Mental exhaustion happens when you push past your optimal stress level, which the Yerkes-Dodson curve maps differently for each person and task. You can shift your stress threshold through breathing, meditation, and scheduled rest, letting you stay sharp for hard work without burning out.
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How do you personally manage, uh, things like mental exhaustion?
Yeah, I want to avoid Golindou's blindness. It comes down to a lot of the things that you talk about in your podcast— mindfulness, periods of rest, and generally being able to recognize when you're running your engine too hot and step back. But Jim, it all comes back to you're not always trying to be at zero stress. And the optimal point is described on something called the Yerkes-Dodson curve. Different people have different curves. So different people will optimize their performance at different stress levels. And you can actually change that through training, repetition, reframing the stress. But also, different tasks have different Yerkes-Dodson curves. They have different optimal levels of stress. Once you recognize that in your life and as a leader, You can avoid burnout because you know where you need to be fully activated and you know where you need to be calmer and practice breathing and meditation and other techniques and rest to optimize at a lower stress level.
