• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Farnam Street Logo

Farnam Street

Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out

  • Newsletter
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Articles
  • Log In
  • Become a Member
TweetEmailLinkedInPrint
Psychology|Reading Time: 2 minutes

Cognitive Exhaustion: Resting Your Mental Muscle

In the go-go-go world of today, we need to be sure we’re giving our mind ample opportunity to rest and relax — recognizing when we need a mental break.

I usually take a walk. Or go to a yoga class.

It turns out resting your mind has a big impact. Taking a walk isn’t enough, it depends on where you’re walking.

In Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, Daniel Goleman elaborates on cognitive exhaustion:

Tightly focused attention gets fatigued—much like an overworked muscle—when we push to the point of cognitive exhaustion. The signs of mental fatigue, such as a drop in effectiveness and a rise in distractedness and irritability, signify that the mental effort needed to sustain focus has depleted the glucose that feeds neural energy.

The antidote to attention fatigue is the same as for the physical kind: take a rest. But what rests a mental muscle?

Try switching from the effort of top-down control to more passive bottom-up activities, taking a relaxing break in a restful setting. The most restful surroundings are in nature, argues Stephen Kaplan at the University of Michigan, who proposes what he calls “attention restoration theory.”

Such restoration occurs when we switch from effortful attention, where the mind needs to suppress distractions, to letting go and allowing our attention to be captured by whatever presents itself. But only certain kinds of bottom-up focus act to restore energy for focused attention. Surfing the Web, playing video games, or answering email does not.

We do well to unplug regularly; quiet time restores our focus and composure. But that disengagement is just the first step. What we do next matters, too. Taking a walk down a city street, Kaplan points out, still puts demands on attention— we’ve got to navigate through crowds, dodge cars, and ignore honking horns and the hum of street noise.

In contrast, a walk through a park or in the woods puts little such demand on attention. We can restore by spending time in nature— even a few minutes strolling in a park or any setting rich in fascinations like the muted reds of clouds at sunset or a butterfly’s flutter. This triggers bottom-up attention “modestly,” as Kaplan’s group put it, allowing circuits for top-down efforts to replenish their energy, restoring attentiveness and memory, and improving cognition.

A walk through an arboretum led to better focus on return to concentrated tasks than a stroll though downtown. Even sitting by a mural of a nature scene— particularly one with water in it— is better than the corner coffee shop.

Read Next

Next Post:What A Rembrandt Can Teach you about Software and Programmers A thoughtful passage by David Gelernter in Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox…How It Will Happen and …

Discover What You’re Missing

Get the weekly email full of actionable ideas and insights you can use at work and home.


As seen on:

New York Times logo
Wall Street Journal logo
The Economist logo
Financial Times logo
Farnam Street Logo

© 2025 Farnam Street Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Proudly powered by WordPress. Hosted by Pressable. See our Privacy Policy.

  • About
  • Sponsorship
  • Speaking
  • Support

We’re Syrus Partners.
We buy amazing businesses.


Farnam Street participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon.