Unlike your stomach, your brain doesn’t sound when it’s running on empty

[justseyi]

Unlike your stomach, your brain doesn’t sound an alarm when it’s running on empty.

Lately, I’ve been struck by how loudly the body speaks, while the mind stays quiet. When we’re physically hungry, the signs are unmistakable. Our stomach rumbles, our strength wanes, and our bones feel heavy.

But when the mind is hungry? There’s no growl, no ache you can easily name. It just slows down.

And we miss the signals. Not out of neglect, but because they whisper instead of shout.
That sudden loss of interest in things that once made us light up. The fog makes every task feel like climbing uphill. The endless scrolling—not from curiosity, but from emptiness.

Still, we push on because we confuse exhaustion with laziness. Because we’ve been conditioned to perform instead of pause. So we keep showing up—for deadlines, conversations, expectations—while quietly draining an already empty well.

There’s a kind of fatigue no amount of sleep can repair. It comes from never sitting still with your own thoughts. From abandoning the small joys that used to make life rich. From depriving your inner world of stillness, beauty, and wonder.

Then I stumbled on this line:
“Unlike the stomach, the brain doesn’t alert you when it’s empty.”

And it hit me. How many days, weeks—even months—do we go without truly feeding our minds?

We forget that the mind craves nourishment too. It thrives on silence, on slowing down, on curiosity. Rest isn’t something to earn. Breaks aren’t proof of weakness. They’re simply the point where we choose to notice the fog and gently clear it away.

Your brain won’t rumble like your stomach. But it will speak—in forgetfulness, in irritation, in exhaustion. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear it. And when you do, offer it something kind.

A walk without your phone.
A page from a beloved book.
Or a playlist that reminds you what it feels like to be alive again.

[Author]

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