Mental energy. Why are we not talking more about mental energy in relation to dementia?

A few days ago I listened to an insightful and unexpectedly funny panel of individuals living with dementia talk about their experiences. The entire conference was great, but no other speakers could really compete with the panelists.

As they sat on a stage in front of a decent-sized audience, they talked about the importance of their advocacy on behalf of people living with dementia. A few mentioned that their advocacy work gave them purpose. All of them described events that they had taken part in and, in many cases, organized. They talked about the public speaking that they do. One man described how he and his wife put together a fundraiser on the fly…and it was overwhelming successful.

Then one of the panelists mentioned that it comes with a cost.

It’s tiring.

Individuals with dementia have limited mental energy (which leads to limited physical energy, by the way).

Let’s say I have 100 units of mental energy. (Actually, I know of no metric of mental energy and I’m making this up as I go.) I can put a lot of mental energy into a few things, or I can put a little mental energy into a lot of things. It’s my choice.

But when my mental energy is gone, it’s gone. And you’ve all been there. A long day at work. The day you took your SATs or GREs or LSATs or had to do a test or evaluation for your job. Just a day when nothing went quite right and you had to spend your whole day fixing stuff.

You’re irritable. You’re frustrated. Maybe you have an outburst. Maybe you withdraw. Maybe you just close your eyes are go to sleep at 7:30pm.

As dementia progresses, those units (you know, the ones I made up) decrease. If a person with dementia used to get 100 units a day, they may get 90, 80, 70….but it’s not consistent by the day. One day you may have more units, and the next day your units are depleted.

Oh, and you can often roll over those units. You can rest one day to have a high energy day the next day because maybe your grandkids are coming over. You can also try to steal from the next day. Maybe today’s the 4^th of July and you are committed to going to four cookouts and then the fireworks. If you can’t move tomorrow, you don’t care. We have to be careful with that strategy because sometimes we intend to steal a tiny bit from the next day but end up decimating the whole week’s energy units. (These energy units are starting to sound a bit like Weight Watcher points, aren’t they?)

There are other principles for these energy units. You may know some vampires who steal your mental energy. Maybe a co-worker. Or a family member. Or a really disagreeable checker at your local Target. When you try to steal your energy back from the vampires, you end up wasting additional mental energy. You can and should do your best to protect your mental energy from these vampires.

I will add that I am a work in progress when it comes to not spending mental energy on vampires. Today I let a disagreeable Delta gate agent steal about 27 of my mental energy units in the process of getting a seat assignment.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the panelists living with dementia and their commitment to educating us. And I was grateful to them for using their limited energy in this way. When your energy units become limited for any reason, how you use them needs to become even more intentional. And these individuals chose to spend their mental energy educating folks like me.

One of the principles I cling to in this field is that people living with dementia and their care partners have the right to navigate this disease however they choose.

If you want to spend your precious and limited energy on a cross country camping trip, it’s yours to spend. If you want to spend your precious and limited energy on continuing to work at your job, it’s yours to spend. If you want to spend your precious and limited energy on cooking and keeping your house clean, it’s yours to spend.

Just be intentional. And when you find you’re running out of mental energy too often, it’s time to prioritize.

I realize that I’m not just talking about people living with dementia. I’m looking at everyone….including family care partners who often forget that they can’t do everything, be everywhere, and fix everything.

We all have precious and limited energy. When we can’t increase that energy, our only option is to be wise in how we spend it.

I have a challenge for you this week. When you realize something is taking up too much of your mental energy….when you realize that the cost is too high…just walk away. Or maybe run.

Yesterday I considered buying a sweatshirt at SoulCycle. I looked at the price tag. It was almost $200.

I walked away. It was too high of a price to pay. It wasn’t worth it. It just wasn’t in the budget.

If only I could be so intentional with how I spend my mental energy….