Where does the vigor go?

One of the most common queries on Google is “Why am I tired (from communicating with people, from a child, from life)?”. And complaints about exhaustion, emptiness, lack of desire are familiar not only to psychotherapists – they are exchanged in a friendly circle and on social networks.

Why is this happening? Where does the energy go and how to get it back?

Do everything

The source of fatigue is in the body, within its physical and mental capabilities. Tired – it means it’s time to relax, sleep, if health is expensive. But only one in three Russians manage to sleep those 8 hours.¹ per day, which are recommended for a good rest.

It seems that it all started with the advent of electricity, when we stopped going to bed after sunset, changing our natural rhythms. Then blue screens entered life, first TVs, and then computers, as well as numerous gadgets that we are not always able to turn off.

These devices are everywhere and they are terribly distracting while you work. Noise, the curse of large cities, only makes things worse: we are deprived of the silence necessary for concentration.

In addition, we try to do everything in time: to see the premiere, read a sensational novel, visit a fashion exhibition … Even vacation has ceased to be a time of rest – some are trying to gain new knowledge, others – more impressions.

Now, even in the field of leisure, “should” prevails over “want,” and we simply don’t have the strength for such psychological needs as setting priorities and restoring order in the soul. Gradually, society is massively turning into a “society of emotional burnout.”

Burnout Society

When the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger coined the term “burnout syndrome” in 1974, he described the condition of volunteers who worked in free clinics in the drug rehabilitation department. Now this syndrome threatens all those who have chosen as their ideal to give all the best at work physically and emotionally, even when working conditions do not favor it.

If you do not listen to the alarming signals of the body, one day you may be incapable of thinking, of self-organization. Psychosomatic symptoms will appear.

Burnout is not just extreme fatigue. This is the loss of faith in yourself and the loss of the meaning of life. Quite a modern disease. However, it did not start today.

In 1869, the New York physician George Beard described neurasthenia, which he considered “the disease of business people.” Her neuropathologist Pavel Kovalevsky called her “Russian disease”.

“Unlike Byrd, who believed that the cause of neurasthenia was technogenic factors in the conditions of developing capitalism, Kovalevsky attached more importance to the development of neuroses to the difficulties of adaptation in connection with the moral problems of modern society.

According to the Slavophiles, the intelligentsia was subject to neurasthenia, having lost faith and connection with the life of Russian society. Westerners, on the other hand, saw in neurasthenia a sign of the development of civilization with its inevitable influence on the mental sphere, ”explains psychiatrist Dmitry Veltishchev².

Competition, exploitation, uncertainty about the future, the noise and dirt of big cities caused extreme tension in the nervous system. In some ways, this situation resembles the one in which we find ourselves today.

“We are not aware of how much energy costs life in the city requires from us. Let’s imagine a child born in Tibet: he is brought up, teaching him to maintain inner harmony. She, in turn, will restore his strength.

And in a modern Western city, a child is taught to attract attention, speak loudly, and move energetically. Others will get the impression that his energy level is higher than that of a Tibetan, although this is an appearance. And if this does not meet his internal needs, then he spends energy that does not return to maintain the image, ”says clinical psychologist Natalya Ruzlyaeva.

Fatigue as an ally

From childhood, parents who are afraid that their children will yield to their peers in some way encourage them to constantly exert themselves.

“As soon as I stopped, my mother strictly asked:“ Why are you lazy? — recalls 29-year-old Elizabeth. – I used to always be busy and thought that it was normal to drive myself. Moreover, it helped me make a career and delighted my friends. It was only when I started taking sick leave endlessly that I realized that something was wrong. And I began to learn not to scold myself for being tired, but to give myself a rest.

Restoring strength, allowing ourselves to hide in the shell, we learn to accept ourselves not only as perfectly efficient, but as any, including tired, exhausted ones, and we begin to get acquainted with our inner life.

“When we fight society, it’s a war for ourselves, when we follow society’s lead, it’s a war with ourselves, but in both cases it’s a war, and it takes away strength,” says Natalya Ruzlyaeva. “The only source of energy is to live in harmony with yourself and your needs.”

Fatigue signals the need to rest and, perhaps, to reconsider the way of life, listen to the body’s needs for nutrition, moderate exercise and sleep – this is the third vital need after breathing and drinking. We can take fatigue as an ally if we decipher its messages and manage to stop when the body requires.

Get back your debts

“All day long I look at the monitor at the data summaries, and at the end of the week my whole body hurts, as if I were digging the ground,” admits Galina, 40, a systems analyst.

“The brain controls the whole body, all mental and physiological processes, even when we are in a state of sleep or rest,” explains Natalia Ruzlyaeva, “so if the work is related to intellectual work, the brain receives an additional load, and we feel a general fatigue comparable to fatigue from physical labor.

In order for the brain to rest, for 23 minutes we should not download it with any information, that is, do not pick up a gadget or a book, allow ourselves not to think about anything³.

Everyone needs a good rest. But besides this, everyone has their own sources from where we draw strength. “This is an individual search,” the psychologist continues, “and even the advice to hug a tree is not universal, but, say, communication in a company is recharging for an extrovert, but energy consumption for an introvert.”

Our culture makes it difficult for many to seek help, from asking a friend to “talk to me over a cup of coffee” to seeing a therapist.

However, the latter becomes a direct necessity, if we can’t even remember when it was good: “This is a sign of depression, it speaks of such a large energy deficit that requires the help of a professional,” Natalya Ruzlyaeva notes.

Spending energy on something that does not bring returns, we turn into a kind of “energy debtors”, going deeper into minus. Several skills will help to avoid this: rest, the ability to accept help and attention to your individual psychological and bodily needs.

Shell can be removed

Consciousness and body are connected with each other. Emotional clamps correspond to muscular ones. By learning to relax habitually tense muscles, we regain the freedom of feelings and movements.

“According to the bioenergetic analysis of Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen, initially life energy flows freely through the entire body. But over time, clamps accumulate: they arise when we are afraid of something, when we are shouted at, offended, and the energy stops circulating, stops, most often in the area of ​​​​the shoulders or pelvis.

There is, for example, a characteristic male posture – with a swung chest and weak legs. It means that sexual energy is blocked at the level of the pelvis,” says clinical psychologist Natalya Ruzlyaeva.

In order to “start” the energy again, the clamps need to be removed – perhaps with the help of a psychotherapist.

Freud’s student psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) believed that our attitude to any phenomenon of life is accurately reflected in the corresponding bodily posture. He analyzed the physical habits of patients to help them become aware of the emotion that is literally trapped in one part of the body or another.

Reich called the habitual structure of the clamps the muscular shell. He also began to work directly with the body, kneading the muscles with his hands, thus marking the beginning of body-oriented therapy.

Nearly all of his patients reported to him that they went through periods of their childhood when they learned to physically suppress their hatred, anxiety, or love by holding their breath, tensing their stomach muscles, and so on. Reich found that chronic muscle contractions block three major biological arousals: anxiety, anger, and sexual arousal.

These ideas were further developed by Alexander Lowen (1910–2008), himself in therapy with Reich. He insisted on the critical importance of three processes:

1. Breathing. Our breathing is often too shallow due to the fact that we unconsciously tighten the diaphragm. Relaxing it, we deepen the breath and give vent to feelings.

2. Grounding. Finding a solid footing (both literally and figuratively) allows you to feel safe.

3. Vibration. All living things in the world vibrate. But the place where tension has accumulated is practically dead: insensitive, motionless. Vibration helps bring it to life. According to Lowen, the more alive we are, the more energy we have, and vice versa. Rigidity or chronic tension reduces alertness and cuts energy. We cannot avoid the rigidity that comes with age. But we can avoid the stiffness that comes from chronic muscle tension resulting from unresolved emotional conflicts.

¹ The study was conducted by the Health Mail.ru project on November 18, 2019 among 7866 Russian users.

² D.Yu. Veltishchev Neurasthenia. History and Modernity” (2011).

³ G. Mark «Focused, aroused, but so distractible…» (ACM Press, 2015).