Declutter Your Mind: Understanding Mental Load and How to Lighten It
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
When your mind feels cluttered — juggling deadlines, errands, and responsibilities — it’s easy to assume you’re just “busy.” But that ongoing mental juggling has a name: the mental load.
Here we'll look at what mental load really means, how it often shows up differently for women, its impact on health and wellbeing, and what research tells us about reducing it.
What Is Mental Load?
Mental load refers to the continuous cognitive effort required to manage, organise, and anticipate tasks and responsibilities in everyday life. It’s the unseen planning that keeps everything running — remembering deadlines, scheduling appointments, monitoring progress, and thinking ahead to what’s next.
While physical tasks are visible, the mental work of coordinating them often goes unnoticed. Researchers describe five key dimensions of mental load (Daminger, 2019; Robertson et al., 2023):
Cognition: Thinking, remembering, and tracking what needs to be done.
Management: Coordinating and overseeing how and when things happen.
Communal orientation: Prioritising the needs of others and maintaining awareness of their wellbeing.
Anticipation: Planning ahead and identifying future needs.
Invisibility: The hidden nature of this work — often unacknowledged or difficult to measure.
It’s this invisible layer of thinking that can make a seemingly balanced workload feel anything but. Even when time spent on physical tasks is shared, one person often carries the greater share of organising and remembering.
How Mental Load Often Looks Different for Women
Research across multiple countries shows that women frequently carry a disproportionate share of the mental load, even when both partners work similar hours or share visible responsibilities (Robertson et al., 2023; Offer, 2023).
This imbalance isn’t only about what gets done — it’s about who does the thinking. Studies show women are more likely to coordinate schedules, anticipate needs, and monitor outcomes across work, home, and social life. These patterns are shaped by longstanding social expectations around emotional and relational responsibility, not personal preference or ability (Batool et al., 2024).
The result? Many women describe feeling like the “project manager” of life — accountable for keeping everything running, often without formal recognition or relief. Over time, this mental workload contributes to what psychologists call role overload, a recognised predictor of stress and burnout (Glynn et al., 2009; ScienceDirect, 2023).
Importantly, these findings don’t reflect individual shortcomings. They highlight a broader social and cognitive reality: when one person repeatedly carries the anticipatory and managerial mental work, the impact is cumulative.
How Mental Load Impacts Wellbeing, Health, and Stress
The effects of mental load reach far beyond tiredness. Research consistently links high cognitive load to poorer psychological wellbeing, greater emotional exhaustion, and lower life satisfaction (Aviv et al., 2024; Mental Health Foundation, 2022).
A few key findings stand out:
Stress and emotional exhaustion: Unequal mental load is associated with higher stress levels and symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Cognitive fatigue: The ongoing demand to monitor multiple streams of information reduces concentration and creativity, increasing the risk of burnout.
Reduced wellbeing: Studies link mental load to diminished relationship satisfaction, lower motivation, and feelings of disconnection or emptiness.
Work–life spillover: When cognitive bandwidth is constantly consumed by unseen tasks, performance and focus at work can also decline, affecting confidence and career progression (SSRN, 2024; SOM, 2023).
Chronic cognitive overload doesn’t only affect mood — it can influence sleep quality, physical health, and even cardiovascular risk over time. Understanding and addressing it isn’t self-indulgence; it’s essential prevention.
Evidence-Based Strategies to Reduce Mental Load
Reducing mental load doesn’t mean doing less; it means thinking differently about how tasks — and the responsibility for managing them — are shared. Research suggests that acknowledging, externalising, and redistributing mental tasks are the most effective ways to lower the burden.
Make the Invisible Visible
Begin by naming the mental work you do. Studies show that simply identifying these cognitive responsibilities helps others recognise their scope and opens conversation for change (Robertson et al., 2023).
Talk openly about the planning and anticipating that sit behind everyday routines — not as blame, but as shared awareness.
Redistribute the Cognitive Work
Divide responsibilities by full domains rather than single tasks. For example, one person might oversee travel logistics, another communication follow-ups. Each person manages the full process — anticipating, deciding, and monitoring — reducing constant mental switching.
This approach mirrors the “four-phase model” described by Daminger (2019) and has been shown to lower perceived overload.
Externalise Where Possible
Free your mental space by moving information into shared systems — digital calendars, collaborative apps, or physical boards. Cognitive psychology calls this offloading, and evidence shows it reduces mental fatigue and errors.
Set Cognitive Boundaries
Be realistic about what’s necessary, what can wait, and what can be delegated. Releasing the pressure of perfectionism — supported by CBT-informed boundary setting — helps prevent cognitive strain (Curtiss et al., 2021).
Seek Social Support and Reflection
Talking about the mental load with trusted peers or support networks can reduce isolation and normalise shared responsibility. Research on social buffering shows that open discussion about stressors protects against emotional exhaustion and enhances resilience (UCLA Health, 2023).
Moving Toward Mental Clarity
The mental load may be invisible, but its effects are not. Recognising it is the first step towards balance and wellbeing.
Try taking a few quiet minutes today to externalise what’s on your mind — not to organise it, but simply to see it. Awareness turns mental clutter into something you can actively work with.
Explore This Topic in Coaching
Bring this knowledge to your decision-making and to your coaching sessions, and make faster progress toward your goals.
If this topic resonates, you’ll find deeper reflection tools and structured strategies for lightening the mental load inside the Women’s Wellbeing Lab — practical, science-informed resources designed to help you regain clarity, calm, and confidence in everyday life.
References
1. Robertson, J. et al. (2023). Cognitive and invisible dimensions of mental load. PLOS Global Public Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10148620/
2. Aviv, E., et al. (2024). Cognitive labour and wellbeing. Archives of Women’s Mental Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10911315/
3. Offer, S. (2023). Gender differences in cognitive labour. European Sociological Review. https://academic.oup.com/esr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/esr/jcaf019/8235651
4. Batool, S., et al. (2024). Gendered expectations and cognitive overload. SSRN Working Paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5247922
5. UCLA Health (2023). Mental load: What it is and how to manage it. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/mental-load-what-it-and-how-manage-it
6. Mental Health Foundation (2022). Stress: Are we coping? https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-08/stress-are-we-coping.pdf
7. ScienceDirect (2023). Cognitive overload and wellbeing in modern life. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666142X23000322
8. Glynn, K., et al. (2009). Role overload and women’s mental health. Canadian Public Health Journal.
Society of Occupational Medicine (2023). Mental health and wellbeing of UK professionals. https://www.som.org.uk/sites/som.org.uk/files/The_Mental_Health_and_Wellbeing_of_Nurses_and_Midwives_in_the_United_Kingdom.pdf
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