Why Mental Checking Is Just as Exhausting as Physical Checking

Physical checking – going back to the door, opening the sent folder – is visible. It takes time. Other people might notice. Mental checking is different: it happens in the mind, leaves no trace, and can occur in any situation, in any company, at any moment. The checking is internal: replaying the memory of locking the door, running through the list of what was said in the meeting, mentally retracing the route home to confirm nothing happened.

Because mental checking is invisible, it often goes unrecognised – including by the person doing it. People who check compulsively in their minds sometimes believe they do not have a checking problem, because they are not going back to the door. But the mental review is checking. It follows the same pattern: doubt surfaces, the review is performed, brief relief arrives, the doubt returns, the review is performed again. The cycle is identical. Only the medium is different.

The exhaustion of mental checking is real and is often underestimated, including by the person experiencing it. Mental review is effortful. It occupies the same cognitive resources as active thinking. Running through a list in your head while trying to have a conversation means doing two things at once – and the list tends to win. The exhaustion at the end of a day of mental checking is the exhaustion of a mind that has never rested, even while the body appeared still and the face appeared present.

One of the loneliest aspects of mental checking is that it is entirely private. No one else knows it is happening. The person appears fine. The exhaustion, the lost time, the running list – these are invisible to everyone else. This makes it harder to acknowledge, harder to seek help for, and harder to explain.