7 Signs You Are Mentally and Emotionally Drained + What to do About it
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
Let’s chat about being mentally and emotionally drained. Because here’s the thing: Your mental and emotional health are tied to your physical health. If you are struggling to build the body you want, you will continue to struggle if you don’t address your mental and emotional health. If you don’t have these two under control, moving your body and nourishing your body will be extremely hard.
Most often, once people focus more on their mental and emotional health, their physical health naturally figures itself out. Sometimes the key to finally building the body we want is just living a life that makes you happy. Seriously, being HAPPY is the missing ingredient in reaching your physical goals. So let’s chat about the symptoms of mental and emotion burn out AND what we can do about it.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in. Let's go. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. I'm so grateful that you are here spending some time with me today. Today, I want to chat about being mentally and emotionally drained because here's the thing, your mental and emotional health are directly tied to your physical health whether you realize that or not. If you're struggling to build the body that you want, you will continue to struggle if you don't address the mental and emotional side of your health. If you don't have those two things under control, moving forward towards nourishing your body will be extremely hard. And most people often don't focus on that aspect.
They only focus on their physical aspect and they ask themselves, "Why is this so difficult for me to reach my goals?"
But sometimes the key to finally building the body that you want is to really identify what it is that is making you mentally or emotionally drained and how to come up with solving that. So in today's episode, that's exactly what I'm going to be giving you. But before we dive in, I wanted to share the review of the day comes from Lynn Mt. 2011. She says, "I finally found the podcast. Julie, you don't know how much you've helped me. I struggle with discipline and binge eating. Your podcast, workouts and your outlook on health and fitness and life in general has been helping me to overcome these obstacles. I finally feel like I'm not going to live the rest of my life in misery, and I cannot thank you enough." Thank you so much for this review. I appreciate every single one of your guys' reviews.
You all already know if you haven't already left review, or if you haven't left review in a while, Apple Podcast reviews really help the podcast grow, so if this podcast has helped you in any way, my one ask for you is to subscribe to the podcast and also make sure you leave a rating interview on Apple Podcast. You can do so on any Apple device that you have. So an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook, you can go to the podcast app type in, Embrace Your Real and leave a rating interview. Okay. So let's dive into the seven signs that you might be emotionally or mentally drained. Number one, the smallest of tasks feel unbelievably overwhelming. For example, something that you typically do with your eyes closed now is very, very difficult and it's something that you are dreading. Number two, you are more easily irritated than usual. It feels like every little thing makes you feel like you're going to lose it. Number three, your appetite has changed so you're either stress or emotional eating because that is real.
Stress actually can ignite your cortisol levels, which can cause other hormonal imbalances, which can ignite crazy levels of hunger and cravings. Number four, you're tired all day yet you actually struggle to sleep at night. Does that make sense? Number five, you're making mistakes you wouldn't normally be making or forgetting things that you normally wouldn't forget. Number six, you're struggling to ever feel motivated to do anything. And number seven, you are over it. Doesn't matter what it is, you're over it. There's no zest to be found in your life at the moment. So when you hear those seven things, I want you to ask yourself how many of those right now are you checking off the list? Be honest with yourself. Even if you check off one or two, you can still be mentally and emotionally drained. So the question is, what do we do about it? If you are drained, how do we feel like ourselves again? Well, step number one, you have to stop normalizing your symptoms.
We live in a world that's go, go, go, and that is the thing to be praised. Taking breaks is frowned upon and all the symptoms I just listed have become normalized. But here's the thing, just because it's normal, it doesn't mean it's healthy. It doesn't mean that's how you should be feeling and it doesn't mean that you should just suck it up because everyone else feels that way too. I need you to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, "Feeling this way is not okay and I need to stop normalizing what I'm feeling and instead address it," which kind of leads me to step number two, address the issue head on. Look at your current lifestyle patterns and figure out what it is that's triggering you to feel mentally and emotionally drained. Without addressing the of the problem, it will continue to be a problem. So whether we like it or not, we aren't going to randomly wake up one day and feel completely energized.
It just doesn't work like that. How we feel will change only when we change our lives if there's something that is standing in the way. Remember that the only thing that ignites change is simply change. So I need you to take a deeper look at your life. Are there weekly or daily commitments that are spreading you too thin that can contribute to you feeling drained? Are there people in your life who are bringing you down and bringing negativity into your life? This can contribute to feeling drained. Are you prioritizing your health, sleep, nutrition? Are you holding yourself to a high or expect yourself to accomplish more than is actually feasible? Are you living in a way that doesn't actually align with what you want for your life? Or are you failing to do things that you are passionate about or that makes you happy? I need you to keep looking at your life until you have a complete list of what it is that's draining you.
And I know that this in and of itself, if you're feeling mentally drained, this in and of itself can feel overwhelming. But remember this, remember and try to put yourself on the other side of this and say, "This practice of me identifying what it is that's the root problem of me feeling drained, that's actually going to take me one step closer so I'm willing to put in the hard work now." I'm willing to get past the maybe feelings of anxiousness or overwhelm that you're feeling just even listening to this list, but it's so important that you get to the root of the problem. I think so many times people identify something on such a surface level, that they continue to feel a certain way and then they continue to identify things on the surface, but yet nothing is actually changing. You have to go deeper.
You have to identify what it is that's the root of the issue. Step number three, once you know that at root of what's draining you, you have to figure out and come up with a plan for what to do about it. So for each thing that's draining you, you have to find a solution. So some examples you can ask yourself, if it's a responsibility you have, what would happen if you didn't do it? Could you eliminate this from your life? Is the answer yes, is the answer no? Could you pass it off to someone else? Could you ask for help? Could you do it less than you're doing it now? So maybe not completely eliminating it, but taking a step back so that you have a little bit more time away from this activity or this responsibility that might be draining you. Could you change your mindset around it?
Could you potentially look at this in a different light. Maybe it's something that you don't want to do right now. It's a responsibility that you have right now, but it's bringing you one step closer to the outcome that you want. So I think sometimes we live in a world of prime results, right? Amazon Prime. We want the results like yesterday and we're not willing to put in the work to get to where we want to go. We expect the results to show up overnight. So sometimes a simple mindset change can help you around this overwhelming responsibility that you have. Another question you can ask yourself is can you find a way to change how you're doing it so it makes it more enjoyable or drains you less? So those are some kind, kind of questions that you can ask yourself when it comes to a responsibility that you have that you might be dreading.
If it's a person in your life, ask yourself, can you eliminate this person from your life? Can you spend less time with them? If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself some other questions. Can you change the way that you interact with this person? I have so many podcasts on boundaries. Boundaries are such an important thing to have in your life, in your business, in your relationships, in your career, in all of the different aspects of your life, you're going to have to have different boundaries in those relationships to make sure that you are performing your best and you are also becoming your best, and you're allowing that relationship to be its best as well. Can you change your mindset around how you view this person? So maybe the person that is stressing you out the most is your boss. Well, right now in the season of your life, if quitting your job is not an option, then maybe you need to change your mindset around how you view this person.
So maybe you need to remind yourself that everybody is going through a battle and you don't know exactly what they're going through. So maybe something that you said triggers something that's going on in their life that you have no idea about. So extending them grace, or maybe they said something to you and you allowed that to impact you in such a negative way. When in reality, what they say about you should not hold weight, because remember that not everybody's criticism or not everybody's words should hold weight in our lives. There are people in our lives yes, whose advice, whose words mean something to us. They've been there. They've been through so much with us. They love us. And they're maybe calling us out in love, or they're saying something to us because they love us so much. You know those people in your life, but then there's also people in your life, they say something to you, but they don't even know you.
You have to remember to weigh other people's opinions and sometimes you just got to let their opinion come in one ear and out the other. If it's a standard that's stressing you out or making you feel overwhelmed, what would happen if you didn't have this standard anymore? Could you let go of this standard? Ask yourself, why do you even have this standard in the first place? Is it just holding yourself to this standard, or is it someone else in your life? And if it's someone else, can you talk to them about it? So those are kind of some questions that will help you just get the conversation going and get the solutions kind of going in your brain, especially because remember, once we identify the root of the problem, we then have to come up with a solution.
I think sometimes people identify a root and then they never give any weight or time to a solution. And so they have all of these problems arise, which can be overwhelming in and of itself. Because you might not even realize how many things you're feeling until you actually spend some time really digging in. But remember, solutions are there to help you. Solutions are there to ensure that you take what you're experiencing and you continue to move along in your life, growing and deepening as a person. Step four, let yourself feel. Many of us feel emotionally and mentally drained simply because we don't let ourselves feel what we need to feel. We aren't honest with ourselves about what we're feeling or we push our feeling of the side or we never validate what we are feeling, and we continue to make these things the worst about ourselves and our lives.
If this sounds like you, this is likely why you are drained. You have to let yourself feel. You have to validate your feelings and address what it is that's making you feel this way. For those of you who have no idea how to let yourself feel, here's a simple trick that you can do. So sit down like you are meditating or like you're praying or like you're journaling, get in a comfortable place. For me, I know this might sound silly, but my closet, where I actually record these podcasts, this is my safe haven. It is small. There's a bunch of clothes. So it's warm and cozy. You can get a blanket. I get pillows on the ground and I just allow myself to sit. And I want you to take five minutes. So start with five minutes. I know that this could sound daunting, but five minutes is truly nothing. And I want you to close your eyes and I want you to just let whatever comes up, come up.
Sometimes we just need to close ourselves in a closet or a small space and just give ourselves space. Because once you do, you don't know what's going to come up. Oftentimes we try so hard to put on these facades for the people around us, for the jobs, the responsibilities that we have. And we never give ourselves the space to figure out why we're feeling the way that we are and allow those feelings to come up so that we can actually feel them. Yes, you want to give yourself space to feel, but the key here is to not stay there. You have to feel what you need to feel, but you cannot live there. You can't let that take over your life. That's one reason why this practice is so effective because it's your time to feel. Once the alarm goes off, remind yourself that you are not stuck in those feelings, but you have allowed yourself and you've given yourself the space to feel it.
And in the busy, busy world that we're in, five minutes I know might sound so overwhelming to you like, "I don't have five minutes of my day." I can promise you you do. Go to bed five minutes later, wake up five minutes earlier, do what you need to do to give yourself those five minutes. And once that alarm goes off, like I said, acknowledge that you gave yourself the space and tell yourself, "I allowed myself to feel what I'm feeling, but I'm not going to stay there and I'm going to move on." And a bonus step here is to be open and honest when people are making you feel a certain way, because many times people aren't even aware of the effect that they might be having on you. You have to have this open dialogue. You have to tell them. People cannot read your mind, especially women talking about your husbands or areas in your life that you feel like, "Well, it's just so obvious. Can't they tell?"
I'm telling you nine times out of 10, they can't. They cannot read your mind and you should not just wait for them to realize how you're making them feel because they don't know how they're making you feel. The best thing that you can do for your mental and emotional health is talk to people who are contributing to draining you mentally and emotionally. You don't have to say that like, "Hey, you're draining me mentally and emotionally." Bring up a specific example, bring up like, "Hey, I've been feeling this, and in order for me to feel better, I need to X, Y and Z." One thing I've noticed that really, really helps just in a marriage communication or even in a friendship communication or business communication is identifying the problem, having a solution already and maybe presenting the problem with the solution. So like, "Hey, I've been feeling X, Y, and Z, but I'm thinking that we could do X, Y, and Z because of this." And then ask them, "How do you think about this, or what do you think about this?"
That way you're inviting them into open dialogue, but you are not just kind of putting like, "Hey, I've been feeling X, Y, and Z," and then just stopping there, because that can kind of feel like you're just word vomiting all over the other person without coming to them with a solution. And sometimes, most of the time the other person might have a different opinion or they might have a different solution and that's where you need to come and meet in the middle and have that open dialogue and kind of come to see each other eye to eye. And yes, maybe sometimes you might agree to disagree, but other times you can come to a solution that you both agree on. But really coming to the person with both how you're feeling, being open and honest, but also giving thought and attention to a solution before you bring it up can be super, super helpful. And step number five is to slow down. Give yourself a break, let yourself reset. Turn your brain off, relax. Most of the time we feel emotionally and mentally drained because we never give ourselves a break.
Your brain needs a break, just how your body needs a break so I encourage you to give it a break when it needs. Plus when we slow down and live our lives in a slower pace, we actually prevent ourselves from getting more emotionally and mentally drained. And when our brain is actually rested, it can be more sharp, which can help you navigate through life's up and downs with great ease. So those are the five steps. One thing I wanted to touch on when it comes to slowing down is I want you to be intentional about what you're feeling, identify that root cause and not put that on the back burner, because I think we also live in a society where we can give ourselves too much permission to slow down, too much permission to relax. And we never let ourselves actually identify what we're feeling. And so it's almost like our relaxation is a bandaid in our problems and in our issues mentally and emotionally, because we don't want to open up that wound because we know it's going to come out with feelings and emotions and all those things.
But just remember at least the times in my life that I've allowed myself to identify the root, come up with of the solution and then relax, those are the times that actually are the most relaxing times because I gave myself the time and the thought and the emotion and all of the necessary things needed for me to identify the root cause, and then come up with a solution so that I can then relax. So again, this all comes down to really self-awareness. Sometimes you need to relax first so that you can think clearly, other times identify the root issue, come up with the solution and then allow yourself to relax and see what comes out of those relaxation moments. Okay. So let me recap those five steps. Step number one is to stop normalizing your symptoms. Step number two, figure out what's causing your symptoms. Step number three, address the problem. Step number four, feel your feelings and step number five, slow down. Once you do that, you will come back to your life with more vibrancy, with more energy, with more zest.
And I don't know about you, but I know that's how I want to be feeling daily. So if you found this episode helpful, I would love to know about it and I would love for you to share this episode with a friend or two or three or five. If you have a few girlfriends in your life, a mom, a sister, a coworker that you feel like would really benefit from this episode and these simple five steps to help you become more energized and more vibrant and more zestful, then be sure to copy this link, you can send it to them in a text message. I would love to hear your aha moments episode. So be sure to screenshot this, post it up on your Instagram story, be sure to tag me, Julie A. Ledbetter. I love connecting with you guys. And also if you love this episode, I know you'll also love episode 168, 3 ways to beat burnout. In this episode, I share more tips with you that I know will help you in your life.
If you're feeling mentally and emotionally, you can easily go listen to that. I will link you in the show notes below, but episode 168, three ways to beat burnout. Again, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next episode. All right, sister. That's all I got for you, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie A. Ledbetter, yes, it's with an a in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to apple pie podcast, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface, so go out there and embrace your reel because you're worth it.