Mental load: recognising it and lightening it day to day

I hear mental load described at my practice almost every week, rarely with that phrase. People tell me "my head is full", "I think of everything for everyone", "even on Sundays it never stops". Often women, often mothers, often with a job on top, and nearly always a little ashamed of not "coping" when, from the outside, everything seems to run smoothly.

I am a sophrologist and wellbeing coach in Bordeaux. Before that, I spent years working in start-ups until I burnt out, so I know what it is like to carry too much at once without noticing. Here is what mental load really is, how to tell when it is spilling over, and practical steps to put some of it down.

Mental load is not doing, it is thinking of everything

Mental load is not the number of tasks. It is the invisible work that comes before them: noticing that something needs doing, anticipating it, planning it, checking it has been done. Doing the shopping is a task. Knowing you are out of milk, planning the week's meals around Thursday's dinner, and remembering a present for Saturday's birthday party is mental load.

That is why "just ask me" is so irritating to hear. It is usually said with good intentions. But asking still means thinking on the other person's behalf. Whoever carries the mental load remains the project manager, even when they delegate.

And this work does not stop at the front door. At work, too, some people become the ones who think of everything: the leaving drinks, the file nobody is chasing, the colleague who is struggling.

Why it falls mostly on women

This is not just a feeling. According to Insee, France's national statistics institute, drawing on its survey of how people in France spend their time, women do 64% of the hours of domestic work. A mother living with a partner spends an average of 34 hours a week on it. And those figures only measure time spent doing, not time spent thinking about it.

That second part is starting to be studied. A US study of 393 mothers living with a partner, mostly from comfortable backgrounds, found that most of them were solely responsible for organising the family's schedules and keeping order in the home, and that they remained the main ones keeping watch over their children's emotions. Mothers who felt they alone were responsible for this organisation reported lower personal wellbeing and were less satisfied with their relationship.

I am not saying men do nothing, or that only women experience mental load. I also see it in single fathers, carers and managers. But in the couples I meet, it is still most often her who knows where the children's health records are.

Signs that it is spilling over

Mental load is not an illness, and there is no test for it. It is a source of lasting stress, and sooner or later your body lets you know. The World Health Organization describes the signs stress can bring when it settles in: irritability, trouble concentrating, disturbed sleep, headaches, changes in appetite. With mental load, I would add a few very telling ones:

• you wake up at night with a list of things not to forget;
• you can no longer enjoy a moment without thinking about what comes next;
• you feel irritated when someone asks "what can I do?";
• you feel you are the only one who sees what needs doing;
• the holidays start for everyone else but not for you, because you organised them.

What I often notice in sessions is a body that no longer lets go: shoulders up, shallow breathing, jaw permanently clenched. When I ask someone to lie down and think of nothing, the list scrolls past for the first few minutes.

Emptying your head, a first practical step

Your brain is not designed to store lists. As long as a job is not written down anywhere, it keeps turning it over so as not to forget. That is exhausting, and it is what wakes you at three in the morning.

One single list

Choose one place to write everything down: a notebook, an app, it does not matter, but only one. Write down whatever comes into your head as soon as it does. In the evening, take five minutes to read it through and decide what will be done tomorrow, what can wait, and what can be handed to someone else.

Three minutes to offload

Then, a small sophrology exercise I often teach. Sitting with your feet flat on the floor, breathe in through your nose as you raise your shoulders towards your ears, hold for two seconds, then let everything drop as you breathe out through your mouth. Do this three times. Then spend a minute breathing slowly, making the out-breath longer, and imagine with each breath that you are putting the list down on the table. It is written down. You no longer need to carry it.

Share whole areas, not tasks

This is the change that lightens the load most, and the hardest to put in place. As long as you hand over tasks ("can you pick up some bread?"), you keep the job of remembering. What really helps is handing over a whole area, planning included: weekend meals, the children's medical appointments, the car paperwork.

Taking stock together

I often suggest this exercise to the couples I work with in couples coaching. Set aside an hour, somewhere calm, not on an evening when things have blown up. Together, list everything that keeps the household running over a month, including what nobody sees: remembering birthdays, buying new shoes when the old ones are too small, booking the dentist, replying to the school's email. The list nearly always surprises the person who was not carrying it.

Then share out complete blocks. Whoever takes an area takes everything that comes with it, including the remembering.

Accepting that it will be done differently

This is where many of the women I work with get stuck. The washing is not folded the way they would fold it, the meal is not the one they would have chosen. Taking back control means taking back the load. If the result works, even imperfectly, let it be. And if something gets forgotten, let it happen rather than quietly stepping in to fix it. That is often how the other person learns to plan ahead, because they discover what used to happen when you were remembering for them.

Looking after yourself without adding another task

The trap, when you are overloaded, is adding "time for me" to the list and then feeling guilty for not doing it. I prefer very small things, hooked onto moments that already exist: three slow breaths in the car before going home, a walk without your phone, ten minutes of reading before sleep.

The WHO points out that keeping a routine, sleeping enough, moving and staying in touch with the people close to you all help with stress. Sleep is often the first thing to be sacrificed: if that sounds familiar, I have gathered some ways to improve your sleep when stress gets in the way. And for moments when everything overflows, some pointers on managing stress and emotions.

When to get support

Talk to your doctor if you have been exhausted for several weeks, if rest no longer helps, if you cry often, no longer enjoy anything or have dark thoughts. The WHO notes that lasting stress can cause or worsen anxiety or depression, which need care from a health professional. A heavy mental load carried for a long time is one of the roads to exhaustion: I talk about this in my article on burnout symptoms.

When the main thing is to get some breathing space back, two approaches work well together. Life coaching helps you look at your organisation, your priorities, and what you can say no to and to whom. Sophrology helps your body release what it is carrying and find moments when your head goes a little quieter. Sophrology and coaching do not replace medical advice, but they can help you stop carrying everything on your own.

I see people at my practice for life coaching in Bordeaux, on rue Ducau, and I also offer online life coaching, which helps when you already do not have a minute to spare. In the meantime, tonight, take a sheet of paper and write down everything that is going round in your head. It is a first step, and it does not need anyone else.