Feeling anxious, exhausted, and mentally foggy all the time? This episode explains why fatigue and anxiety feed each other, and how to start breaking that cycle without adding even more pressure to yourself. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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Episode Overview:

Are you dealing with fatigue and anxiety, brain fog, and that horrible feeling of being both wired and worn out at the same time? Welcome to one of the most common anxiety symptoms: fatigue.

In this episode of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, I’m talking about why ‘anxiety exhaustion’ can leave you feeling flat, mentally exhausted, emotionally exhausted, and stuck in survival mode even when you’re trying your best to hold it all together. This episode is for anyone who feels anxious often, keeps pushing through stress and anxiety, and is starting to wonder whether they’re dealing with burnout, mental exhaustion, anxiety symptoms, or just some vague kind of fatigue they can’t explain. 

I unpack how anxiety, stress, and constant internal pressure can quietly drain your system, fuel brain fog, and make ordinary life feel harder than it should, and I explore how to stop anxiety and fatigue feeding each other without piling on more pressure or pretending you can just “power through”. If you’ve ever worried about adrenal fatigue, felt confused by your anxiety symptoms, or wondered why anxiety relief can feel so hard when you’re already worn down, this episode will help you understand what’s really going on and how to begin breaking the cycle in practical, realistic ways. 

👉 Ready to understand your exhaustion and start breaking the cycle? Then let’s talk!

💡 TL;DR: Sick of feeling anxious, exhausted, foggy, and stuck in survival mode? In this episode I unpack the link between fatigue and anxiety so you can understand what’s draining you and how to start changing it.  🙂

New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:

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Episode Transcript:

Anxious and exhausted all the time? Here’s why.

We need to talk about feeling anxious and exhausted all the time.

Because when your mind is always switched on and your body is rarely able to fully settle, after a while that can leave you feeling flat, foggy, and irritable. And when that happens, even small things will take more out of you than they should.

And the worst part is that a lot of people end up blaming themselves instead of recognising what’s actually going on… and that’s what we’re going to cover in this episode.

We’ll talk about how to understand the cycle so you can finally start breaking it.

So let’s talk about… fatigue and anxiety.

Hello! I’m Jeremy Godwin and this is the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, full of practical advice for better mental health.

Today I want to talk about why anxiety and exhaustion so often go hand in hand, because this is one of those things that can really mess with your head if you don’t understand what’s happening. When you feel tired all the time, when you struggle to focus properly, when everything feels so much harder than it should, it can be really easy to assume that something’s wrong with you or that you’re just not very good at coping well, or maybe that you need to push yourself harder and harder and just ‘get your act together’. But being cruel to yourself like that doesn’t actually address the real issue.

Because anxiety isn’t just something that happens in your thoughts; it affects your entire body, your entire system. It can keep your mind busy, make your body tense, make your sleep worse, bring your emotions so much closer to the surface, and leave your energy levels far lower than they should be. So if you’ve been feeling wired, worn out, flat, overwhelmed, or like you’re somehow both restless and exhausted at the same time, there’s a very good chance that what you’re dealing with is not just tiredness on its own.

There’s usually a pattern underneath it. And that’s something that’s incredibly important to be aware of because if you misunderstand the pattern, then you usually respond to it in ways that end up making it worse: you shame yourself, you push yourself harder, you expect more from yourself than your system can realistically give… and then you wonder why you end up feeling even more drained. So first… we need to get really, really clear on what this actually is so that you can have a better understanding.

Now we’re about to explore that, but before we go any further here’s the first big thing that I want you to remember about this topic: if you’re anxious and exhausted, then you need to stop asking yourself questions like, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What is draining me?” That single shift is enormous, because it moves you out of shame and into understanding.

Instead of treating this like it’s some sort of personality flaw or a motivation problem, I want you to start looking at it like it’s an energy and nervous system issue instead… because that’s exactly what it is. So ask yourself: What has my mind been carrying lately? What has my body been holding onto? And where am I living in a constant state of tension, pressure, or over-responsibility?

Even doing that for just a minute or two can help a huge amount because it changes the conversation that you’re having with yourself. It takes you out of self-attack mode and moves you into self-awareness, and that gives you a much better starting point for real, sustainable, tangible change. And so I want you to keep that in mind throughout our conversation today, because we’re going to build on it as we go through the episode… so, rather than just leaving it here as some sort of nice idea.

OK, so now we’re going to talk about…

What is fatigue and anxiety?

Alright… so when we talk about anxiety and fatigue together, what we’re really talking about is what happens when your system spends far too much time being switched on. Now in plain English, anxiety is not just worry. It’s a state of mental, emotional, and physical activation. Your mind is scanning, your body is bracing, your attention is pulled towards what might potentially go wrong, and your system is using its energy reserves even when you’re not doing very much on the outside.

So in this context, fatigue is not, “Oh, I didn’t sleep enough,” that type of tired. Oh, no, no, no! What it often is is the kind of physical and emotional tiredness that comes from being internally overworked… and that can feel really, really overwhelming when you’re living it. You know, you might wake up feeling incredibly tired even after a full night of sleep.

Maybe you feel flat, or foggy, or irritable, or restless, or like your brain’s just not working properly. You might find yourself getting overwhelmed by so-called small things, or maybe you struggle to concentrate, or you keep on putting things off because everything feels like it’s just way too much effort. Or maybe you feel like you’re somehow both wired and worn out at the same time. It can feel like your body just desperately craves rest, but your mind absolutely refuses to read the memo… no matter what you do.

A lot of the time we tend to assume that the problem is laziness, or a lack of discipline, or that we’re not resilient enough, or we have poor motivation. Right? You know, we end up thinking things like, “Well, why can’t I just get on with it?!”

But when anxiety is involved, it’s often not that you don’t care enough or you’re not trying hard enough; it’s that your system is expending so much energy on managing tension, on being vigilant, on overthinking, and on carrying this emotional load that you’re dealing with, that there’s then less energy left over for your regular life. The other thing that a lot of people often tend to miss is that you don’t have to be having full blown panic attacks or obvious breakdowns for this stuff to be happening. Sometimes it looks so much quieter than that.

Sometimes it just looks like constantly feeling worn out or mentally cluttered and not quite able to get yourself back to your baseline level. So with all of that in mind, now let’s talk about…

Why fatigue and anxiety affects your mental health

And I mean, aside from the obvious, which is that it feels awful, the main reason this stuff affects your mental wellbeing so much is because anxiety doesn’t just make you feel bad in the moment. It slowly reduces your capacity. And so when your capacity is lower, that’s when everything feels so much harder.

You have less patience, less perspective, less emotional bandwidth, less focus, and less energy for the ordinary stuff of life. So things that might normally feel manageable can begin to feel really irritating, or overwhelming, or maybe they just feel weirdly heavy. And when that happens, when that keeps on happening, it’s very easy to start telling yourself a pretty brutal story about what that means in terms of who you are and how badly you’re supposedly coping. But that’s not fair.

And that’s where things begin to get especially rough… because the exhaustion doesn’t just sit there quietly. While you’re sitting there chastising yourself, and punishing yourself, exhaustion is eating away at you… and it changes how you think, how you feel, and how you respond to the world around you. When your energy levels are already running low, physically and emotionally, your mind is more likely to catastrophise, your emotions are generally far more reactive, and your ability to self-regulate drops significantly.

So anxiety drains you, and then being drained makes anxiety harder to manage. And that is the cycle.

Often we tend to think that the problem is that we just need to try harder, that we need to be more disciplined and just push through it… but if your system is already overworked, then pushing harder without changing anything usually is just going to add more strain. It’s not strength doing that. It’s self abandonment, and it’s self-abuse dressed up as a coping mechanism.

I think one of the most important things to understand here is that anxiety can be incredibly tiring even when nothing dramatic is actually happening. You can be exhausted simply from constantly scanning, and bracing, and thinking ahead all the time, from rehearsing conversations, from carrying tension in your body, or from trying to keep yourself one step ahead of stress.

All of that takes energy. A lot of energy. So if you’ve been judging yourself because you often think, “Well, I’m not doing enough,” then please understand this: you may not have been doing much outwardly, but inwardly you have been working unpaid overtime. That’s the big lesson here. The exhaustion is not separate from the anxiety. In many cases, it’s evidence of the anxiety. It’s the cost of a system that has been stuck in protection mode for far too long. And if you don’t recognise what’s really happening, then you’ll probably keep responding in ways that make it worse.

You’ll probably shame yourself, overload yourself, expect yourself to function at full capacity. You’ll ignore what your body is telling you, and you’ll probably even keep on trying to get back on top of things without ever addressing the cause of the drain itself. That’s one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk about this topic, because so many of us are stuck in that exact cycle and then we blame ourselves for a struggle that actually makes a lot of sense.

Anxiety drains much more than just your thoughts. This is definitely something I’ve dealt with, and it has taken me several many years and a lot of therapy to figure out how to navigate it without draining the life out of myself every other week… and I’m going to share what I’ve learned right after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back! So now let’s get into the ‘how to’ part of this episode, and let’s talk about…

How to break the cycle of fatigue and anxiety

So let’s talk about how to break this cycle! And as always, the full list of points that I’m about to cover will be in the transcript at ltamh.com/episodes if you want to revisit any of this later. Plus, it’s linked in the description. Because let’s be real here: when you’re tired and overloaded, it’s very easy to hear something useful and then immediately forget half of it five minutes later! So the transcript is there for you.

Alright, so I’m going to step you through things to reduce or stop, and then what to start practicing now, and then what to build on over time. So, first…

Stop treating your exhaustion like a character flaw.

Because if you keep responding to this type of anxiety-driven energy depletion with self-criticism, pressure, or guilt, then what you’re doing is adding another layer of stress to a system that’s already struggling. So when you notice yourself thinking things like, “Why am I like this?” or, “I should be coping better than this!”, I want you to pause and come back to that question we talked about earlier: “What is draining me?” Is it overthinking, hypervigilance, poor sleep, constant pressure, too much caffeine, too much input, too many things left emotionally unresolved, too much of too much? This is one of those moments where being incredibly, brutally, totally honest with yourself really matters… because you cannot change what you refuse to name. OK, next…

Lower the load before trying to lift your performance.

Now, this is where a lot of people tend to get it backwards. So they feel exhausted, and so they then tell themselves to be more disciplined, more productive, and more switched on. But if your system is already stretched, then the better question here is not, “How do I get more out of myself?” but instead, “How do I ask less of myself, at least for now, so that my system can stabilise?” Now, that may mean simplifying your day, or cutting back on unnecessary decisions, or saying no to one extra thing, or maybe it’s leaving a message unanswered until tomorrow, or choosing to focus on the one thing that actually matters today instead of trying to do everything and failing. Sometimes the most mentally healthy thing you can do is to reduce the pressure, instead of pretending that you can just power your way right through it. And let me be very clear here: that is not giving up. It’s responding intelligently. Because when your system is overloaded, trying to function as though nothing is wrong is, quite frankly, a really great way to stay stuck for longer. Next…

Look at your hidden energy leaks.

Anxiety will often drain you through dozens of little ways, rather than one great big obvious one; things like replaying conversations, bracing for bad news, watching bad news, doom scrolling when you’re already overstimulated and overwhelmed, mentally rehearsing future problems, staying ‘on’ all the time, trying to keep everyone else happy, trying to control everything so that nothing goes wrong… none of those things may seem particularly enormous on their own… they’re obviously, you know, very anxiety inducing… but when you put them all together, they can leave you feeling absolutely drained. So, start noticing where your energy is quietly leaking away, and be more aware of it as and when it happens. Which, funnily enough, leads to my next point…

Do something about the things that drain you.

And you probably knew I was going to say this one… didn’t you?! So, no real surprises here since I think I point this stuff out like a hundred times a week, that nothing changes if nothing changes. And so that’s the thing here: if something is draining you and feeding into that cycle of fatigue and anxiety, then either you need to get used to feeling awful or it has to change. Most issues will not magically fix themselves, and so as uncomfortable and maybe even painful as it is, you need to look at whatever it is that’s sucking the life out of you and make some changes. Because being aware of the issue is one thing, but it takes action to address it and change it. OK, next…

Practice giving your body small signals of safety during the day.

And look, this one doesn’t somehow suddenly solve everything… but it definitely interrupts the message that everything is urgent and unresolved. Because that’s what anxiety does. That’s what your brain does when it’s feeling anxious. So doing this might mean that you just take one slow minute to just breathe and do nothing else; breathe quietly and gently, where your exhale is longer than your inhale. It might be unclenching your jaw and dropping your shoulders. Maybe it’s getting up and walking for a few minutes, without your phone. It might be finishing one small task fully, instead of leaving 10 things half-done. It might be stepping outside for a moment and letting your body catch up with where you actually are. The point here is not to perform wellness, so you don’t need to put it on your Instagram Story! The point… the point here is to give your nervous system evidence that it’s allowed to relax by a notch or two. Next…

Rethink what rest actually is.

A lot of anxious people are technically resting while still mentally running on overdrive. You know what I’m talking about: you’re on the couch but you’re scrolling, or worrying, or half-watching something, and still carrying tomorrow and all of its worries in your head. So yes, you’re inactive… but you are not resting. And you’re definitely not restoring anything, or recharging your energy. Real rest is anything that reduces internal demand. That might mean having some quiet. It might be music. It might be reading. It might be lying down for 10 minutes without inputs coming at you from all angles. It might be doing something gentle and repetitive. Whatever it is for you, the key question is: does this actually help my system settle, or is it just distracting me while my mind keeps sprinting around in the background?

And this is also where I want to gently challenge you on something. So… if you already know you’re anxious and exhausted, but you keep on fueling that state with habits that leave you more wired, more overstimulated, and more depleted, then at some point you do need to be honest with yourself about what that’s costing you. Not having enough sleep, having too much caffeine, too much screen time late at night, too much avoidance, too much overcommitting, too much pressure, too much pretending you’re fine when you’re not… all of that stuff adds up.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you need to go and try to change everything all at once. You’ll overwhelm yourself by doing that. But it does mean accepting that some of your choices may be keeping you stuck in the very cycle that you say you want to get out of.

So you need to be honest with yourself. And if you want to change that pattern, then you need to change that pattern. So… this week, pick one thing to stop feeding and one thing to start supporting. Maybe you stop doom-scrolling at night; maybe the cutoff is like 7:00 PM. Maybe you cut out one coffee a day; I know, I know, I’m asking a lot! Maybe you stop saying yes to things that you don’t have the bandwidth for. Right? And instead, you could do really simple things like you could start doing a five minute reset in the afternoon rather than waiting until you’re completely fried. Or you can start asking yourself “What’s draining me?” every single day for a week, and write down the answer each time you do. Whatever you choose keep it simple, keep it honest, and keep it realistic.

Small shifts count here. Because when you’re worn down, you can actually sustain those small choices… and small shifts add up to massive changes over time. Just remember, the goal is not to become perfectly calm or endlessly energetic. We need to be realistic here. The goal is to understand your system better, to reduce the drain, and to respond sooner when you notice the pattern flaring up again. Protecting your peace isn’t just about saying no to difficult people; sometimes it’s about saying no to yourself, saying no to the habits and expectations and internal pressures that are keeping your system stuck in overdrive.

Conclusion

So here’s what I want you to take away from this episode.

If you feel anxious and exhausted a lot of the time, that doesn’t automatically mean there’s something wrong with you or that you’re a failure at life. Very often what it means is that your system has been carrying far too much for far too long. And the tiredness that you’re feeling isn’t laziness or weakness. It’s the cost of being switched on all the time. So the real work here isn’t judging yourself more harshly or trying to force yourself to function like nothing’s wrong. The work is understanding what your anxiety is doing to your energy, being honest about what’s draining you, and then starting to make small changes that reduce the load instead of adding more pressure.

And so here is a question for you to reflect on: where in your life are you receiving a clear sign that something needs to change? Because when you boil it all down, you cannot keep living like everything is urgent and then wonder why your mind and body are exhausted. Something has to change.

Because when you boil it all down, estrangement hurts. But pretending it doesn’t will only keep you feeling stuck for longer.

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by the painter and writer Walter Anderson, and it is:

Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.

Walter Anderson

Let me repeat that:

Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.

Alright…. that’s it for this week. For more straightforward tips, grab a copy of my book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck; it’s linked in the description. And if you’d like to support my work, you can find out more about my Patreon at ltamh.com. It’s also linked below.

Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Join me next week when I talk about feeling lonely even with people around, and check out my episode on emotional regulation next; it’s linked in the description. I release new episodes every Sunday, so follow or subscribe to never miss an episode. Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program. Discover more at ltamh.com.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Find more content at www.ltamh.com

Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2026 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.