The Cost of Knowing So Much About Ourselves
How wellbeing culture can tip from help into exhaustion
When I first became interested in wellbeing, I remember wanting to devour everything I could. Because there was hope there.
I had watched my own mum lose her mind over a couple of decades and, at first, I thought I was trying to help her. When I realised that wasn't possible in the way that anyone needed it to be, I started to try to change my story, so it wouldn’t become hers.
I tried to eat for brain health. I started researching places for better mental wellbeing. I switched my career in the art world for one in the wellbeing space.
Over the past decade of working in this area, I’ve come to realise that we’re now living in a very different context for managing our own wellbeing.
In one way, it’s an extraordinary moment. We now know more than ever about our brains, our nervous systems, our emotions, our trauma, our habits, our behaviour. That knowledge is powerful, and in many ways it’s a gift. We can listen to a podcast about overwhelm, pick up a book about happiness, watch a TedTalk on shame. We can subscribe to the New York Times Well column and populate our feeds with advice and support. Information is everywhere, and it’s readily available.
But I’ve also come to realise that it’s easy to get lost in all there is to know, and do, and be.
Somewhere along the way, that abundance can start to feel confusing and wellbeing becomes another thing to get right.
We can reach a point where we don’t know what to do, but we know, acutely, all the things we’re supposed to be doing.
Taking a vitamin. Going on a walk. Crafting a morning routine. Bracing for a cold plunge.
Meditating, while making sure to move.
Hacking our microbiome while eating intuitively.
Nurturing friends and nourishing our bodies.
Each suggestion makes sense on its own. Together, they can begin to feel like a full-time job.
It can now take an extraordinary amount of time, attention, and information to just be, and actively do, well.
Where help tips into exhaustion
I’m not alone in noticing this. In her new book How to be Well, Amy Larrocca writes that “the endless pursuit of feeling better” takes up more mental space than money, power, and love. Research from Stylist magazine found that 75% of women wished they had more time to dedicate to their health or wellness and only half feel supported in their journey on just trying to feel better. A Grazia column this month asked the question: “Well stressed — are you suffering wellness fatigue.”
Wellbeing, the thing that’s meant to help us, can become yet another place we can turn our frustrations on ourselves. Another place we tell ourselves we’re falling short. We can start to believe, I’m not doing life well, because I’m not doing wellbeing very well.
I’m curious to know where you land with this.
What feels like the gift of all we now know, of wellbeing information being more accessible than ever?
And where, if anywhere, does it tip into pressure or fatigue for you? How do you relate to the idea of wellbeing in your own life, as it actually is?
x Claire
P.S. This year, I’m exploring what it might look like to approach wellbeing differently — in ways that feel more relatable, interesting, and genuinely useful for our everyday lives. You can subscribe for monthly posts about finding a better way to well in 2026.
And if you’re curious about the culture of wellbeing, how it shapes us, supports us, and sometimes overwhelms us, these posts are a great next read.
