Mental fatigue, "burnout", depleted willpower. Is it real?

[Boss]

Stefan has a brilliant video on mental illness, titled

"There Is No Such Thing as Mental Illness"

I am curious on the subject of mental fatigue or burnout. I have looked at the research and it seems many experience it, however, to my knowledge, there is no scientific test that can prove it. 


Is there a common chain holding people who claim mental fatigue? Is it just an excuse or is there more to it?

Any thoughts and experiences on this subject are appreciated 


And if anyone wonders why I am asking, I notice a rise in the market for "smart drugs" that claim to help mental fatigue. I also have a few friends that claim to experience it and they ask me how I am able to not experience it. I currently do not believe in mental fatigue or burnout, but, of course I am opened to change my stance on it. And one last thing that intrigue me are the studies that claim self discipline is more important for success than IQ. And its supposed that mental fatigue or burnouts depletes your self discipline skills.

Thank you 

[Ninja]

I would suggest evaluating your basic physical and emotional needs to see if there is an area that requires attention before taking medication.

 

Things like

 

'How much oxygen is circulating to my brain?'

'How is my circulation?'

'How is my diet/digestion?'

'Am I drinking enough water?'

'Am I getting enough sleep?'

'Am I currently taking a substance that is causing fatigue (coffee etc)?'

'Do I consent to the things I do in my daily life?'

'Do I create healthy boundaries with people?'

 

The list could go on.

 

If all of these criteria were examined and confirmed to not be the cause then exploring supplements or medication could be helpful.

 

Certainly trying a vacation before resorting to that wouldn't hurt.

 

I think the industry around medicating mental fatigue has an interest in promoting the numbing of our natural reaction to bordom/depression/lethargy/insomnia and other reactions people have to modern society as a result of the economy and government corruption of education etcetcetc

[inquirius]

Honestly, I find the title of the video misleading given Stefan's evidence.  I think Stefan gives great evidence to show that the institutional structure behind the medical understanding of mental illness is illegitimate, and I agree, but that doesn't mean mental illness itself isn't real.  I think the most insidious achievement of big pharma, in collusion with psychiatrists and psychologists, is that they effectively lumped mental illness in with all mental suffering and did their best to make the two indistinguishable (the DSM keeps getting bigger, after all).  It's really quite ingenious when you think about it; they found a way to make everyone a potential consumer of their products.

 

What is most erroneous about Stefan's conclusion is that he doesn't look at the entire history of mental illness. Severe mental illnesses have a written history that extends as far back as Hammurabi's code wherein mental illness had dire consequences for those it applied to, and that didn't change for thousands of years (lobotomies were being carried out less than a century ago).  More recently, brain scans can now recognize differences in the brains of those with mental illnesses compared to those without such illnesses.  Certain brain structures, like receptors, shrink or enlarge.  So yes, there are physiological changes that give evidence to the existence of a pathology, and like any other pathology, doctors and scientists group such conditions together and give it a name.  Of course, there's a problem when you start terming very normal human conditions as pathology and I think we can all agree that is the primary failure of the mental health system. 

 

The problem, then, isn't that mental illness doesn't exist, it's that doctors/clinicians in the modern mental health system are incentivized to cast their nets too wide in the ascribing of pathology and the prescription of psychotropic drugs, and that society at large is lead to believe that pharmaceuticals are the go-to answer when they should be a last resort.  What is truly unfortunate is that the corruption has created a polarized ideological environment of skeptics and virtue-signalers, wherein the answer appears to be either hard psychotropic drugs so you don't offend the sufferer, or nothing at all.  It becomes a war, and as usual, the truth of situation is the first casualty and the sufferer often follows.    

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Stefan has a brilliant video on mental illness, titled

 

"There Is No Such Thing as Mental Illness"

 

 

I am curious on the subject of mental fatigue or burnout. I have looked at the research and it seems many experience it, however, to my knowledge, there is no scientific test that can prove it. 

 

 

Is there a common chain holding people who claim mental fatigue? Is it just an excuse or is there more to it?

 

Any thoughts and experiences on this subject are appreciated 

 

 

And if anyone wonders why I am asking, I notice a rise in the market for "smart drugs" that claim to help mental fatigue. I also have a few friends that claim to experience it and they ask me how I am able to not experience it. I currently do not believe in mental fatigue or burnout, but, of course I am opened to change my stance on it. And one last thing that intrigue me are the studies that claim self discipline is more important for success than IQ. And its supposed that mental fatigue or burnouts depletes your self discipline skills.

 

Thank you 

 

I think mental fatigue and burnout are symptoms of depression. Depression serves a biological role. It was useful for betas to censor themselves in situations which may have been existential threats, such as entering conflict with the alpha males, or anything which might lessen their own access to fertile females. 

 

In a psychological sense, depression is unprocessed anger. Anger which is unprocessed requires adaptation. Adaptation requires more resources than changing your environment. It is always more efficient to be in control of your environment than to have to adapt to it.

 

Instead of planning an approach into the future like higher IQ people, who would be more capable of doing so because they are better at managing risk, betas tend to have to dedicate more resources to managing conflict at any given moment, because any given moment is perceived as potentially life threatening. 

 

Anyone who has engaged in an aggressive conflict (whether outright or passive) knows that being assertive is a more efficient solution. Assertion comes from processing anger and then choosing how to respond to it in the moment. Unprocessed anger leads to depression or rage, either of which consume a lot of energy. Depression is a lack of risk taking. Rage is taking on risk that is foolhardy out of desperation. They often are extremes that are present within the same personality.

 

They are adaptations of boys in society who grow up without masculine role models, in a situation where healthy, justified, vitalizing anger is vilified and hammered down upon by the state.

[Spenc]

Boss, I'm curious if you consider yourself to be an introvert or an extrovert.  And as far as your friends who self-report mental fatigue to you, would you consider them to be introverted or extroverted. 

 

There seem to be physiological differences in people's brains which lend to introversion or extroversion.  I think an extrovert could experience some burnout from being isolated too long, as the way a friend of mine self-reports his experience.  As an introvert, I would experience some burnout from a stimulus overload

[inquirius]

1. I think mental fatigue and burnout are symptoms of depression. Depression serves a biological role. It was useful for betas to censor themselves in situations which may have been existential threats, such as entering conflict with the alpha males, or anything which might lessen their own access to fertile females. 

 

2. In a psychological sense, depression is unprocessed anger. Anger which is unprocessed requires adaptation. Adaptation requires more resources than changing your environment. It is always more efficient to be in control of your environment than to have to adapt to it.

 

3. Instead of planning an approach into the future like higher IQ people, who would be more capable of doing so because they are better at managing risk, betas tend to have to dedicate more resources to managing conflict at any given moment, because any given moment is perceived as potentially life threatening. 

 

4. Anyone who has engaged in an aggressive conflict (whether outright or passive) knows that being assertive is a more efficient solution. Assertion comes from processing anger and then choosing how to respond to it in the moment. Unprocessed anger leads to depression or rage, either of which consume a lot of energy. Depression is a lack of risk taking. Rage is taking on risk that is foolhardy out of desperation. They often are extremes that are present within the same personality.

 

5. They are adaptations of boys in society who grow up without masculine role models, in a situation where healthy, justified, vitalizing anger is vilified and hammered down upon by the state.

 

1. Depression is not some weird tool that so-called betas use to avoid conflict with so-called alphas or secure their access to eggs.  I don't see how suffering from depression is even remotely beneficial, especially in males wherein the symptoms are more often psychosomatic and get in the way of everyday life functions.  But hey, if you can provide me evidence that depression has anything to do with alphas, betas, zeta, and/or omega males, I might actually take your incredible claim seriously.  

 

 

2. Depression may or may not have anything to do with anger, that depends on the person.  People have lots of different reasons for having depression, and anger is far from the sole cause.

 

I have no idea what you mean by "unprocessed anger requires adaptation."  The most I would say is that unprocessed anger requires energy to resolve, as any psychological problem requires energy to resolve, but adaptation certainly doesn't require more energy than control (that is, adaption is MORE efficient than control) and we can see this easily.  In nature, a prey species simply runs away from a predator, it doesn't try to somehow control the predator or even more ridiculous, the environment.  In fact, predators, which seek to control their prey, require much more energy and are much less successful in an evolutionary sense than prey (prey numbers are huge, predator numbers are small).  

 

Humans, in fact, are unique in that they expend enormous amounts of energy on the control and upkeep of their environment, for reasons that usually don't justify the costs.  I could go on, but I suggest you learn about energy flow and ecosystems if you want to learn what efficiency really means in the context of the environment, because it's pretty clear that your understanding is completely backwards, even in a purely anthropological scope.    

 

 

3.  If I'm understanding your use of the term "beta" correctly, as in beta provider, then your argument that betas are effectively not very intelligent makes no sense at all.  To provide, you have to know how to go out into the world and get resources, which requires a higher IQ.  I really don't know what definition of "beta" you're using, because it's clearly not working with your arguments.       

 

 

4.  Really, being assertive in an "aggressive conflict" is more efficient than avoiding such a conflict, or defusing the situation?  If your goal is to resolve the conflict with minimal energy and maximum maturity, then further escalating a potentially dangerous situation through being assertive is the exact opposite of what you want to do.  Smart, efficient people don't engage in aggressive conflict precisely because the energy output isn't usually worth the return.  

 

If what you meant instead is non-violent competition, then you're still wrong because the smartest, most "alpha" people who lead companies don't actually want competition, and the formation of monopolies, intra-industry cooperation, and non-compete agreements illustrates this.  Competition is far more costly than cooperation and to use the nature example again, adult predators don't typically hunt adult predators unless extreme environmental pressures force them to.  

 

5.  I don't really know what this means, but given that one of the signs of depression is actually an increase in risk taking, I again don't think you know much about depression.

[Boss]

 More recently, brain scans can now recognize differences in the brains of those with mental illnesses compared to those without such illnesses.  Certain brain structures, like receptors, shrink or enlarge.  So yes, there are physiological changes that give evidence to the existence of a pathology, and like any other pathology, doctors and scientists group such conditions together and give it a name.  Of course, there's a problem when you start terming very normal human conditions as pathology and I think we can all agree that is the primary failure of the mental health system. 

 

Could you cite those brain scans? As I remember seeing something like that years ago, but they found no correlation. It was a while ago so im not sure if anything new came out.

 

I think mental fatigue and burnout are symptoms of depression. Depression serves a biological role. It was useful for betas to censor themselves in situations which may have been existential threats, such as entering conflict with the alpha males, or anything which might lessen their own access to fertile females. 

 

In a psychological sense, depression is unprocessed anger. Anger which is unprocessed requires adaptation. Adaptation requires more resources than changing your environment. It is always more efficient to be in control of your environment than to have to adapt to it.

 

Instead of planning an approach into the future like higher IQ people, who would be more capable of doing so because they are better at managing risk, betas tend to have to dedicate more resources to managing conflict at any given moment, because any given moment is perceived as potentially life threatening. 

 

Anyone who has engaged in an aggressive conflict (whether outright or passive) knows that being assertive is a more efficient solution. Assertion comes from processing anger and then choosing how to respond to it in the moment. Unprocessed anger leads to depression or rage, either of which consume a lot of energy. Depression is a lack of risk taking. Rage is taking on risk that is foolhardy out of desperation. They often are extremes that are present within the same personality.

 

They are adaptations of boys in society who grow up without masculine role models, in a situation where healthy, justified, vitalizing anger is vilified and hammered down upon by the state.

I could see mental fatigue being a symptom of depression. If you are in a state of sadness your mind will be occupied with those thoughts.

 

Boss, I'm curious if you consider yourself to be an introvert or an extrovert.  And as far as your friends who self-report mental fatigue to you, would you consider them to be introverted or extroverted. 

 

There seem to be physiological differences in people's brains which lend to introversion or extroversion.  I think an extrovert could experience some burnout from being isolated too long, as the way a friend of mine self-reports his experience.  As an introvert, I would experience some burnout from a stimulus overload

Well, I probably would consider myself both, but being in sales, most people consider me an extrovert. As far as my friends, I consider them extroverts as they are also in sales, so, they are more outgoing in general. 

 

Could you explain your experience with burnout from a stimulus overload? and how you chose to deal with it?

[inquirius]

Could you cite those brain scans? As I remember seeing something like that years ago, but they found no correlation. It was a while ago so im not sure if anything new came out.

 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/pet-scan/multimedia/-pet-scan-of-the-brain-for-depression/img-20007400

 

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/05/08/brains-of-people-with-depression-different/2253.html

 

https://source.wustl.edu/2009/03/brain-network-functions-differently-in-people-with-depression-researchers-find/

 

 

At least, that's my cursory effort at research.

[Boss]

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/pet-scan/multimedia/-pet-scan-of-the-brain-for-depression/img-20007400

 

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/05/08/brains-of-people-with-depression-different/2253.html

 

https://source.wustl.edu/2009/03/brain-network-functions-differently-in-people-with-depression-researchers-find/

 

 

At least, that's my cursory effort at research.

Thank you, I remember these. This is the actual study the article was referring to http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1942.full which was to provide a framework for future work, however, to my knowledge there was and still isnt any conclusion. The consensus still seems to be that brain scans cannot diagnose mental illness or predict the risk of mental illness. 

[inquirius]

Thank you, I remember these. This is the actual study the article was referring to http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1942.full which was to provide a framework for future work, however, to my knowledge there was and still isnt any conclusion. The consensus still seems to be that brain scans cannot diagnose mental illness or predict the risk of mental illness. 

 

That's true, they can't (yet) diagnose mental illness or the risk for it, but the point is that there is an observable physiological reality to depression.