Exhaustion is awful. It’s also awfully common. Exorcising exhaustion is inordinately important if you’re interested in enjoying your life.

Exhaustion is different from tiredness. Being tired is a physical experience that’s easily dealt with. Exhaustion however is a psychological phenomenon of more subtle dimensions. It isn’t about the physical action; rather it’s about the thinking that informs said action.

For example chopping wood all day would be physically tiring, but if you did it each day for some time you’d become fitter and stronger. If however you were chopping wood all day with a morbid fear of hurting yourself, you’d become increasingly emotionally exhausted and in turn decreasingly functional at every level.

As this example suggests, psychological exhaustion occurs when your anxieties aren’t answered. When your fears are pushed to the back of your mind it takes energy to keep them there. Moreover these fears tend to get louder and heavier over time. Exhaustion is the outcome!

To reverse the curse requires that you rest. However this isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Exhaustion, with its foundation in fear, can feel like an engine with the throttle stuck open. Even when you’re committed to remembering the stillness within it can take some time to settle down.

As you begin to slow you’ll be assailed by your anxieties as they leave. Each “I should do” dread thought will invite you back to tension. At this point it’s pretty useful to focus your attention on the exhalation of your breath.

As you get better at going back to your breath rather than answering the panicked call to arms you’ll increasingly relax. Then at some point you’ll begin to yawn.

Just as tears wash away your sadness, yawning is the dissolution of your exhaustion. As you allow the pleasant wash of yawning your vitality and clarity will return just as the morning mist is burnt away by the heat of the rising summer sun.

Martin hunter jones