Understanding Mental Exhaustion in Modern Life

Across OECD countries, mental exhaustion has shifted from a marginal concern to a dominant feature of everyday life. According to data compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, between 2010 and 2023 the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders increased by 25% to 60% depending on the country, with the sharpest rise observed after 2020. In several member states, more than 20% of adults now report experiencing persistent mental or emotional fatigue.

This phenomenon, however, does not manifest uniformly.

In North America, surveys from public health agencies indicate record levels of self-reported mental exhaustion, particularly among working-age adults. In the United States and Canada, more than 40% of employees describe themselves as “emotionally drained” on a regular basis, while average daily screen exposure exceeds 10 hours when professional and personal use are combined. The dominant explanatory frameworks emphasize productivity pressure, individual performance and self-optimization — yet these narratives coexist with historically high levels of burnout and disengagement.

In Western Europe, the picture is different but convergent. Countries such as France, Germany and the Nordic states report lower working hours on average, yet rising levels of psychological distress. Eurostat data show a steady increase in stress-related disorders and long-term sick leave linked to mental fatigue. Here, exhaustion appears less tied to overwork than to fragmentation: weakened social bonds, declining participation in collective institutions, and a growing sense of isolation despite dense digital connectivity.

In East Asian OECD countries, including Japan and South Korea, mental exhaustion has long been associated with work intensity. Yet recent data reveal a broader shift. Younger generations report high levels of emotional overload even outside professional contexts, alongside record levels of digital engagement and social withdrawal. The issue is no longer confined to labor structures, but extends to identity, belonging and meaning.

Across these cultural contexts, one common trend emerges: the erosion of collective frameworks capable of sustaining human thought and emotional life.

Classical sociology already identified this risk. Émile Durkheim described how the weakening of shared norms and institutions produces states of disorientation that affect not only social order, but inner psychological stability. More recently, philosophers such as Byung-Chul Han have argued that contemporary societies have replaced external structures of regulation with internalized pressure, transforming freedom into a source of fatigue.

Historically, religious institutions, extended family systems, local communities and shared rituals played a structural role beyond belief or tradition. They functioned as symbolic containers: spaces where emotions were regulated, meaning was transmitted, and individual experience was held within collective narratives. As these frameworks recede across most OECD societies, mental and emotional processes increasingly unfold without shared limits.

At the same time, digital environments have become the primary arenas of expression. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube concentrate unprecedented volumes of emotional display, reaction and self-exposure. Thought is externalized instantly, publicly and continuously. These spaces amplify individual psychological needs, but offer little symbolic containment. The result is not simply emotional expression, but a constant overflow of unprocessed experience.

Mental exhaustion, in this context, cannot be understood solely as an individual failure to cope. It reflects a structural transformation of modern life, in which the social and symbolic environments that once supported human interiority no longer hold.

Mental exhaustion as a structural condition: unequal exposure across cultures

A global rise in mental exhaustion across OECD countries

Across OECD countries, mental exhaustion has moved from a marginal concern to a persistent feature of everyday life. According to data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders increased between 25% and 60% across member states between 2010 and 2023. In several countries, more than 20% of adults now report experiencing chronic psychological distress or sustained mental fatigue. These trends began well before the Covid-19 pandemic and accelerated afterward, suggesting a structural shift rather than a temporary crisis.

Search engine data and public health indicators converge on the same observation: mental exhaustion is no longer limited to specific professions or vulnerable populations. It has become a shared condition cutting across age groups, income levels and educational backgrounds. This widespread distribution raises a fundamental question. If exhaustion were primarily the result of individual overload or poor stress management, its prevalence would vary more sharply with working conditions and economic hardship. The data suggest otherwise.

North America: internalized pressure and the burden of self-management

In North America, levels of reported mental exhaustion are among the highest in the OECD. Surveys conducted by the American Psychological Association indicate that over 40% of adults in the United States describe themselves as persistently stressed or emotionally drained, including outside professional contexts. At the same time, research from the Pew Research Center shows that a majority of Americans feel overwhelmed by the volume of information they encounter daily, particularly through digital media and social platforms.

Average daily screen exposure in the United States and Canada now exceeds 10 hours when professional and personal use are combined. In cultural environments that strongly emphasize autonomy, self-realization and individual responsibility, mental fatigue appears closely linked to the internalization of pressure. Individuals are expected not only to perform, but to continuously manage their emotions, identities and life trajectories. Exhaustion here is less imposed from the outside than generated from within.

Western Europe: social fragmentation despite material security

Western European countries present a different but convergent pattern. Average working hours are lower than in North America, and social protection systems are more extensive. Yet mental exhaustion continues to rise. Data from Eurostat show a steady increase in long-term sick leave related to psychological distress in countries such as France, Germany and several Nordic states over the past decade.

In this context, exhaustion appears less directly tied to workload than to social fragmentation. Participation in collective institutions has declined, extended family structures have weakened, and local relational environments have eroded. Despite material security, many individuals experience isolation and a lack of continuity in their social lives. The paradox is striking: societies designed to protect individuals materially struggle to provide symbolic and relational support capable of sustaining mental life.

East Asia: from work-related strain to existential fatigue

In East Asian OECD countries, including Japan and South Korea, mental exhaustion has long been associated with work intensity and social discipline. High levels of professional pressure have historically shaped public discourse on burnout. However, recent data reveal a broader transformation. Younger generations report high levels of emotional fatigue even outside the workplace, alongside rising rates of social withdrawal and unprecedented levels of digital engagement.

The issue increasingly extends beyond labor structures to questions of identity, belonging and meaning. Traditional cultural frameworks that once regulated emotional expression and social roles appear less effective in containing contemporary psychological demands. Mental exhaustion in these societies no longer reflects only excessive work, but a deeper destabilization of shared reference points.

Mental exhaustion as a symptom of weakened collective containment

Across these diverse cultural contexts, a common pattern emerges. Mental exhaustion intensifies where collective frameworks capable of supporting thought and emotional life have weakened most sharply. Classical sociology already identified this risk. Émile Durkheim described how the erosion of shared norms and institutions produces states of disorientation that undermine psychological stability. More recently, Byung-Chul Han has argued that societies centered on unlimited self-expression and performance replace external regulation with internalized pressure, transforming freedom into fatigue.

The data suggest that mental exhaustion is not primarily the result of individual fragility or poor adaptation. It reflects a structural transformation of modern life. As collective frameworks of meaning, regulation and symbolic containment weaken, individuals are increasingly left to process emotional and cognitive overload alone. The unequal exposure observed across cultures does not contradict this diagnosis. It reinforces it, revealing how different societies absorb the same ontological rupture in distinct but convergent ways.

The loss of collective embodiment and the rise of self-projected mental fatigue

When the individual becomes the sole bearer of meaning and transformation

One of the defining features of modern mental exhaustion is the growing conviction that individuals must carry, shape and transform their lives alone. In contemporary societies, meaning is increasingly understood as a personal project, self-defined and self-managed. Success, fulfillment and coherence are perceived as individual responsibilities, rather than shared trajectories.

This shift has measurable consequences. According to surveys conducted across OECD countries, perceived mental load increases significantly when individuals report feeling solely responsible for their life outcomes. In North America and Western Europe, more than 60% of adults describe their life path as a “personal construction” rather than a collective or inherited framework. This internalization of responsibility correlates strongly with higher levels of anxiety, decision fatigue and emotional exhaustion.

Mental fatigue, in this context, does not arise primarily from external constraints, but from continuous self-projection. The individual becomes both the subject and the object of transformation, carrying alone the weight of coherence, progress and meaning.

Collective embodiment as a regulator of mental load

Anthropological and sociological research consistently shows that mental load decreases when individuals perceive themselves as members of a structured collective body. In environments where roles are clearly defined and shared goals are explicit, cognitive and emotional demands are distributed rather than internalized.

Historical and cross-cultural comparisons illustrate this effect. In traditional village structures, extended families and religious communities, individuals did not primarily conceive themselves as autonomous projects. They understood themselves as participants in a larger body, where each role contributed to a common purpose. This sense of embodied belonging reduced the need for constant self-evaluation and self-justification.

Empirical data support this observation. Studies on social cohesion conducted in Europe and East Asia show that individuals embedded in strong community networks report lower levels of perceived mental overload, even when material conditions are modest. In contrast, societies characterized by high individualization display higher rates of stress-related disorders despite greater economic security.

Entering the symbolic space through the social body

What distinguishes these collective environments is not the absence of effort or responsibility, but the presence of symbolic containment. The individual enters the symbolic space through the social body that carries them. Meaning is not generated internally and endlessly questioned; it is received, shared and enacted.

Classical sociology already identified this protective function. Émile Durkheim emphasized that collective representations stabilize individual experience by providing shared frameworks of interpretation. When these frameworks weaken, individuals are exposed to disorientation and psychological strain.

In symbolic terms, the social body acts as a container. It absorbs part of the emotional and cognitive load, protecting individuals from destructive forms of mental fatigue. Without such containment, thought becomes circular, self-referential and exhausting.

Christian spirituality and decentering of the self: the Carmelite example

Christian spirituality offers a particularly clear illustration of this mechanism. In traditions such as the Order of Discalced Carmelites, the spiritual journey is not centered on personal achievement or self-optimization. The focus is deliberately displaced from the individual self toward Christ present within the believer.

This decentering has concrete psychological effects. The Christian life, especially in contemplative traditions, does not frame existence as a project of personal success. Desire, weakness and ambition are not denied, but reoriented in the light of the Gospel. The burden of self-realization is replaced by participation in a shared spiritual body.

Historical data illustrate the contrast. In Western Europe, regular religious participation declined from over 50% of the population in the 1960s to less than 20% in many countries by the 2010s. Over the same period, indicators of anxiety, depression and perceived mental overload increased sharply. While correlation does not imply causation, the parallel evolution highlights the loss of collective symbolic frameworks capable of supporting inner life.

Within religious communities, qualitative studies show lower levels of performance-related stress and decision fatigue, despite demanding daily rhythms. The reason is not the absence of constraint, but the redistribution of meaning. Life is not oriented toward individual success, but toward a shared horizon that transcends personal outcomes.

From shared purpose to self-referential exhaustion

Across cultures, the pattern is consistent. When individuals perceive themselves as members of a body moving toward a common purpose, mental fatigue remains contained. When they experience themselves as isolated agents responsible for transforming their lives alone, exhaustion intensifies.

Modern societies have largely dismantled collective structures that once embodied meaning. In their place, individuals are invited to project themselves endlessly into digital, professional and emotional spaces, carrying alone the task of coherence. Mental exhaustion emerges not as a personal failure, but as the predictable outcome of a world where the symbolic body no longer holds.

From mental exhaustion to contained expression

Mental exhaustion does not arise because individuals are incapable of coping. It emerges when human interiority is left without structures capable of containing it. As collective symbolic frameworks weaken, individuals are increasingly asked to carry meaning, coherence and transformation alone. Digital spaces amplify this burden by encouraging constant projection, visibility and emotional expression without shared limits.

Yet exhaustion is not inevitable. Across cultures and histories, mental life has remained sustainable when individuals were carried by a body larger than themselves — a social, symbolic or spiritual body that redistributed meaning and responsibility. What protects against destructive mental fatigue is not the absence of effort, but the presence of containment.

In today’s digital environments, this raises a crucial question. How can individuals and organizations express themselves publicly without reproducing the same dynamics of overload, self-exposure and fragmentation? How can communication become a space of coherence rather than a site of further exhaustion?

This is not primarily a technical issue. It is an editorial and symbolic one.

Content, when thoughtfully structured, can act as a form of containment. It can slow down expression, clarify intention, and reconnect communication with a shared horizon rather than individual performance. Platforms such as LinkedIn, often experienced as exhausting arenas of self-promotion, can become spaces of meaningful presence when discourse is grounded, coherent and oriented toward something larger than personal visibility.

My work at Euskal Conseil is rooted in this conviction. I support individuals and organizations who wish to communicate without contributing to the saturation of the digital space. Editorial strategy and LinkedIn accompaniment are approached not as tools for constant exposure, but as frameworks that protect thought, align expression with inner coherence, and respect the psychological limits of both the speaker and the audience.

In a world where mental exhaustion has become structural, choosing how — and why — we speak publicly is no longer a secondary concern. It is a way of restoring symbolic containment where it has been lost.