Mental Fatigue Makes Working Out Feel Harder

Without a doubt, we’ve all been there, when we felt so tired after work that hitting the gym for an intense cardio workout was the last thing we would have wanted to do. We did it nonetheless, and came back home feeling more exhausted than ever, instead of refreshed as we might have hoped. This happens because mental fatigue makes working out feel harder, as a new research has shown, which is why we should avoid the gym when we’re too tired from work.

The research compared how two groups of volunteers felt while doing cardio exercises at the end of the day. One group was asked to perform a mentally-challenging task on the computer for about 90 minutes, while the other got to watch a dull documentary instead. Members of the first group said, while working out, that they felt as if the exercises were harder than before, which meant that their tired minds interpreted them as such. Their results during the workout, though, did not differ from those of the members of the second group, which clearly makes this a mind-over-body type of thing.

“Throughout the exercise sessions, researchers tracked cardiovascular response to exercise by assessing oxygen consumption, heart rate, cardiac output, blood pressure, ventilation, and blood lactate levels. Participants answered questions about perceived effort and motivation. Participants who performed the mental task reported greater fatigue afterward, compared to those who had watched the documentary. The participants stopped exercising an average of 15% sooner after doing the mental task (640 seconds), compared to watching the documentary (754 seconds).” WebMD reveals about the study published in the March issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.

What this means is that, while the exercises are not actually harder than usual after an exhausting day’s work, it’s best if we just skipped the gym that night. Instead of coming out at the end of the class feeling refreshed and in better spirits, working out when we’re already mentally fatigued would only make matters worse, experts have it, so it’s best if we just took a longer walk with a friend to unwind and relax.

Another option to bypass this, as FitSugar points out, is to enroll in an aerobics class, where the group motivation should be enough to put our mind away from everything related to work. If we’re too tired for that too, we should perhaps stick to just walking.