Lately I keep seeing the same sentence everywhere. On Substack, on Instagram, on podcasts….. “I’m exhausted,” “ I’m burnt out,” “I am so rundown.”
I even made an IG post last week on seeing this, in the past week alone I’ve seen Substack essays about burnout, podcast episodes about nervous system overload, and Instagram posts from women saying they feel overwhelmed by everything. The strange thing is, it feels collective. It’s not just one person having a hard week, it feels like a lot of people hit the same wall at the same time.
So what is going on? Part of the answer may be more simple than we think, our brains are overwhelmed, our minds never get quiet anymore. Think about the last time your brain experienced actual silence. No podcast playing in your headphones, no music in the background, the radio wasn’t on in the car when you were driving, no scrolling while waiting in line at the grocery store, no checking notifications every few minutes. For most people, that kind of quiet almost NEVER happens anymore. We’ve normalized constant input, podcasts while walking, or making dinner, or running errands, watching reels while brushing our teeth, music while cooking dinner or cleaning the house, netflix while eating, scrolling before bed. Even trying to do something beneficial and listening to white noise or calming music before bed.
Our brains are absorbing information from the time we wake up until the we fall asleep. The human nervous system wasn’t designed for that level of stimulation. Not to mention the non stop news cycle, mental load of being a mom, work, kids, and so on. For most of human history there were long stretches of mental space. Walking, thinking, daydreaming, staring out the window, letting the mind wander. Now silence makes people uncomfortable, soooooo we fill it, and over time that constant stimulation turns into mental fatigue.
There is another layer to this exhaustion that most people don’t think about. The brain is making too many decisions. Our modern brain is making more decisions than any generation before it. What to wear, what to eat, what to make for dinner, what to pack the kids for lunch, what to watch, what workout to do, what wellness routine to follow, what news to believe, what opinion to have. Every scroll is giving us another choice, every notification wants our attention. Then add onto that, every headline pulls your brain into another emotional reaction. Psychologists call this decision fatigue. It happens when the brain burns through its daily supply of mental energy just by managing information and choices. In our modern world, the choices never stop.
Statistically speaking women are carrying an enormous mental load
For many women, the mental load can be even heavier. Working full time, managing the household, raising kid, babies, tweens, teenagers, some are helping aging parents, trying to stay healthy, want to stay fit and active, trying to stay calm and work on mental and emotional health, making all the kids doctor’s appointments, remember school theme weeks, taking care of groceries, bills, pets, pets appointments, remembering kids friends’ birthdays, sports, ok I can go on and on here.
ANNNNDDDDDD a lot of that work is invisible. Planning, organizing, remembering appointments, worrying about everyone else’s needs. It doesn’t show up on a fitness tracker, but it drains mental energy all the same. Which may explain another cultural trend happening at the exact same time.
( Clinique Black Honey lipgloss, MAC make up, and Gucci Rush and Thierry Mugler Angel on repeat!)
Why Nostalgia Feels So Powerful Right Now
While everyone seems exhausted, another phenomenon is happening in parallel. People are obsessed with the 90s and early 2000s again. Old TV shows from those eras are trending, music from that era is everywhere, the fashion is back. It started before Ryan Murphy produced FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette which you can watch on Hulu but this has definitely catapulted the fashion and music again to the forefront. Younger generations are romanticizing a time they didn’t even live through and there is actually psychology behind it.
Research shows nostalgia can calm the nervous system and increase feelings of comfort, belonging, and meaning. When life feels overwhelming, the brain naturally searches for memories that feel stable and safe. For many people, the 90s and early 2000s represent a slower world. It was before smartphones lived in our pockets, social media wasn’t as prevalent as it is now. Some people probably were on those AOL chat room and Myspace, but it wasn’t what it is now.
There wasn’t every opinion, headline, and crisis arriving instantly on a glowing screen. We had to wait a week for the next episode of a show. When we got bored, we had to use our imagination. I feel like life had more natural pauses. So when people feel mentally exhausted today, their brains sometimes reach backward toward a time that felt more simple.
The human brain needs something we rarely give it anymore, white space. This is unstructured minutes where nothing is happening. No information to process, no decisions to make, no noise filling every second. This is when creativity can happen, the nervous system can reset, here the mind can process emotions and experiences. Without that space, the brain stays in a constant low level state of stimulation and eventually stimulation can turn into exhaustion.
However, sometimes the brain doesn’t need more input, it doesn’t even want more input, it wants and needs less. Less noise, less constant information, less pressure to optimize every second of the day. The brain might be craving quiet walks, no tv at dinner, no doom scrolling all day long, no podcast while cleaning or folding laundry.
( was it even the late 90’s if you weren’t wearing a scrunchie around your wrist)
I think this is why nostalgia feels so comforting right now. It reminds us what life felt like when our minds had room to breathe and we weren’t constantly trying to optimize every second of our day consuming info.
Nikki Lanigan
Nikki Lanigan is a yoga, HIIT, and Barre instructor, she is also a Holistic Health Coach through Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Nikki is trained in Yoga Shred, Yoga Psychology, meditation, chakra balancing, and EFT/Tapping. She has done trainings with Sadie Nardini and Ashley Turner. She got her 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2017 at the Carrie Treister School Of Yoga. Nikki takes a holistic view of health, helping her students and clients reach a place of self-love not just through movement, but with mindset and lifestyle guidance as well. Nikki is also show prep writer for The McVay Media Show Prep and host of the podcast Fit, Fun, and Frazzled. Connect with Nikki on Instagram. www.instagram.com/nikkilanigan.yogaandwellness www.instagram.com/fitfunandfrazzledpodcast
