When Willpower Stops Working
Support that still holds on tired days
This is the part of the year when effort costs more.
The calendar is full. The inbox keeps regenerating. And your brain feels like it’s running on low-power mode, even though nothing is technically “wrong.”
You’re still functioning. You’re still showing up and doing all the things. But if someone asked you to be sharp, inspired, or emotionally articulate on demand? Yeah, not so much.
This is the part of the year where effort starts to feel expensive. Not because you’re overwhelmed, but because you’re tired in a more cumulative way.
And this is exactly where the breath earns its keep.
Your brain doesn’t need another pep talk
Most of us are trained to solve fatigue cognitively.
Try harder.
Push through.
Remember your why.
(And maybe, drink something stronger.)
Sounds logical, but it’s actually misguided. Why? Mental fatigue isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a bandwidth problem.
Your brain has been on for months: making decisions, tracking details, managing micro-stresses, holding your daily life together. By December, it’s not looking for inspiration. It’s looking for load-sharing.
This is where the body steps in.
Because long before you learned productivity systems or self-talk strategies, your breath learned how to support you.
It learned rhythm.
It learned pacing.
It learned to distribute effort so nothing had to work quite so hard.
And your breath remembers how to do this even when your brain is checked out. Because science 🤓
Baseline strength for tired days
Let’s talk about diaphragmatic breathing.
People associate diaphragmatic breathing with relaxation, which is accurate. But I want you to focus right now on something else: at its core, diaphragmatic breathing is structural support.
The diaphragm is designed to be the primary driver of breath. When the diaphragm is doing its job well, the neck, shoulders, jaw, and upper chest don’t have to compensate.
Yet for so many people, breathing shifts upward during long workdays, lots of screen time, and periods of sustained focus. And your nervous system starts expending more energy than it needs to.
Not necessarily enough to alarm you – hopefully you don’t feel like you’re in fight or flight. But enough to drain you? Very real possibility.
So think of diaphragmatic breathing as baseline strength. It’s posture for your nervous system which helps you conserve your energy for more pressing things.
By the way, your body remembers how to do this.
Depending on your normal breathing patterns, it might take some practice to get back in the groove. But long before you learned how to push through a workday, your body knew how to breathe optimally. That ability is there even when your brain is tired, distracted, or checked out.
And when you inhale to widen your lower ribs and the upper belly without forcing it, the system reorganizes itself. It doesn’t depend on your mood, your mindset, or your capacity to care deeply in the moment. Regardless of any of those things, it just happens.
You may not feel “relaxed” right away. But you’ll feel less held together. And sometimes that’s exactly what a fatigued system needs.
Do this instead of just thinking about it
Next time you notice yourself feeling fuzzy or staticky, don’t ask your brain to work through it. Instead, adjust your mechanics.
Sit comfortably. Lengthen your spine. Put your hands on your lower two ribs on each side.
As you inhale, feel those ribs gently expand. No exaggerating or pushing out, just allowing space. And then as you exhale, feel those ribs move back inward as everything softens.
No counting for this one. No performing. Just let the diaphragm help distribute the work the way it was designed to.
Do it for a few minutes. As long as you have… or have the attention span. No rules. You don’t need another thing to have to remember right now.
Except maybe this: sometimes the answer isn’t doing less; it’s doing things with less unnecessary effort.
Last Gasp
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
— Richard Rohr
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