quicker, using muscles that aren’t fully recovered, and only prolong our full recovery out further.

So either a) get in the habit of stopping at your 70% fatigue level so you can recover quicker or b) find ways you can give yourself more time to get back towards 0 after pushing yourself to 100%.

The more tired I am, the more easily I’m sucked into distraction.

The more easily I’m sucked into distraction, the more tired I get.

At some point, the cycle needs to be broken.

The cycle can be broken by getting more sleep (which makes it easier to avoid/resist distraction and then again get more sleep) or by further removing distraction (which makes it easier to get more sleep and then again further remove more distraction).

The problem is that most people have a really hard time making this up front investment.

They get to the end of their day and don’t want to go to bed early (because they just want to ‘relax and unwind’) so they allow for unnecessary and excessive distraction.

Or while they’re staring at the priority workload they have to complete, they succumb to the distractions instead because it’s easier and more pleasant to get a couple quick dopamine hits than trying to complete a daunting work load.

But once you make that initial upfront investment and deliberately make choices that lead to more sleep or allow you to focus on the priority tasks over the cheap dopamine hits… and the cycle is actually broken… what begins anew is a fresh cycle… an upward spiring cycle… one where more sleep leads to more willpower over distraction and/or less distraction leads to less struggle with sleep.

And THAT is where the real pleasure in life is found.

Inner Work Prompt: How can you break the tired and distracted cycle in your life?

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P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.

Almost everything is made better when we slow down.

The quality of our work is made better when we slow down.

The comprehension of any learning material is better when we slow down.

The connection made with another person is stronger when we slow down.

The understanding of our inner world becomes more apparent when we slow down.

The presence we might feel when traveling is more pronounced when we slow down.

Which begs the question… why are we rushing all of time?

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P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.