What Do We Want For Mother's Day? A Break From The Mental Load

Ahh, the mental load. That never-ending list of to-dos, don’t forgets and keeping on top of household jobs that makes your brain feel like it’s going to explode on a daily basis. (Just me?)

A survey of 1,000 women in the UK has revealed 97% of mothers say they are responsible for planning, remembering and managing both work and home life; with only 12% saying their household responsibilities are shared equally.

Not only that, but two in five mothers – 44%, to be exact – say the mental load they carry isn’t recognised by others, according to the poll by neurotechnology company Parasym.

Most (83%) say they think about responsibilities at least once a day, even when they should be resting, and 15% can simply never switch off from it. 

More than three-quarters (77%) report poor sleep as a result of the stress, with two-thirds also sharing they struggle with anxiety or racing thoughts (68%), fatigue (66%) and finding it difficult to switch off (66%). 

“Society has always relied on this invisible labour for the smooth running of households’ daily life,” says Dr Elisabetta Burchi, head of research at Parasym.

But she warned by not recognising mothers as “the family’s usual cognitive labourer, this may only add further stress, increasing feelings of frustration, resentment or burnout”.

How does the mental load affect mothers?

UCLA Health describes the mental load as the “behind-the-scenes, cognitive and emotional work needed to manage a household”.

Studies have found mums take on 71% of all household mental load tasks (in comparison to dads, who take on 45%), ranging from planning meals and arranging activities to managing household finances. 

But the more you shoulder, the more likely it is your nervous system will begin to buckle under the constant strain. 

The constant cognitive effort of remembering, organising and planning can keep the autonomic nervous system in a state of prolonged activation, said Dr Burchi. 

When the brain is constantly anticipating the next task, deadline or responsibility, it never fully signals that it is safe to switch off, meaning it’s harder for the body to enter a restful state. 

Over time, this places the nervous system under strain, leading to dysregulation, she suggested.

Cue those symptoms many burnt out parents might be familiar with: fatigue, sleep disruption, anxiety, hormonal disruption, IBS and headaches. 

The vagus nerve is a key regulator of the body’s calming system and plays a critical role in managing stress, mood, cognitive function and inflammation. When vagal tone is low, resilience drops. When it’s supported, the body is better able to return to a state of balance.

You can enhance vagal tone through practices such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, regular exercise, and finding social connection, as well as through vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), which uses electrical impulses to activate the vagus nerve.

Clear communication and sitting down to properly hash out who does what in the household (to ensure a fair distribution of the load) is also key to helping prevent resentment from building and burnout from taking hold.

And for anyone reading this who isn’t shouldering the majority of household tasks, perhaps a gentle conversation about how you plan to do more to help could ease the burden this Mother’s Day – and beyond.