#77 The Truth About Brain Fatigue

Ever feel like your brain just can’t take in one more thing? That’s not a lack of motivation; it’s your working memory hitting its limit.

Working memory is like your brain’s short-term inbox. It juggles everything from math problems to background noise to weekend plans. But it can only hold so much. Once it’s full, learning slows down or stops altogether.

This is where Cognitive Load Theory comes in. Dr. John Sweller’s research teaches us that learning is a balancing act. If we overload the brain, we lose information. But if we manage that load: break it down, make connections, give space for processing, we can learn more, faster, and deeper.

The magic? Our brains build schemas, mental shortcuts that organize new information by tying it to what we already know. This is the heart of how learning sticks. When we work with the brain instead of pushing against it, we can learn with more ease, presence, and confidence.

What This Means for You As You Go About Your Day

You wake up already thinking about your schedule. Maybe there’s a meeting on your mind, a bill to pay, a conversation you’re dreading, or just the nonstop buzz of everyday life. Emails, texts, headlines, that thing you meant to do but didn’t, and your feet haven’t hit the floor yet.

Your brain is processing everything, and it has limits.

That feeling of mental fog, of forgetting why you walked into a room, of zoning out mid-task, or snapping when you didn’t mean to? That’s not you being lazy, scattered, or broken. That’s your brain trying to keep up with too much at once.

Cognitive load is real. And when it builds up, things start to feel harder than they actually are.

But here’s the good news: once you understand that your brain has a capacity, you can stop pushing so hard. You can create space. You can take a breath and reset instead of powering through.

Because managing your mind isn’t about doing more, it’s about giving yourself the grace to slow down, clear some space, and let your brain work with you, not against you.

To illustrate how the brain learns, you can listen to the podcast and play along with an exercise I run you through.

Let’s look at what this means for parents, teachers, and students

For Parents:  Why Your Child Might Feel Mentally Tired After School 

Ever pick up your child from school and they seem… totally spent? Maybe they’re forgetful, irritable, or just quiet. It’s not defiance; it’s cognitive overload.

I always tell parents, “Your kids aren’t just coming home from school; they are making a major transition from sitting for 7 hours, in most instances, not all, and have had to digest more material in that time than their ancestors have in their lifetime.” 

They need to majorly pump the brakes and chill. 

Are you allowing them to do that?

Are they allowing themselves to do that?

Their working memory has been juggling all day: math, reading, emotions, rules, friendships, even the sound of the pencil sharpener. And when that short-term memory gets full, everything else, like remembering to bring home their folder, can fall apart.

But here’s what helps:

• Giving them downtime
  
  
• Asking simple, open-ended questions
  
  
• Offering encouragement instead of correction
  
  
• Celebrating their effort, not their outcomes
  
  
• Reminding them it’s okay to not get everything right away
  
  

You don’t have to solve everything for your kids. Just understand what their brain is going through, and trust that they know what they need in that moment. This teaches them self-awareness and self-regulation. That space tunes them into their intuition. 

That little bit of compassion you’re giving them goes a long way toward helping them feel safe, supported, seen, and respected.

For Teachers: How to Teach with the Brain in Mind 

So, teachers, you know the look: glazed eyes, fidgety hands, the quiet sigh of a student who’s hit their limit. It’s not laziness; it’s cognitive overload.

Working memory is short-term and limited. When it’s overwhelmed, it can’t hold onto the new stuff you’re teaching…even when your lesson is GOLD.

But when we manage the load, we make room for real learning.

What helps:

• Connect new concepts to familiar ones - When introducing exponents, link them to multiplication.
  Think of 3² as 3 × 3. They already know how to multiply. This is just repeating a number a certain number of times. It’s like giving multiplication a shortcut. 

This works because familiar concepts lower cognitive load, making room for new ideas to stick.

• Use visuals, stories, and movement - If you’re teaching the water cycle, for example,
  act it out with students becoming droplets: evaporating (stretching up), condensing (curling into a ball), precipitating (falling to the ground), and collecting (forming a puddle together). Pair it with a simple diagram and a quick story about Wally the Water Drop’s Big Loop Adventure. 

These multisensory experiences help activate more areas of the brain and build lasting memory.

• Offer practice with feedback - If you’re teaching the paragraph, have students draft a paragraph using a specific structure like the famous hamburger model: topic sentence is the top bun, details 1, 2, and 3 are the lettuce, tomato, and the burger, and the closing sentence is the bottom bun. 

Then, offer focused feedback on just one thing, maybe the sentence flow of detail #1. Immediate, bite-sized feedback keeps the brain engaged without overwhelming it.

• Build in quiet pauses for reflection - This is my favorite as a learner. I need time to process. Without quiet time for reflection, even in a conversation forget about learning new material, I’m lost if the conversation moves on without me being able to work with what I’ve just heard.

After a history lesson, give 2–3 quiet minutes for students to jot down: “What’s something I learned  “What’s one question I still have?” “What surprised me?”

Pausing gives the brain time to sort, file, and emotionally connect with the material, which moves it toward long-term memory, and as teachers, THAT'S OUR GOAL!

• Scaffold, then release slowly - When working with word problems, start by solving one together, step by step. Then solve the next one with guided support (they try, you coach). Then release them to solve the third on their own, with confidence-building check-ins.

Gradual release allows learners to build cognitive muscle without drowning in newness.

You're Not Just Teaching Content

You're not just teaching content, you’re shaping how the brain absorbs, organizes, and holds onto it. And students are going to get it, not just for the test but for life!

I’m convinced if more teachers understood how the brain learns, they would instruct differently. Their content would take a back seat to the way they DELIVER the content. I’ve taught thousands of teachers over the years and the majority of them came out of college and taught most of their career before knowing ANYTHING about the cognitive load theory. 

How does this happen? The breakdown is simple. It’s not being taught, and if it is, it’s not being taught well enough, WITH THE COGNITIVE LOAD IN MIND, for it to stick. 

For Learners: Why You Feel Stuck (and How to Get Unstuck) 

Imagine this: It’s Friday, the bell’s about to ring, the sun’s out, and your brain is done. Your teacher starts writing something new on the board, and you’re thinking, “What is even happening right now?”

That fuzzy feeling is your working memory reaching its limit.

You’ve been juggling a full day of lessons, social stuff, noise, emotions, hunger, and now… exponents? Not easy.

But here’s the good news: Your brain knows what to do. It builds schemas, these little categories that connect new info to what you already know. If you’ve learned multiplication, exponents have a place to land.

The trick is to slow it down. Review what you already know. Make connections. Ask for support when things feel heavy. Your brain is doing the work, so help it out by working with it.

You’re not stuck. You’re just full. And that’s normal. 

So, What’s the Takeaway?

Whether you're navigating a full-time job, caring for yourself or others, managing a packed schedule, or simply trying to make it through the day…whether you’re a parent watching your child come home totally wiped, a teacher trying to keep the spark alive in your Friday afternoon class, or a student just trying to keep up without crashing; you’re not alone. And more importantly, you’re not doing anything wrong.

The brain is doing exactly what it’s built to do: take in, sort, organize, and protect. But like any system, it needs support. It needs space, connection, and compassion.

When we understand how the brain learns, we can go about our day, teach, parent, and show up for ourselves with more intention. We can stop pushing and start partnering with our minds, our students, and our kids.

So the next time you feel overwhelmed, pause. Breathe. Reset. Because real learning doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from doing it smarter, slower, and with heart.

I’d love to hear how you manage, or plan to manage, cognitive load in your world. Drop me a DM on Instagram @jenncaputo 

Remember, it’s not about being perfect; it’s about being easy with the practice.