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What is Mental stamina?
thymia’s mental stamina level helps you understand your emotional and physical energy levels, allowing you to optimise your mental resources. Think of it as your defence against burnout. At thymia, we focus on measuring your physical and mental energy capacity in response to various demands. Your mental stamina score indicates how effectively you're maintaining your energy and enthusiasm across all dimensions of life, whether at work, school or home. When mental stamina is low, you might experience feelings of burnout or mental exhaustion, often caused by extended periods of stress or low relaxation. It's about more than just alertness—it's about sustaining deep, lasting energy for activities that matter to you.
Regular monitoring of your mental stamina helps you recognise when your mental energy reserves might need replenishing and you may be experiencing higher levels of burnout. Various life circumstances can impact your mental stamina, including work dynamics, career transitions, academic pursuits, financial management, relationships or caregiving responsibilities.
Maintaining mental stamina is about recognising your energy patterns and taking proactive steps to keep you feeling engaged and avoiding burnout. Mental stamina manifests differently for each person, and understanding your unique pattern is key to maintaining high performance.
Signs that indicate you may benefit from re-building your mental stamina include:
Feeling more tired than usual.
Finding it hard to get excited about things.
Tasks taking more effort than they usually do.
Not wanting to join in at work or with friends.
Having trouble staying focused.
Changes in how well you sleep or remember things.
Everyone experiences variations in their mental stamina—what matters is how you actively manage and rebuild it. Your mental stamina significantly influences your overall well-being and deserves thoughtful attention.
If you are at all concerned about your mental health and well-being or anything you see in your wellness scores, we recommend you contact a healthcare provider or a mental health professional.
Within the UK and EU you can also call the Samaritans by dialling 116 123.
How can I build and maintain mental stamina?
Mental stamina is your natural capacity for handling life's demands - long term stress can affect your mental stamina and give feelings of exhaustion and burnout. By implementing effective energy management strategies, you can enhance your physical and mental resilience.
Here are 5 powerful ways to build and maintain your mental stamina
Establish healthy boundaries
Create sustainable rhythms by balancing personal renewal time with life's responsibilities. Regular renewal practices have been shown to enhance daily performance and strengthen long-term mental stamina.
Work-life rhythm: Design specific work hours, especially when working remotely. Practise intentional transitions between work and personal time, and fully disconnect during holidays.
Personal values alignment: Maintain clarity about your values, tolerances and comfort levels in any particular area of life. Honour these personal guidelines by communicating them clearly and living in alignment with them.
Practise selective engagement: In our dynamic world, it's important to choose your commitments wisely. Embrace the power of strategic selection—saying "yes" to what energises you and "no" to what depletes you. Prioritise activities that maintain your energy and contribute to your well-being.
Embrace excellence while releasing perfectionism
Whilst striving for excellence is admirable, remember that sustainable high performance comes from balanced standards. Research shows that flexible, realistic standards lead to better outcomes and stronger mental stamina. Practise recognising when you're meeting effective standards versus pursuing unnecessary perfectionism.
Ask for help
Having strong mental stamina doesn't mean doing everything alone. Talking to friends, family, or colleagues when you need support is really helpful. Studies show that people who reach out to others cope better with life's challenges.
Take breaks
Taking proper breaks makes a big difference to your mental energy. Start small - like actually stepping away from your desk at lunchtime. Go for a walk, learn something new, or just do something you enjoy.
Set SMART goals
When you want to build your mental stamina, it helps to set clear goals. Try the SMART way.
Make your goals:
Specific: Be clear about what you want to do. This makes your goal easier to focus on.
Measurable: Decide how you'll know when you've reached your goal. This helps you see your progress and stay motivated.
Achievable: Make sure your goal is something you can actually do. This keeps it realistic.
Relevant: Choose a goal that matters to you and fits with your other plans. This makes it more meaningful.
Time-bound: Set a deadline for your goal as a target to aim for.
Final note
Building mental stamina is different for everyone - like how we all have different ways of relaxing. Getting help to stay mentally strong is a smart choice, not a weakness. While everyone's path is different, these tips can help you build lasting mental strength. Take small steps each day, and remember that little changes add up to make a big difference.
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References
References
Bailey, R. (2019). Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 13(6), 615–618. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634
Demerouti, E. (2015). Strategies used by individuals to prevent burnout. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 45(10), 1106–1112. https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.12494
Gemmao. (2024, January 29). How employers and employees can alleviate the risk of burnout at work. Mental Health UK. https://mentalhealth-uk.org/blog/how-employers-and-employees-can-alleviate-the-risk-of-burnout-at-work/
Hill, A. P., & Curran, T. (2016). Multidimensional Perfectionism and Burnout. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20(3), 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868315596286
Mental Health UK. (2024). Burnout. Mental Health UK; Mental Health UK. https://mentalhealth-uk.org/burnout/
Morera, D., Delgado, J., Lorenzo, E., Elisa, & Delgado, N. (2024). “Superheroes? No, thanks.” Accepting vulnerability in healthcare professionals. Human Resources for Health, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-024-00899-9
Nash, J. (2018, January 5). How to set healthy boundaries & build positive relationships. Positive Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/great-self-care-setting-healthy-boundaries/
Occupational burnout. (2022, February 11). Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. https://www.newcastle-hospitals.nhs.uk/services/newcastle-occupational-health-service/covid-support-materials/managing-occupational-burnout/