The mental load of it all
When does it become too much?
“The mental load is unlike any other form of housework because it has no clear start and stop time.” — Dean, Ruppanner, and Churchill
As more of us wake up to the concept of mental load and recognize the disproportionate burden that falls on women and mothers, it seems like the word ‘stress’ naturally wraps itself into discussion of this topic1.
It’s not uncommon to read how ‘mental load is stressful’ or hear about potential health repercussions of mental load in the context of chronic stress. I am guilty of this conflation too – I casually toss around both “stress” and “mental load” in conversation with anyone who seems remotely interested in my riffing on the social injustices of societal expectations on women (yes, I’m super fun at dinner parties).
And yet, in the recent Surgeon General Advisory on parental stress, mental load never comes up. Not once2. Perhaps this relates to the disproportionate mental load on mothers and how the advisory completely avoided gendering parental stress... but, I already ranted on that one.
Here is where I struggle (and maybe the Surgeon General and team did too?) – the concept of carrying around a constant to-do list in your brain doesn’t fit neatly into my definitions of stress.
That does not mean that mental load isn’t stressful. It just means that I wrestle quite a bit with this issue from my purist standpoint:
When does mental load become stressful? Why would the brain perceive mental load as a stressor? What aspects of mental load sound the alarm bell that triggers the physical stress response that affects our health?
Is the stress related to the emotional labor of mental load? Or is it related to holding a range of cognitive tasks that add elements of lack of control and unpredictability3?
As it relates to our body and our health, exactly what IS the stress of mental load?
“How many plates are spinning in the air.”
In her beautiful and brilliant discussion on the podcast, We Can Do Hard Things,
describes mental load as “how many plates are spinning in the air”
Building on that plate-spinning analogy, here is how my stress physiology wheels turn when I attempt to wrap my head around the concept of “what is the stress of mental load?”:
Is the stressor the number of plates? The weight of the plates? The sentimental value of the plates? The break-ability of the plates?
Does the stress response relate to your own capacity as a plate-spinning wizard? The confidence in your plate-spinning skills? The strength of your plate-spinning sticks?
Does recovery from the stress factor in how long each plate must spin? Having a nearby plate-spinning partner who can quickly grab a plate on the verge of tumbling? Knowing precisely when a new plate will stack on?
I gravitate towards these questions because the answers could directly relate to the effectiveness of solutions targeting mental load reduction.
In order to dissect all of this, I’ve called in back-up – the amazing
. In the series of posts following this one, Haley and I dig into all things mental load and gender and motherhood, discussing our view of the topic, the definitions, how it shows up in the world, and where to go from here.To prep for those posts, here is a little extra background:
Definitions and where stress may come in
Mental load, as a concept, has evolved in recent years and broken free from being lumped in with unpaid physical household labor (also an important and gender-skewed topic). The concept of mental load also seems to be on the verge of a brewing revolution as the curtain lifts and more of us start to recognize the gendered burden loading down our own brains on a daily basis.
As an academic topic, mental load mostly lives in the sociologist’s world (although it is starting to silo bust… see below!).
Dr. Leah Ruppaner and her co-authors, Dr. Liz Dean and Dr. Brendan Churchill, define and differentiate mental load this way:
“Physical labor, unlike cognitive and emotional labor, is usually a bounded activity so it does not lead to endless rumination or worry. Thus, the mental load is distinct and unique in its combination of cognitive and emotional labor that manifests internally and across time and space…. Cognitive labor becomes the mental load when it includes an emotional element.”
Dr.
(who also writes the Daminger Dispatch on Substack) defines the cognitive labor component this way:“cognitive labor is best defined as the work of (1) anticipating needs; (2) identifying options for meeting those needs; (3) deciding among the options; and (4) monitoring the results.”
She also qualified where the gender skew shows up most prominently:
“I further find that the women in this study carry a heavier cognitive load than their male partners and, in particular, complete a disproportionate amount of anticipation and monitoring work.”
Dr. Richard Petts and Dr. Daniel Carlson employed these definitions and looked at cognitive labor with a hint towards the stress and health repercussions of the gendered emotional labor associated with those tasks:
“being primarily responsible for cognitive labor was associated with psychological consequences for mothers. Specifically, mothers who were more responsible for cognitive labor reported being more stressed and more depressed. The combination of mothers being primarily responsible for all of these hidden tasks and spending more time doing them means that cognitive labor may act as a chronic stressor that increases mothers’ risk of experiencing psychological distress.”
In that study, an important distinction stood out to me. Not all cognitive labor is equal. It’s not the task, specifically, but rather the perception of that task – it’s the emotional component of the cognitive labor that gets under our skin. In a blog post, the authors summarized it this way:
“the effects of stressors vary by context, and we find that gender conditions the effect of cognitive labor on parents’ psychological well-being. Fathers are not expected to manage the household and constantly monitor family needs. While fathers increasingly desire to be more engaged parents, they do not face strong social pressures to perform domestic tasks. Consequently, fathers may receive praise and positive reinforcement for performing cognitive labor as they are seen as going above and beyond what is expected of them. In contrast, mothers are expected to be primarily responsible for household tasks and may be penalized and judged if they do not meet these expectations. This makes mothers uniquely susceptible to the hidden, enduring burdens of cognitive labor.”
These findings add another connection point to consider – is the severity of mental load stressors related to societal gender issues?
On the occupational health research side, Dr. Julie Holliday Wayne and colleagues question the alignment between research to date and the interpretation as it relates to mental load specific to family. They chose to skip previously established definitions of mental load entirely and quantify “invisible family load” for the sake of their research goals. They still settle on similar components, breaking down that invisible family load into three categories: managerial (“organizing”), cognitive (“thinking about”), and emotional (“worrying”).
Where stress may come in4 – within their new construct, the research team peeled apart the effects on the worker (remember, this is occupational health research), specifically looking at work-to-family conflict, family-work enrichment, work-nonwork balance, physical, mental, and emotional fatigue, family and life satisfaction5. While the emotional family load component aligned with exactly what I might expect – e.g. significant positive association with fatigue, negative association with satisfaction – the other components had neutral results or even an opposite response.
These results suggest that not every element of mental load is negative, and not all mental load is stressful.
As they point out, elements of cognitive and managerial family load represent “challenge stressors”6 – the outcomes of each task allow for positive feelings of accomplishment – that have beneficial effects on health and wellbeing. This may align with the Petts and Carlson discussion on how men and women internalize the outcomes of cognitive tasks differently.
This research adds a new kink into my line of questions – are there aspects of mental load that serve a stress buffer7?
Research on mental load, mental health, and stress
For potential links with stress and health, mental load scholars often cite research that is not bound to the household, specifically. For example, they tend to cite studies on how multi-tasking and workload relates to stress reactivity. Or they haphazardly throw a random “stress study” in as justification for a health connection8.
Luckily, more data is starting to fill these gaps as well.
In the last few months, Dr. Jodi Pawluski as well as Dr. Darby Saxbe in collaboration with Eve Rodsky published on the potential effects of mental load on women’s health and wellbeing.
Dr. Pawluski and her co-authors specifically looked at the sensitive window of the postpartum period marked by dynamic brain plasticity (structural brain changes that affect functionality). While they didn’t break down the impacts of cognitive versus emotional labor, their descriptions of the broader impacts of mental load seem to lean towards the emotional elements and the stress that accompanies it. In their words:
“the substantial mental load of modern-day motherhood, experienced in the context of this sensitive neurodevelopmental period, may represent a ‘perfect storm’ of factors contributing to mental health risks for mothers….The mental load of motherhood is, thus, critical to recognize, understand, and, ultimately, measure to fully comprehend this important life stage.”9
In the research by Saxbe, Rodsky, Elizabeth Aviv, and colleagues, the team quantified the gender breakdown of cognitive household tasks and measured the health implications of that breakdown.
Overall, not only did mothers take on significantly more of the cognitive labor for all tasks examined, but the women who carried a more disproportionate share of the load reported higher rates of depression, stress, burnout, and relationship dissatisfaction.
In their words:
“Unequal cognitive labor may be especially costly to wellbeing as it may drain one’s mental reserves and enjoyment of other activities, and might also be less likely to generate the sense of accomplishment that might come from completing specific physical housework tasks.”
All of this to say…
It feels like the pieces are coming together and the dots are connectable!
As outlined above, though, I still personally crave more granularity around the elements of this potential stressor in order to strengthen the case for the solutions, as viewed through a health lens.
Coming up!
I’ve gone on a quest with
to examine mental load from multiple angles. On the most basic level, we want to explore how we got here, what mental load looks like in our lives, and how we fix it to impact the issues that it causes.
This is an obvious oversimplification of a very complex issue. There are so many directions this topic could go in along this spectrum and this exploration feels like an immense undertaking.
But we have to start somewhere. So we’re starting with a conversation broken into three pieces to spare your reading eyes:
For me, the quest starts in the middle, the “how does this show up?” stage, and works towards the end of the spectrum. All through the lens of stress – what is it about mental load that relates to stress on parents (mostly mothers) and impacts our health and wellbeing? how can we look to solutions that decrease mental load as health solutions?
For Haley, the quest starts at the beginning “how did we get here?” with an eye on how historical context impacts everything along the spectrum.
You can read more about Haley’s work to date and follow along with her new Substack, Happy Families.
More soon!
The Maternal Stress Project is an educational and idea-spreading initiative and I want it to be available to all so a free subscription will give you access to everything. With that said, this is a beast of a project, so please consider bumping up to a paid subscription if you are able (any little bit counts!). Your generous support will facilitate the growth of the project… and be much appreciated!
I’ve asked this question before. I think about it often.
I’ve alluded to in loads of earlier posts. It is there, sitting pretty on the maternal stress map, waiting for me to tackle. Up to this point, I’ve kept mental load in a “not now, maybe later” state of limbo. It just feels a bit amorphous (but also omnipresent?) and my brain hurts when I try to wrap my head around too tightly. But, it’s time 😮💨
Ok, that’s not entirely fair. There was one paragraph on “mental labor”. Funny enough, though, that paragraph does not mention the disproportionate burden on women/mothers and yet, it CITES A REVIEW ON THE GENDER IMBALANCE for this very paragraph!
Lack of control and unpredictability are two hallmarks of what the brain perceives as a stressor to mount a physical stress response… See:
Important to note: I’m not sure how representative this study is given the lack of clarity around diversity of participants or income levels. We know that 75% of participants are white and working at least 31 hours paid hours/week. Half are women. All are married/living with partner (but unclear about partner's gender).
Family-work enrichment = “My involvement in my family puts me in a good mood and this helps me be a better worker.”
Work-Nonwork Balance = “Overall, my work and nonwork roles fit together”
Physical fatigue = “Physical fatigue at the end of the day; that is extreme physical tiredness and/or an inability to engage in physical activity.”
Mental fatigue = “Mental fatigue at the end of the day; that is extreme mental tiredness and/or an inability to think or concentrate.”
Emotional fatigue = “Emotional fatigue at the end of the day; that is extreme emotional tiredness and/or an inability to feel or show emotions.”
Family/personal satisfaction = “All in all, I am satisfied with my family/personal life.”
Life satisfaction = “In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.”
The research field of workplace stress and occupational health is new to me. And wow! They think about stress in very different ways!
Interestingly, their research also suggests that individual personality types may drive who benefits from those positive effects, as does the “socialized expectations of mothers" and “intensive mothering (or parenting) ideologies”.
This may (problematically?) tie in to my footnote above on the participant sampling issues.
Yeah, I don’t love approach this but it is understandable given the gaping holes in the research and the need to work with whatcha got.
I'm hoping to have a back and forth post about this with Jodi at some point (👋 Jodi, consider yourself publicly signed up!) because I think we still need to disentangle what is stress-related and what is mental load related or if they are too intertwined that disentangling is impossible and unnecessary for understanding the health repercussions. Again... so much work to do!
I was so happy when the research came out differentiating the types of tasks (anticipation, planning, monitoring). I often think about how defining mental load does need our own next steps to ask of “how does one define which parts of one’s mental load are actually detrimental?” Is it part calming to feel like you are steering the ship? Is it overwhelming when it hits a specific or relative threshold? And my lingering question is always, what am I missing here - is it the lack of something seemingly unrelated that makes mental load heavy, or is it the objective load? perhaps it’s what I call the recovery time between stress cycles - for some that’s short and other long, for some it’s being in the forest, and others long chats with an old friend or both and more. What is it exactly that makes a load heavy?
Molly I’m pretty sure you and I would have a blast if we were ever sitting next to each other at a dinner party because I inevitably turn every conversation to these topics as well! 🤣 Love this plate spinning analogy, the mental load literally makes me dizzy at times there’s just so much to anticipate, research, decide, implement and monitor! 😵💫Thank you so much for diving into this topic, can’t wait to read the series with Haley’s insight too.