The Energy Economy: Understanding Mental Health Through Your Energy Budget
The Myth of “Just Try Harder”
You hit snooze for the sixth time. You’re staring at a full laundry basket, too overwhelmed to touch it. You’ve mentally drafted a message three different ways and still haven’t sent it. From the outside, it might look like procrastination. On the inside, it feels like running on fumes.
We live in a culture that equates functioning with effort. If you’re struggling, the message is often just to push harder. But what if effort isn’t the problem? What if you’re really running low on not motivation but energy?
But what if effort isn’t the problem? What if you’re really running low on not motivation but energy?
What Is Your Energy Budget?
Think of your daily energy like a financial budget. You get a certain deposit of capacity each morning, and every task makes a withdrawal. Energy comes in from rest, food, or connection. Energy goes out through stress, multitasking, overstimulation, or emotional effort.
For people who have a diagnosable mental illness or are neurodivergent, the starting balance is often lower. You might begin the day already in a deficit. Simple tasks can cost more, and there's often no easy way to borrow energy from later.
This has nothing to do with laziness. It’s not a lack of effort or resilience. Christine Miserandino’s “spoon theory” helped bring language to this experience, describing energy as a finite resource that people must manage carefully throughout the day (Travers, 2024). Some people start the day with more. Others don’t. And that difference shapes everything.
How Mental Health Conditions Spend Energy Differently
Depression
Living with depression often feels like everything takes extra effort. Even small decisions can feel mentally exhausting. The emotional dullness and fog can make basic routines hard to sustain. Fatigue is one of the most common residual symptoms of depression, even when other symptoms begin to lift (Targum & Fava, 2011).
Example: You debate whether to shower or make coffee for so long that you do neither.
Anxiety
Anxiety keeps your body in a state of high alert—your brain scans for problems. You replay conversations. You try to prepare for things that haven’t happened. This state, called chronic hyperarousal, drains energy even when you’re sitting still (Molina, 2024).
Example: You cancel dinner plans because your mind has already spent hours imagining what could go wrong.
OCD or Perfectionism
OCD and perfectionism often show up as constant internal checking. You second-guess yourself. You feel pressure to get everything exactly right. The mental effort it takes to manage these thoughts quietly, while appearing fine on the outside, is exhausting (Marschall, 2024).
Example: You reread a message repeatedly, worried about how it will be received, and then need to lie down.
ADHD
With ADHD, starting tasks is hard. Organizing thoughts can be difficult. Even when you want to do something, starting can feel impossible, like your brain just won’t shift into gear. The effort required to focus can lead to crashes later in the day (Sissons, 2024).
Example: You spend two hours hyper-focused on cleaning, then can’t respond to a single email for the rest of the afternoon.
The Loop Between Energy and Mental Health
Mental health and energy are not separate. They shape each other, constantly. When your mental health is struggling, it affects how much energy you have. But when your energy is depleted, it also becomes more complicated to manage your mental health.
This creates a feedback loop. When your depression lifts slightly, you might find the motivation to go for a walk or answer a text. That small action gives you a little more energy, which helps you do something else. On the flip side, when you're running on empty, your coping skills shrink and everything feels harder.
You don’t have to wait for your mental health to improve before you start feeling better. Supporting your energy through rest, boundaries, or nourishment can shift your mood. And addressing your mental health through therapy, medication, or connection can increase the energy you have to work with.
You can start from either side.
The goal isn’t to fix everything at once, but to gently move things in a sustainable direction.
What Drains and Refills Your Energy
Like any budget, your energy is affected by both spending and saving. What drains one person might not affect someone else. What helps one person recharge might not work for another. Here are some examples to help you start your own list.
Energy Drains:
Masking your natural behavior
Sensory overload
Unresolved grief
Interactions that feel fake or tense
Endless scrolling through news or social media
Energy Refills:
Being around calm, accepting people
Sleep and good food
Unstructured time to rest or create
Movement that feels good, not forced
Talking to a therapist or journaling
This isn’t a formula. It’s about becoming more aware of what works for you and what doesn’t.
How to Track Your Energy Like a Therapist Might
Therapists often help people recognize what supports or drains them. You can start by tracking your energy over a few days.
Try using a 1 to 10 scale in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Pay attention to what activities or interactions improve your number. Notice what tends to bring it down.
You can also journal a few questions:
What tasks feel heavier than they “should”?
What types of rest feel restorative?
When do I feel most like myself?
If you feel worn out before the day even starts, that’s essential information. Adjusting plans, saying no, or setting boundaries isn’t failure. It’s responsible energy management.
“Taking breaks, saying no… and asking for help are all valid strategies to preserve spoons.”
Rest Isn’t Weakness, It’s Wisdom
You’re not lazy. You’re not scattered or overdramatic. You are trying to function in a body and brain that spends energy differently than others. That takes real awareness and skill.
You’re not broken. You’re budgeting.
If your energy levels always feel depleted, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Therapy can help you understand what’s draining you and give you tools to recover, reset, and work with your energy rather than against it.
If your day-to-day life feels like too much, there’s a reason. A therapist can help you track your energy patterns and create a plan that works for your nervous system, not against it.
Here is how you can connect with a therapist at Resilience Therapy to review next steps.
References:
Marschall, A. (2024, June 7). Suppressing emotions or behaviors? You might be “masking.” Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-masking-in-mental-health-6944532
Molina, O. (2024, May 16). Anxiety & fatigue: Exploring why anxiety makes you tired. Talkspace. https://www.talkspace.com/mental-health/conditions/articles/anxiety-fatigue/
Sissons, B. (2024, July 16). What to know about neurodivergent burnout. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/neurodivergent-burnout
Targum, S. D., & Fava, M. (2011). Fatigue as a residual symptom of depression. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(10), 40–43. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3225130/
Travers, M. (2024, May 14). “Spoon theory” can change the way you view mental health. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202405/spoon-theory-can-change-the-way-you-view-mental-health
