By Jill
What Does it Mean to “Let Yourself Go?” and What Does “Letting Yourself Go” Signal? And What to do About it.
You may have heard the phrase, “She let herself go” and wonder what that even means.
Maybe you wonder, “Have I let myself go?” What does it mean if you notice you “let yourself go?”
First let’s define what is meant by “letting yourself go.”
This phrase is usually used to describe someone who used to seem to have it all together and suddenly shows a shift in their appearance or habits.
“Letting yourself go” is often used harshly, but in reality, it usually signals emotional overload, not a lack of care.
Some signs you have let yourself go:
- A change in hygiene habits can indicate someone has let themselves go. Their clothing and shoes may reflect being overwhelmed. For example, they may be reaching for the most comfortable shoes or slippers to go outside to the store or wearing sweat pants all of the time. It can be: reaching for the clothes that are easiest rather than reaching for what makes you feel “you.” Hygiene can get so overwhelming that they may lose their basic routines like showering, flossing, etc. If they let themselves go, they no longer have the emotional bandwidth or energy to put effort into their clothing or choice of shoes. This could be due to decision fatigue.
Decision fatigue happens when we make many daily decisions over and over to the point where we no longer have anymore emotional bandwidth to make one more single decision.
At that point, deciding what to watch on television, what version of something to buy on amazon, or even what shoes or pants to wear becomes too overwhelming for the brain and the person ends up resorting to no decision or grabbing the easiest option without really picking it. Also, these very decisions contribute to decision fatigue. We make many mico-decisions all day. When we have too many choices all of the time, it starts to cause decision fatigue. A way to combat this is to simplify choices or eliminate choices by setting routines or default choices (more on this later in the article).
If you have let yourself go, you may notice you no longer plan outfits, do your makeup, and resort to putting your hair in a clip instead of styling it. It is basically preserving mental energy by stopping those activities and can even get more extreme if other care stops.
- Letting yourself go can also show up as no longer responding to messages, being late, and neglecting responsibilities. You may be more forgetful. You may be forgetting to pay bills and missing appointments.
Keep in mind, reducing hygiene, being less responsive and more forgetful are all signs of overwhelm and decision fatigue can be part to blame.
In our modern world, we are presented with too many options. For example, there are hundred of versions of the same thing to buy, various streaming apps to choice from, and millions of shows to watch. All of these options over time can overwhelm our brains. We scroll and see tons of information on our phones.
The more micro-decisions we make, the more focus we are using. Our brains only have so much motivation, willpower, and focus and our brain’s willpower is driven by the neuro-transmitter, dopamine.
When we make too many small, non-important decisions excessively, all day, it takes away from our mental energy that we could be using for more important tasks or decisions. It can take away from our focus on work and creativity.
Besides decision fatigue, letting yourself go can be because of:
- Grief or loss.
- Fatigue, lack of sleep.
- Burnout at work, overworked, long hours.
- Your values are misaligned with your lifestyle (the current way you are living). It is important to think of the life you want to live, the current state of your life, and a pathway to get to the lifestyle you want through goal-setting, introspection, and acquiring new skills.
- Your priorities may have been on unfulfilling tasks, jobs, and relationships that have been draining. If you focused on things that have not been giving back to you or have been taking and taking and unsupportive or draining, this will lead to overwhelm and burnout.
- Caregiving roles like parenting, taking care of sick pet or pets in general, or caring for elderly parents can stretch your emotional bandwidth and energy levels when you are already balancing work, personal life, and your home life.
- Feeling down and not enough and can be due to circumstances not meeting your expectations or not performing how you wished thus leading you to be self critical.
- Letting thoughts spiral and getting stuck in a period of negativity that is fueled by negative thoughts and overthinking.
- The person may have chronic illness or fatigue, a new diagnosis, or an underlying, undiagnosed illness making them feel unwell.
- Their family member may have a new health diagnosis or be struggling with parenting a toddler, teen, or young adults.
- Taking on a new role at work or a new role in life such as becoming a parent for the first time.
Some of these causes of overwhelm lead to letting yourself go and sometimes letting yourself go, leads to more of these signs like a viscous cycle.
For example, if you get burnout at work and overwhelm, you may have spiraling thoughts, overthinking, and a negative spiral in your life and feel down and not enough.
You may feel you aren’t performing well. It all can be due to being overworked and not prioritizing rest, but then everything else spirals and stacks up.
Other signs of letting yourself go:
- You are in “survival mode.” You only focus on what is necessary to survive and pay the bills. This will leave you feeling unfulfilled because you are not thriving, making goals, planning for the future, or having fun and joy in your life. Survival mode is where we focus on food, shelter, and safety. When it is hard to pay the bills or eat, we do not have much energy for anything else and it makes it hard to focus on other tasks beyond the essentials. The longer the problems persist, the more it wears you down.
- Avoiding mirrors or photos can signal you feel disconnected from yourself or don’t even want to know what you look like. Your appearance can be causing great stress due to not having any energy left for self care. You don’t feel like yourself or look like yourself anymore.
- No longer having energy or time to plan meals or cook or grocery shop for ingredients
- No longer having energy or time for exercise, time with friends, fun, or intimacy.
- Avoiding making certain appointments or all appointments.
- No longer making plans with friends and family.
- Not taking care of your home, cleaning, property, or lawn/garden.
- Not washing your car.
By now you get the idea that any task that may not be necessary for survival begins to go out the door when you let yourself go and it is likely caused by a form of overwhelm.
None of these signs mean you are failing. They mean you have been carrying too much for too long.
Keep reading to find out tips on how to help relieve overwhelm.
What can we do about overwhelm and “letting ourselves go?”
Here are some ways to gently rebuild your energy and reconnect with yourself:
- Reduce decision fatigue by having a “go to” television list you create ahead of time.
- Have recurring items on online shopping lists so you are not always selecting everything every time you shop.
- Go with the decent, easiest shopping option instead of comparing 10 versions of it and reading tons of reviews.
- Have a “go to” list for where you eat and what items you like to order to limit overwhelm looking at menus or trying to find a place to meet someone for a meal. Make it easy.
- Make a list every day of 3 goals for the day. These should be your most important tasks. Try not to make long to-do lists in general or recurring to-do lists because these overwhelm the brain and can give you a sense of perpetually not being successful because you have a recurring 15 things you did not get to on your list. Break lists into small, daily lists so tasks get done and make you feel good for moving forward.
- Set boundaries with work. This may look like refusing to take work home. Making sure when the work day is done, you are not checking emails all night. Sometimes the boundaries are ones you set with yourself like deciding to only answer emails and work related calls during business hours or sometimes it requires setting boundaries with your boss or co-workers. Yes, you can set boundaries with your boss. That would require another article on how to do it. Boundaries exist so we can function, separate ourselves from everyone else by drawing the line where you begin and where the other person begins so not everything is meshed together. For example, having no boundaries means you become engulfed in work and working all day after work where you feel if you don’t, you will get behind or be fired. There is a way to shut things off for a few hours to rest and eventually, creating boundaries and resting will lead to increased productivity once you begin feeling more like yourself and less overwhelmed.
- Journaling or writing things down has been shown in studies to relieve stress. Journaling can be as simple as writing out all of your worries on paper. I like to write down what is troubling me and then 1 action step that may make me feel better about it. For example, if you are worried about your parent’s health, calling them is a good action step, just to help you feel more connected, even if you cannot control their health or what they do. When I worried about my Dad or Grandpa, I called them and it helped me feel a little better. Sometimes we just need to search for the slightly next better feeling or slightly next better thought and not try to jump to fixing everything or being perfect.
Some people like to do a “brain dump” where you write anything and everything going on in your mind for a set amount of time.
Using a voice memo can help keep too many thoughts circling in your head if you can’t write anything down.
Many people find writing by hand to be more therapeutic than typing.
- Studies have proven that walking reduces stress and is good for our health. If you don’t have time, consider taking work calls during a walk or getting a walking pad for your house. You can get a standing desk and walking pad for work. Even a 5 minute walk outside of the office can make a big difference in clearing your mind and getting natural light exposure. Natural light helps our brains, regulates our sleep, and gives us vitamin D.
- Get a habit app and make only a few new habits you track daily. It can set reminders for you.
- Turning off notifications on your phone can help reduce mental overwhelm.
- Having screen-free times of the day helps and avoiding your phone before bed and not using it first thing in the morning can set up your day in your own mental space rather than being bombarded by everything happening with your adult kids, work, friends, news, and social media. Give yourself the chance to start the day without your phone for even 30 minutes or 1 hour in the morning and see if you feel better after a week. Some people find success putting their phones in airplane mode at night to avoid getting calls or texts.
- Seek help. If you can outsource anything like meals, cleaning, laundry, or childcare, then extra help may reduce your overload.
- Get a therapist. Sometimes we need to talk to someone and our friends and family don’t want to hear us venting. If we hold in everything and keep it to ourselves, it will lead to overwhelm and a feeling of not being supported. A therapist can be there to listen. Therapists are supposed to not give advice. Instead, they ask questions and help you come to your own conclusions. This can help you sort out whatever may be bothering you. Sometimes we don’t even know the root cause of what is leading to our overwhelm.
Grief can be due to the loss of anything, not just the loss of loved ones. Having someone to talk to helps us process losses and grief.
- Make sleep a priority. One of the first ways to feel better quickly is to try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night and make a bedtime routine. By going to bed at the same time every night and having a routine, you can wind down for more successful sleep. I struggle with insomnia. My routine helps me relax. Reading before bed or doing something relaxing can help you sleep (television is too stimulating). Dimming the lights 1or 2 hours before bed helps your brain release melatonin that is needed for sleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t obsess about sleeping even though it can be stressful to worry about not getting enough rest. Try to do something relaxing for a little while and then try to slseep again. Forcing sleep often leads to frustration. Sometimes we even need to get out of bed for a little bit. I find reading in bed helps me get back to sleep sooner than doing anything else.
- Create new habits. Your brain gets fatigued when it is required to run on motivation. Habits use a different method in the brain where tasks become automatic and do not require thought or force. Pick only 1 new habit and set reminders to do it every day. Work on this same habit for 1 or 2 months before adding more habits. Doing too many new things at once leads to more overwhelm.
- Find easy, healthy meals that you can make or buy so that eating healthy is not difficult to do. This reduces temptation if healthy, tasty foods are accessible in your home then you are less likely to resort to an easy, unhealthy choice. Healthy eating can improve overall feelings of well-being when done consistently and gives your brain the nutrients it needs to function optimally. Some nutrients that are great for your brain are: Omega 3 fatty acids, Creatine, Choline naturally found in eggs, flavinoids like berries which also contain antioxidants, beta-carotene and lutien found in leafy greens, B vitamins (can be supplemented with nutritional yeast), amino acids like L-Theanine, Zinc naturally found in poultry, and health fats like olive oil, avocado (vitamin E), or coconut.
- Set up systems to automate your life. Reminders can help. Automatic bank transfers for savings or payments can help.
- Have clothing options that all match if you select the first thing you see. When I am feeling this way, I grab the first pants and shirt I see and it helps reduce my decision fatigue. Most things in my wardrobe are all colors that can easily go together with little thought. I leave interesting outfits and planning for when I feel my best.
I hope some of these tips help you reduce your overwhelm.
If you see someone struggling, where they appeared to have “let themselves go,” maybe ask them how they have been doing and ask follow up questions if they are say they are fine. You can say you are there for them and offer to do something for them that helps them. Often, if you ask them if there is anything you can do for them, they will likely reply saying they are fine and it is okay. If you offer a specific way to help, “Can I bring you dinner tomorrow, I can just drop it off?” They might take you up on the offer and it might help them. Maybe you can offer going with them to an appointment or helping them run an errand. You can also say you are there to listen. Know that they are not being lazy and are liekly overwhelmed. See if there is a way you can take off some of their burdens. You can offer help with mowing their lawn or yardwork. These are just examples and if anything, I hope this article helped bring understanding.
In conclusion, to reduce overwhelm, take things one step or habit at a time. Reduce overwhelm by reducing decision fatigue, set boundaries, reduce screen times, and set limits on what you say yes to. Prioritize sleep, health, and healthy eating and do only 1 thing at a time for at least a few weeks and eventually, you will find yourself to not be overwhelmed.
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