Most people aren’t exhausted because they’re doing nothing. They’re exhausted because they’re doing everything.

Work follows you home in your pocket these days, we’re constantly connected. There’s always something to organize, respond to, improve, or fix. Even when you sit down at night, your mind is still running through tomorrow’s to-do list. You’re technically resting, but mentally you’re still switched on.

At the same time, you’re trying to “be healthy.” You want to exercise properly, eat well, sleep better, maybe even build a morning routine that makes you feel like you have your life together. But instead of feeling these habits are helping, they start to feel like more pressure.

Somewhere along the way, looking after our health has become yet another performance metric. And when you already feel stretched, adding more (even good things!) can send you into overwhelm oblivion.

Why More Isn’t Always Better

We’ve been conditioned to believe that doing more equates to being responsible. More effort must mean better results, more hours must mean greater success, and more discipline must mean better health. But your brain and body don’t operate that way. They don’t thrive when driven to the absolute maximum capacity they can tolerate.

Research from the Cleveland Clinic highlights that taking regular breaks improves mood, concentration, and overall performance, rather than reducing it. In other words, stepping back doesn’t weaken your output. It strengthens it. 

Your nervous system is designed for rhythm: effort and recovery, focus and pause. When you remove the pause, stress hormones stay elevated, sleep becomes lighter, patience wears thinner, and focus goes right out the window. You may still be functioning. but you’re not functioning well. The irony is that pushing harder often leads to worse results.

The Hidden Cost of Constant Decisions

A big part of modern fatigue isn’t physical; it’s cognitive. Our days are packed to the brim with micro-decisions. What to prioritize, what to reply to, what to cook, what to ignore. Each choice draws from a finite pool of mental energy. And yes, it’s finite - not infinite. We’re all human and wonderwoman/superman is not in the room with us.

This is known as decision fatigue. It happens when your brain has made too many choices and becomes less efficient as a result. That’s why you can scroll endlessly on Netflix and still not pick something. It’s not laziness, you’ve just run out of steam.

When you reduce what you’re doing, you reduce the number of decisions you have to make. And that frees up mental energy for the things that actually matter. Meaning less noise and more clarity.

Doing Less Can Improve Results

It feels counterintuitive, but narrowing your focus often improves performance. The quality of the work you do will significantly increase when you stop spreading yourself thin. Work becomes more intentional, conversations become more present, and workouts become more effective because you’re actually recovered. In addition, your creativity flows more easily because your brain has space to connect ideas.

This also applies in the physical sense. Muscles don’t grow during training; they grow during recovery. The stress creates the stimulus, but the repair is what builds strength. The same pattern applies mentally and emotionally. You need space to grow. Doing less isn’t about disengaging from your life. It’s about engaging more deliberately.

How to Start Without Procrasinating… Again

Before you freak out, you don’t need to change that much to sort this stuff out. In fact, extreme changes usually create more stress. The shift can be small and almost invisible to anyone else. All that matters is that it works for you.

So you might leave work slightly earlier one day this week. You might choose not to respond to a non-urgent message at night (tougher than it sounds, we know!). You might shorten one workout and prioritize sleep instead. Or you might remove one commitment from your calendar that you agreed to out of obligation rather than desire (and let’s be real, there are probably way more in there too)..

You don’t have to get it perfect starting out, it’s all about experimenting to see what best suits you and your lifestyle.

And how do you know it’s “working”? That part is easy. Just pay attention to what happens when you ease the pressure a bit. Do you get a better sleep? Feel less reactive (aka don’t want to instantly murder your spouse if they eat your fave snack?!) Do you notice you’re actually enjoying the things you choose to do more than those you felt obligated to do?

Most people won’t notice you’ve dialled things back. You’ll still be capable and productive, you’ll just feel a whole lot better. And listen, it’s going to feel odd at first and even uncomfortable, especially in a culture obsessed with more - more output, more optimisation… more hustle. But sometimes the most powerful health decision you can make isn’t adding another habit. It’s creating space.

And that space is often where real well-being begins.

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