Have you hit your wall yet?

You know the one you’ve been banging your head against for the last few weeks, or is that months?

That metaphorical wall is the one that’s finally caused us to stop and call time out, because we’re exhausted, mentally, physically and cognitively, and it’s putting us at risk of burnout.

If you’re holding on for that One Powerball to get you out of all this stress, well, maybe don’t hold your breath. There are a few on backorder although Amazon Prime have indicated they’re getting new stock in shortly.

Instead of worrying about your stress and that never-ending, ever-expanding to-do list, why not start a to-not-do and a to-do-when-I’m good-and-ready-to list instead and keep your stress levels down that way?

A little bit of stress is helpful to enable you to step up to a challenge, to sharpen your focus and improve your ability to remember details about the situation you’re dealing with. This is useful when studying for an exam, about to take your driving test or getting ready to deliver a presentation to your boss.

But too much ongoing stress triggering the stress response leading to fight-flight or freeze then fails to switch off. Thinking becomes more muddled, emotions fray and sleep disturbed.

And it can lead to mental illness.

In the BP (before pandemic) era, anxiety was a well-recognised menace to many. According to Beyond Blue, 1:6 Australians are currently experiencing depression or anxiety or both. Seventeen percent of the population or 3.2 million people have experienced anxiety or an affective disorder in the last 12 months.

As a Doctor I have looked after many people who struggle with anxiety in their life where it has affected their ability to function normally, to hold down a job, to make a decision, or even to be able to leave the house.

As a workplace wellness consultant, I have worked with individuals seeking assistance because their anxiety has become so overwhelming it’s impacted their ability to work or to work to the level, they know they are capable of.

As a human I have had first-hand experience of learning to live with anxiety.

If you’ve ever been in a that tricky position where you had to make a decision quickly despite knowing you didn’t have all the relevant information available or blindly picking something you haven’t got the headspace to think through properly, you’ll know how living in a stressful situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic can push you right outside your comfort zone of knowing the right thing to do.

In this new space, adhering too rigidly to what “you know” may no longer be relevant or correct and if your anxiety and stress are high, the mental bandwidth required to access your logical, analytical, reasoning brain may no longer be available.

What’s the reason for our extreme fatigue?

Stress. Pure and simple.

Perhaps you can relate. Over the last few weeks my business has been turned on its head, I’ve been experiencing a lot of anxiety about my 88-year old Mum in her care home and the wellbeing of our young adult children, and have been connected to seemingly back-to-back zoom meetings, that I was either listening to or presenting in. I have been frantically creating on-line content, rewriting presentations, reading books, journals, holding online book clubs and virtual social catch ups.

Despite not “working” I’ve been working harder than I have ever done and spending far more time in front of a screen.

No wonder my brain is fried.

Can you remember a time when you felt severely stressed or under extreme pressure?

Can you remember what it felt like and the effect it had on your thinking?

Did it make you feel anxious, depressed even? Did it affect your performance at work?