Mental Collapse: When I Feel The Weight Of The World On Me

Sometimes we feel like Atlas, that titan whom Zeus punished and forced to carry the weight of the heavens and the Earth on his shoulders. These are situations in which we not only have the clear sensation of carrying the weight of the world on us, we also experience what in psychology is known as mental collapse: a state in which we feel unable to react.

These situations can also be defined as nervous breakdown or blockage because they affect the body, our focus and motivation. They are those moments in which exhaustion is absolute, combining with such growing restlessness that it is impossible to get a good night’s sleep. It is reaching the maximum of our strength and not precisely because we have made a great physical effort. Rather, it is due to our emotional wear and tear.

These situations are very common, for example, in opponents. Just after taking the tests, taking the exams and submitting to this situation of high anguish, instead of resting, collapse, nervous breakdown and what we commonly call “low” appears.

Why happens? It basically happens because one has spent a lot of time focused on that goal. There are many emotions accumulated and often not channeled. When one is faced with the stressful situation, the nervousness does not go away. The mind is kept to a minimum and joins with the body itself to say “enough” we have come this far.

The same is true in other circumstances. We analyze it.

Mental collapse: what does it consist of?

“I’m exhausted, I can’t take it anymore and I have the feeling that I’ve reached the limit and it’s going to give me something . ” This phrase, which we all may have said to ourselves at one time or another, contains something more than mere fatigue. After all, exhaustion is still a symptom, the obvious clue that something is happening in the body. This feeling of being exhausted is due, in most cases, to the fact of having made a prolonged physical effort over time.

However, fatigue usually has an emotional origin. It is the often toxic combination of worry, of being permanently alert, focused on a certain objective, of nurturing self-demand and feeling anguish due to uncertainty, not knowing what is going to happen …

All this acts as a fatal storm in which adrenaline, cortisol and those neurochemicals that seek to activate us increase, but which in turn end up taking their toll on the body and mind. The nervous tension does not take long to appear and with it the mental collapse. Let’s know more data.

Mental breakdown, a psychophysiological response to stress

Mental collapse is still a response to stress maintained over time. It is like a psychophysiological short circuit from which we feel that we cannot give more of ourselves. We have reached a point where the physical exhaustion is immense and the mental exhaustion is absolute.

The most complex thing is that this state is not alleviated by sleeping 20 hours in a row. Because what intermingles with mental breakdown is persistent nervousness and restlessness. Thus, studies such as the one carried out at the Rockefeller University Neuroendocrinology Laboratory, in New York, remind us that the effects of stress on the brain are more serious than we might think.

This feeling of constant alertness, pressure and worry generates a release of neurochemicals such as cortisol that end up affecting the functioning of the hippocampus, the amygdala and the cerebral cortex. There is a hyperactivation and that hyperactivity does not disappear just like that. That is why what we usually perceive in these situations is the following.

Psychological symptoms

• Trouble focusing attention.
• Memory failures
• Humor changes.
• Low motivation
• Negativity
• Feeling of unreality due to mental fog (feeling that what surrounds me and what happens is not entirely real).

Physical symptoms

• Altered sleep patterns: frequent awakenings, nightmares …
• Exhaustion.
• Muscle pain, headaches, digestive disorders.
• Sensation of going slower than usual, of not being able to walk or react faster.

What can we do when we feel mentally and physically collapsed?

As we have been pointing out, when a person suffers a mental breakdown, they usually recover only by resting. Moreover, in most cases, even calm is not achieved this rest. Therefore, it is appropriate to reflect on a series of strategies:

• Detect our sources of stress and manage them. If we have been subjected to stressful situations, such as having to deliver a project, take exams, do a procedure that distressed us … It is time to become aware that all this has a beginning and an end.
• Rationalize those points that take away our calm and have greater control over them. It is we who must dominate them and not the other way around.
• Physical rest and our recovery will not be possible if we do not first identify and work on those aspects that take away our calm. You have to keep it in mind.
• On the other hand, it is appropriate to improve our life habits: take care of food, allow ourselves moments of rest and leisure, play sports, share time with people with whom we can talk about our concerns, etc.

• Breathing and relaxation exercises are also very suitable in these circumstances.

Finally, when we are aware that we are going through a mental breakdown, due to that crisis situation in which we feel incapable of reacting to what happens to us, the last thing we must do is force ourselves . It is time to carry out that which sometimes costs us so much: “stop, give us time and attend to each other. ” That is always the best strategy.