A Joyous Perspective on Weariness: When a long week turns into a weak end.

It's Friday, and time for another Friday Night Thought Tale hour at the Hendersons. Thoughts have been swirling around me like a sandstorm this week - thoughts about work, things I've been reading and hearing about, school, concerns about people, loose ends, etc. The other day I told Chris, "I'm thinking about too many things." My brain was just so exhausted.

Know the feeling?

It's all in our head, and it leads us to weary.  By your "head," I mean all the cognitive pieces of an experience such as planning, analyzing, obsessing, considering, worrying, making little talks to yourself inside, going back over situations or conversations, and trying to figure things out. "Weary" means being worn out due to continued exertion or endurance, sometimes also with a sense of being dismayed, even a little downtrodden; its roots as a word have to do with the effects of a long journey.

Basically, it means your tank is running low.

When my thought process engines are tired, it doesn't feel very good at all. I'm not relaxed, and probably stressed, which will gradually wear down the body and mood. You're more likely to make a mistake or a wrong decision. I start to get into what I call 'cruise control' - just going through the motions, pushing through. When the mind is ruminating away like the proverbial hamster on a treadmill, the emotional content is usually negative - hassles,

threats, issues, problems, and conflicts -and that's not good for us humans. Nor is it good for others for you to be preoccupied, tense, or simply fried. Yes, time for a fill-up. Time for a rest. The roots of the word "rest" come from places to take a break on a journey. Ah, no doubt the first person who uttered 'TGIF' was so weary they decided to just make it an idiom! But the rest break doesn't, and even shouldn't, always have to happen only on your weekend. Below are a few suggestions of how you can take your weariness pulse to make sure you don't entirely run out of gas while going up a hill. (never a good idea)

1) Routinely check in with yourself and ask: What am I thinking about? Is this productive? Do I want to keep thinking about this?

2) Give your mind little breaks. Look up into the corner of the room. Exhale; this will calm your nervous system and slow your heart rate. The longer the exhalation, the more your body responds to calm. Have a mini moment of Zen. Bring awareness into your physical body. Literally speaking, come to your senses.

3) Step back and take a bird's-eye view of wherever you are as if you were looking down on it from a few hundred feet above. Try to see yourself in a more impersonal way, as a part of a larger stream of circumstances and events. This will help your brain to entertain more mindful awareness of what is really happening around you, coming into the present, letting go of inner speech, and less burdensome sense of me-myself-and-I. Less self-focused and more outwardly evident.

4) Above all, recognize that, if you're like me and I think most people, so much of what we twirl around within the mind is, frankly, a waste of time. It doesn't solve a problem, prevent a bad thing from happening, or bring us to peace with others. And it's profoundly unnatural. Our ancestors probably experienced more physical but less mental fatigue than most people today in all the developed nations. Our bodies are adapted to weariness - but our minds are not. For a brief time - an intense month at work, a difficult year with a new baby -OK, sometimes we just have to crank the mind up into overdrive and tough it out. But as a way of life, it's nuts. And it's something I want others around me to change too...  

So time to be the change you want to see.

We have to take a stand against the crazy mental busyness that has become the new normal. We're bombarded with things to think about all day long, flooded with words and images to process, and forced to juggle unprecedented complexities. Our minds are being hauled along behind a culture without a speed limit - but the human body and brain does have a limit, a natural carrying capacity, and when we exceed it there's always a price. It's like

being trapped in rush hour your whole life. Each time you know this, each time you pull out of the mental traffic, it's an act of freedom and kindness and wisdom. It's a gift that keeps on giving, not only to you but those around you too. It replaces weariness with hope, the kind that floats instead of sinking you. 

Don't let your 'weekend' be a 'weak ending'...

So tonight, we are going to drink a cocktail I call 'Help for a Weary Head.'  Just what I need to help me take a few easy breaths as we sit by the fire and clear our heads, then slowly put back one thing at a time as the weariness leaves and the energy returns.  CHEERS FRIENDS!

Recipe for Help for a Weary Head*
1 oz of Grand Mariner
2 oz Apple Cider
Brown sugar rimmed martini glass
Shake Apple Cider with ice and pour into glass.  Pour Grand Mariner on top of the cider.  Garnish with an orange slice.

*Always drink responsibly.