Lighten Your Mental Load

Book excerpt: Mental labor, or the mental load, involves the many -- and extremely varied -- tasks that are involved in managing a household and/or workplace. This topic has exploded over the past couple of years, especially for women. As stated in an October 2017 Washington Post article [1], "The constant stress of trying to stay organized -- and to remember to execute so many tasks every single day -- is affecting women's relationships with their spouses, children, friends, and colleagues. They are experiencing mental, emotional, and physical fatigue trying to stay on top of it all." Lighten Your Mental Load shares real stories of what this load is like for both men and women across the globe and how it originated. It offers practical advice on how to lighten this burden through technology and other methods in the following areas: Home Shopping and Meals Marriage/Partners Children Pets Transportation Career Birthdays, Celebrations, Holidays, and Vacations Volunteering, Church Activities, and Hobbies Caregiving Retirement Finally, the book discusses ways to not add to the mental load of others and how we can more evenly distribute the mental labor between both sexes for future generations.