Mental Load Fatigue: The Invisible Source of Women's Stress

The quiet background hum of your mental to-do list gets louder right when you're trying to relax—that's mental load fatigue, and it's hitting women particularly hard. This phenomenon isn't about a lack of organization or efficiency; it's the invisible burden of constant thinking, planning, anticipating, and emotional caretaking that never seems to pause.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Mental Load Fatigue
• 2:08 Why Women Carry Heavier Mental Loads
• 6:17 Practical Tools for Mental Relief
• 9:11 Learning to Delegate Without Guilt
• 11:22 The Importance of Rest and Routines

Transcript

Emily Feist, LMT: 0:00

Do you feel like your brain never shuts off, even when you're laying down on the couch trying to relax, like there's this never-ending to-do list that's quietly running in the background but pops back up louder once your brain and body start to settle down? That is called mental load fatigue and it is the most invisible but powerful sources of stress for women today.

Emily Feist, LMT: 0:26

Welcome to It Starts at Vagus, where holistic health meets modern living through the lens of a massage therapist and that's me. I'm Emily and I am a neuromuscular massage therapist who works directly with the nervous system to help people relax their muscles and calm their minds system to help people relax their muscles and calm their minds. I'm here to guide you in unlocking the philosophy of the vagus nerve, the body's ultimate key to calm, connection and overall well-being. If stress, anxiety or burnout have you feeling stuck, you're in the right place. Before we start, if you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button. It encourages me to continue to make podcast episodes and I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that like and subscribe button. We currently have listeners in over 130 cities and as the show gets bigger, we can expand the podcast, bring in guests and continue to support your wellness, because I want this podcast to continue to be worth listening to and help people all over the world get stress and anxiety relief. Naturally, thank you to everyone who has already subscribed. I truly appreciate it. Now take a deep breath and let's explore how we can use our nervous system to support our bodies.

Emily Feist, LMT: 1:48

Let's take a second just to name what's really happening here, and that is the mental load fatigue. This isn't just about being tired. It's just more than that. You're carrying a mental load that never seems to end. Most of it is invisible, but your nervous system still feels every ounce of it. So what exactly is mental load fatigue and why is it hitting so many women so hard right now? But before we talk about that, I need you to know something you are not lazy, you're not unorganized, and no, it's just not that mom brain or that you need to manage your time better. This is something that so many women go through, especially those who are caregivers, nurturers, the emotional guide of the household, and especially those high achievers that are trying to keep all the balls in the air without letting them fall down and break. So no, you're not broken. You're just carrying too much on your mind and your nervous system is waving that white flag saying I need help. So what is mental load fatigue?

Emily Feist, LMT: 3:00

Mental load fatigue is a kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from physical labor, but it comes from thinking and planning, scheduling, anticipating, juggling people and their schedules, and it's constantly remembering all of that and that just goes on and on. It's the invisible list in your head that goes don't forget to grab the milk, and we need to reschedule the dentist, and don't forget to order the birthday gifts. Check on that friend that was having a hard time the other day. Don't forget that email. That just keeps going. And it's that invisible list that we don't write down. Now to that we are going to add that executive functioning overload and that is the constant decision-making with the demand of fast answer. So, whether that is little ones always asking questions and wanting that sharp reply, or a boss who says here's this problem, what do we do about it? Or even somebody below you that is saying I don't know what to do, please answer right now, it just adds that overdrive to the mental fatigue and when it goes on too long, your brain and body start to shut down in really little subtle ways that we tend to overlook but add up and that looks like forgetfulness and irritability, especially sensitive irritability, where the littlest things just aggravate you. It can look like trouble focusing or those sleep issues Because, remember, once our body starts settling down, the brain goes oh look, these are the things that you forgot about. Don't forget these. Remember you said these. These are the things that you forgot about. Don't forget these. Remember you said these were important. And it keeps creeping back up. So then that affects how you go to sleep and how well you sleep at night.

Emily Feist, LMT: 4:55

Or for some ladies, it's that wired but tired feeling where you're just pooped out but you're so tired that you can't even sleep and you kind of feel like your body's going against you but you don't know what to do. And why is it so common in women? Well, many women have been raised to feel that responsibility of taking care of everyone's needs that are immediately around them. We're trained, sometimes even without realizing it, to be the ones who are the caretakers of remembering, who need to care for everybody, who do the anticipating, to predict what's about to happen and who softens the edges around the world around us. And even in equal partnerships, studies show that women carry most of the share for the mental and emotional labor of their household. It's because they feel like they have to. It's the I'll just do it because it'll be done faster and I'll just know that it's done, type of attitude. But it just adds to that fatigue. Instead of having somebody else do it for us, we're just like we're just going to do it and get it done.

Emily Feist, LMT: 6:12

So now we need to talk about practical tools to ease that mental load. There's the brain dump practice where at the end of the day, you just write it all down. You don't worry about punctuation or even if it makes less sense, you just get out of your head, write everything that's floating around in there. No editing, just raw and dirty. Just let us know, let yourself know what you're feeling. And it's not a to-do list. That's the important part. It's not a to-do list. It's just you unpacking your brain's thoughts onto paper so it's not twirling around inside your head while you try to relax.

Emily Feist, LMT: 6:52

You can also do the drop, delegate or do later system. What this looks like. This is your mental list and you can ask yourself these three questions what can I drop, what can I delegate and what can I do later? Let's talk about these questions. What can I drop? There's always something that doesn't have an importance, that needs to get done. Something can be pushed off for later. It might become this needs to get done now, like laundry. Sometimes you're like I ran out of socks and underwear and now it needs to get done. But if, let's say, you have a schedule like Mondays I always do laundry, but Monday is a really tough day you can say, okay, I'm going to do that tomorrow so I can drop it for today's schedule. What can I delegate? This is a tricky one. This is really really hard to do for many, many people, because it often means that, one, we either have to train somebody to do it and, two, we have to accept that it might not be done perfectly to our standards. Now, this is one that I really struggle with. Let's talk about how to delegate.

Emily Feist, LMT: 8:12

In my household, our children are responsible for putting away their laundry. So, as my husband and myself, we all take care of our own laundry, and most of us put away our laundry differently. Our dressers look different, how they're organized looks different, how we fold the clothes all look different, and it doesn't mean that one way is wrong and one way is better. It is how each person decided what works best for them, and so I might choose to fold pants one way, but somebody else does it a different way, and though I want to say, oh, we should fold it this way because that's the way I do it, that's not what's best for everyone and we have to know that that is okay because it's them and it's their dresser. So you would just have to decide is this something that is not a big deal? And to accept to just let that go because it's not worth the fight, it's not worth that mental load and it's okay. And it will be okay because again it'll be taken out of the drawer. You're going to wear it, it'll go back in the laundry and it's not your dresser, don't worry about it, you worry about yours.

Emily Feist, LMT: 9:20

Next one is what can I do later instead of right now, taking away that urgency to say this is okay for another time? And it kind of goes back to that laundry idea If you can't do it Monday and Monday is always the day that you do it you can do it later. This helps train your brain that not everything needs to be done at once right now, or even possibly by you. It can be taken done by somebody else sometimes. Next, we need to rest without guilt. This one is more emotional and not logistical. It's where we give ourselves permission to rest before we quote unquote earn it, and not because you got your checklist done and you finished everything, and not because you're on the verge of a breakdown, but because rest is productive and your nervous system needs it to think clearly and to feel safe.

Emily Feist, LMT: 10:21

And this was a struggle that I did have to work through. I had to actually schedule in rest in my day. I blocked off that time because I have a hard time sitting. Still, I want to do something, I want to get something done. I want to be quote unquote productive. But rest is productive. It's helpful and it's necessary.

Emily Feist, LMT: 10:42

Which brings us into the last one is routines. Routines help our mind predict what's coming next. It's taking that time when we're not in our fight or flight mode where we have to get something done right, right, right now. It's okay, I know this can get done. We have to do it. It's part of our routine. I've done it so many times I don't even have to think about it. So lifting that mental load because it's repetitive and your brain likes repetitive and it leads to a calmer mind and body because it already knows what to expect. So that will help your nervous system, day in and day out, is just finding a routine that works for you and this.

Emily Feist, LMT: 11:27

I do have a podcast episode about evening routines. It's one of the beginning ones, but if you want to go ahead and give that a listen to kind of give you some tips on how to start, that, it's very helpful. I hope this episode helped give you a name to that mental load, fatigue and permission to stop carrying it all by yourself. You don't have to earn your rest, you don't need to be everything to everyone, and you are allowed to ask for help to slow down and to let your mind be calm and rest. Thank you for spending some time with me today. Remember to breathe and do at least one thing that makes you happy.

Emily Feist, LMT: 12:11

Thanks for listening to It Starts at Vagus. New episodes are released every Tuesday. If you like this episode, go ahead and give it a subscribe button so that you get notifications and don't miss out on what's coming next. If you'd like a step-by-step video on how to do a pain-free and easy vagus nerve exercise, grab my free vagus nerve reset video in the show notes. It's what I do when I feel like I just not like myself. Until next time, remember, wellness starts at vagus.