Mental Exhaustion and Resilience
I was honored to return as a guest on the Dash Wellness Podcast to discuss a topic that has become increasingly relevant for so many adults: mental exhaustion and how we rebuild resilience when stress does not let up.
In this episode, titled Why You Feel Mentally Exhausted — and How to Rebuild Resilience, we explore why many people feel depleted even while continuing to function, work, and show up for others. We unpack how chronic stress drains cognitive and emotional energy, why rest alone is not enough, and how resilience can be rebuilt in realistic, sustainable ways that fit into everyday life.
Drawing from my clinical work and experience providing employee wellness seminars, the conversation focuses on practical, evidence-based resilience skills—mindfulness, gratitude, optimism, and self-compassion—and how these tools help regulate the nervous system, restore energy, and support recovery over time.
🎧 You can watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ujF229jgU&list=PLSICd87oJsrF18iP4fVgBVoS-WQbqas0n
Mental Exhaustion Is a Nervous System Issue, Not a Motivation Problem
Mental exhaustion is a state of cognitive and emotional depletion that develops after prolonged or repeated stress. When stress outpaces recovery, the brain’s capacity to regulate attention, emotion, and decision-making becomes temporarily reduced. This is not about willpower or discipline; it is about physiology.
Our stress response system is designed for short-term threats. It is meant to activate, help us respond, and then de-activate. But when stress becomes chronic, the brain stops getting clear signals that it is safe to stand down. Over time, it begins to treat stress as the new normal.
The result is a nervous system biased toward constant threat detection. This often results in racing thoughts, irritability, poor sleep, emotional reactivity, or an inability to fully relax even when things slow down. Maintaining that level of vigilance can be incredibly depleting.
Resilience Is a Process, Not a Personality Trait
Whenever we talk about prolonged stress, we also need to talk about resilience. Research consistently shows that the most common response to stress and adversity is resilience and recovery.
Resilience is defined as the process of adapting well to difficult situations. Most people experience emotional or cognitive disruption when stress is high. For the majority, those reactions are time-limited, and resilience plays a key role in helping people regain their footing.
One of the most important misconceptions to address is that resilience is not an inherent trait you either have or do not have. It is a set of skills that can be learned and strengthened over time through our choices, behaviors, and ways of relating to our thoughts and emotions.
Mindfulness: Awareness That Reduces Exhaustion
Chronic stress keeps the brain in a constant alert state. Mindfulness helps interrupt this cycle by changing our relationship to our internal experience.
Mindfulness is the ability to be fully aware of your experience in the present moment without being reactive or overwhelmed by it. It’s not about clearing your mind or making thoughts disappear. It is about noticing what is already happening—thoughts, emotions, body sensations—without judging or trying to fix them.
Research shows that mindfulness does not just reduce stress; it changes how people notice stress. When we pause and observe our experience without immediately reacting, we teach the brain that not every sensation or thought requires an emergency response. Over time, this helps recalibrate the system.
One of the reasons mindfulness is protective against burnout is that it helps people catch stress earlier—before it accumulates into exhaustion. Even very brief practices matter. Simply noticing the physical sensations of breathing for one or two minutes—without trying to change the breath—can interrupt that constant alert state.
Mindfulness can also be woven into daily life: noticing the warmth of coffee, the feel of your feet on the ground, the sound of water while washing your hands. These small moments add up and help remind the nervous system that it’s safe to power down, even briefly.
Gratitude and Optimism: Rebalancing a Threat-Focused Brain
Under chronic stress, our attention naturally narrows toward threat—what is going wrong and what could go wrong. Gratitude and optimism are powerful resilience skills because they intentionally broaden what the brain notices.
Research links gratitude and optimism to greater well-being, motivation, compassion, coping ability, and physical health outcomes such as sleep quality and cardiovascular health. These practices help counter our brain’s negativity bias—the tendency to focus more on negative events than positive ones.
It is important to distinguish grounded optimism from toxic positivity. Realistic optimism is not blind positivity. It is the ability to hope for good outcomes while acknowledging uncertainty and taking action to work towards your goal. Toxic positivity, on the other hand, dismisses real pain and pressures people to “stay positive,” which often increases shame and emotional suppression.
Gratitude does not mean pretending things are not difficult. It means pain is not the only thing the brain tracks. Healthy gratitude makes room for both realities at once: this is hard, and there are still things that matter to me for which I am thankful.
In difficult seasons, many resilient people practice grateful remembering—recalling people, moments, or experiences that have held meaning. This does not eliminate stress, but it can restore emotional energy.
The most effective gratitude practices are simple and consistent: mentally noting a few things you appreciate, expressing thanks aloud, or using visual reminders like photos or mementos. Together, gratitude and optimism help retrain the stress response, so the nervous system has more capacity for recovery and connection.
Self-Compassion: The Skill That Restores Energy
Of all resilience skills, self-compassion may be the most powerful—and it predicts resilience more strongly than self-esteem. Self-esteem is about evaluating yourself positively. Self-compassion is about how you respond to yourself when things are hard.
Many high-functioning people default to a strong inner critic under stress. Research shows that self-criticism activates the brain’s threat system, increasing cortisol and keeping the body in a state of physiological arousal. Over time, this chronic activation contributes to mental exhaustion.
Self-compassion activates a different system, the mammalian care system. Responding to yourself with kindness and understanding increases oxytocin, reduces cortisol, and creates a sense of safety. Self-compassion does not just feel better emotionally; it helps restore energy.
Importantly, self-compassion does not mean complacency. Research shows the opposite: self-compassionate people take more responsibility, persist more effectively after setbacks, and engage in healthier behaviors.
Self-compassion has three components: mindfulness (acknowledging struggle without judgment), common humanity (remembering you are not alone and we all struggle), and self-kindness (offering yourself support rather than criticism). Even brief moments of practicing these steps can help the nervous system settle and rebound from overload.
A small starting point is noticing how you talk to yourself when something goes wrong and asking, “Would I say this to someone I care about?” It is not about lowering standards; it is about changing the tone. Supportive inner dialogue is far more effective than harsh self-judgment.
Exhaustion Is a Cue for Recovery
Mental exhaustion is not a sign of weakness; it is a nervous system that has been under sustained strain. And resilience is not about pushing harder or powering through. It is about learning how to help your system recover, regulate, and restore energy over time.
The skills discussed in this episode—mindfulness, gratitude, optimism, and self-compassion—do not eliminate stress, but they do give the nervous system more capacity to recover so stress doesn’t accumulate unchecked. For many people, these skills are a powerful starting point. For others, rebuilding resilience also means reaching out for professional support.
Connecting with Support, Skills, and Effective Treatment
If you are struggling with mental exhaustion, depression, anxiety, insomnia, or other mental health concerns—and are interested in effective, time-limited, evidence-based therapy—we invite you to contact Upward Behavioral Health for a free 15-minute consultation. Our psychologists specialize in scientifically supported treatments designed to produce meaningful, lasting change.
📞 205-983-4063 🌐 https://upwardbehavioralhealth.com/
Additionally, I encourage you to explore Dash Wellness. Their podcast and educational content provide accessible, thoughtful mental health and wellness support across a wide range of topics. You can follow them on social media (https://www.instagram.com/thedash_wellness/ and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551049970942) and subscribe to their YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYyCv_f2Tk0uA7ahQBsrP0w) for ongoing resources and expert conversations.