Does this feel familiar?
As soon as the alarm clock rings, it often rattles through your head that the child needs sportswear for school today, but for once no snacks. Broccoli is still missing for lunch, toast for tomorrow’s breakfast and then there’s the approaching birthday of the best friend of your daughter. On top of that we still need to walk the dog. Call the hairdresser. Check work emails. Schedule a work meeting. Fold laundry. Make dinner. Make a reservation for date night. Check-in on our friends.
The list goes on and on.
What is Mental Load?
Do you experience that, too?
Constantly trying to keep track of what needs to be done can become mentally and emotionally exhausting. It is an endless to-do list that keeps rattling along, even when you’re sitting on the sofa in the evening. That makes it difficult for you to hit the ground running and that wakes you up in the morning when the alarm clock rings. This strain is called mental load.
It is a word for the unseen mind work which stresses and exhausts many women and men, too.
A never-ending to-do list which buzzes around in the mind of many of us, rushing us from one task to the next until we fall into bed exhausted at night.
And while you’re getting the sportswear, you stumble over a pair of socks that your child seemed to have lost and that you quickly take to the bathroom with you. You find a towel thrown over the tub and hang it up, you quickly wipe away the toothpaste residue in the sink and think: “Oh yes, I have to make a dentist’s appointment today”, while annoyed you close the cupboard door your hubby left open again, although you reminded him of it every day. Coming into the kitchen you find that the kids didn’t empty the dishwasher and the glasses from last night are still on the table in the dining room. You empty the dishwasher as the plates are needed for breakfast and put the glasses from last night into the sink…. It’s a never-ending story.
Why Mental Load can lead to problems
In a business environment, this project management is a recognized and well-paid full-time job, but at home it is an invisible elven work.
It is remembering, organizing, multi-tasking, planning, preventing, refilling, compartmentalizing, budgeting, fixing, reminding.
The outcomes are often feelings of feeling tired and exhausted at the end of the day, feeling helpless and powerless to change anything.
If we take a closer look, it becomes clear: the battery is empty in the evening because the thinking, relationship, and care work, including the 1000 brownie tasks, uses up a lot of energy. It’s true that nobody sees them, but at the end of the day the many individual steps still pile up into a mountain.
After all, we must think about everything that is attached to a task, provide it with the necessary great plan – and yes, do it or delegate it and check whether something really happens.
This leads to an enormous level of stress and, in the worst case, to burn out or severe mental exhaustion and a sometimes even depression. Anyone who is constantly ill and/or nervously attacked should take this seriously as a warning sign and take countermeasures.
At some point you have the feeling that your head will “explode”.
How we normally cope with Mental Load
A lot of times we when we try to reduce our mental load, we tend to let others do our work. Which is the right way to do. However, we find, that things don’t go the way as planned. Your child goes to school without their backpack, your partner cleans the bathroom, but only half is clean afterwards. And oops, isn’t your child invited to a birthday party in the afternoon and doesn’t have a present yet?
Many of us women would rather do important things ourselves than outsource them. This is not because of perfectionism, more like pragmatism.
When you always wrap the baby or be responsible for various gifts and pay attention to what makes the birthday child happy you usually have a head start in terms of competence.
But that doesn’t mean that your partner couldn’t learn it too, if they wanted to. And yes, we should let them try. But of course, it’s hard to bear that our child is crying or that the birthday child doesn’t get anything for her birthday. It is not uncommon for us to still fall into the “leave it to me” trap and take care of the family and all the fuss that needs to be done.
However, at some point we cry softly into our pillows from exhaustion or freak out over every little thing. The dispute that follows is usually only superficially about offsetting. What hurts is the lack of support, that can’t be seen and the lack of appreciation. Women, especially mothers, are sometimes nearly crushed by the pressure on their burdens (including the ones they impose on themselves).
In fact, stereotypes and beliefs like “a good mother is always there for her children” have a lot to do with the mental-load problem.
Men have often learned as little boys that they are allowed to look at themselves first. Finally, there is a woman who takes care of things – and who often grew up with the same image. This is how a woman continues to wear herself out: between career, kitchen, children, crisis management… social networks don’t make it any better. The thought “Why do all the others do it so effortlessly and I can’t?” I’m sure everyone of us had. But are they really doing it so effortlessly or is it only the outside view we get?
What we need is much more a feeling for our own energy level and that we allow ourselves to respect our limits.
What are the ways out of mental overload?
Without an honest conversation and the willingness to change something together, it hardly works. Because yes, even after two years of the pandemic, many partners still did not know exactly where the problem is. They “already help” and take care of some things “exclusively”! But this is only a small part of the big heap. A lot of the “home-making” goes on inside your mind.
According to a 2019 study of nearly 400 married or partnered mothers in the United States, nearly 65 percent were employed. But 88 percent also reported they primarily managed routines at home and 76 percent said they were mostly responsible for maintaining regular household standards and order.
How do you come together – how can the responsibility for everyone involved be shared fairly? If it becomes too much for one person, it’s not about identifying a “culprit”, but about better communication and finding solutions for the team. The most important prerequisites for this are calmness and time to put everything on the table and to make the mental load visible!
Write all the tasks for the next few days on Post it’s or a list.
Take the birthday gift as an example:
Instead of writing down “get a birthday present for Chloe”, write down everything that is attached to it on separate post it’s:
- Ask yourself, what makes the person happy.
- Possibly ask her and or decide on something else
- See where, when, and how to get it,
- Have wrapping paper, scotch tape and a suitable card ready. If needed buy it.
- Wrap everything up
- Decide on some kind words to write into the card
- Write them
- Have everything ready to be sent on the birthday.
Yes, you will need a lot of Post it’s for this!
The main goal here is to make everything visible that is going on in your head. Only if you write it down, you can see, how big the heap is that you are carrying around. Being able to see the mental load makes it less in your mind and means other people in the home can help out. Don’t stop with the things that go on in your household, only. Your partner has no idea what is going on in your head for your job/business or leisure time tasks either. Make it visible.
How is it with you?
There will be some aha moments – on both sides. Look at what tasks each one of you have and who feels responsible for what, then redistribute the areas of responsibility if necessary.
There is no one solution for everyone. Regularly check what went well and what didn’t. Exchange ideas, plan new ones, keep trying and keep looking back. This is how you approach your ideal division step by step.
Discuss what is important to you and what you don’t want to do. Allow yourselves freedom. There is a difference between someone shirking the bathroom cleaning (hygiene!) and the child wearing an outfit that doesn’t match your own aesthetic sensibilities (Is it dressed for the weather? Does it fit?).
If you want to be less responsible, you really have to hand them over.
Let’s bring openness, trust, and appreciation to each other – and let’s tackle the topic of mental load as a team.
The tips in next week’s blog article will help: How to get out of the mental load trap?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Caydee Schwarz and I write about personal development, success and happiness.
Let’s be honest: all of us want to live a happy life and fulfilled life. And every day, a lot of us fail in our attempt to get there. Our thoughts, the right inner attitude and the right knowledge empower us to create our life according to our wishes. Knowing what our mission is and what makes us truly happy is the foundation to a happy and fulfilled life. I’ll help you lay that foundation – so you can live the life you want.