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Savvy Psychologist

Feeling mentally exhausted? How to manage cognitive load and stay focused

Savvy Psychologist

Macmillan Holdings, LLC

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Science, Self-improvement, Education

4.71.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Feeling overwhelmed by work, life, and everything in between? Monica breaks down Cognitive Load Theory, a powerful framework that explains why your brain feels like it’s maxed out, and what to do about it.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey there, let's be real.

0:07.0

You've got a lot going on.

0:09.0

Juggling work, family, social life, and endless tasks can feel overwhelming.

0:16.0

I'm here as a friendly neighborhood psychologist to give you a bit of tough love with compassion.

0:23.2

Your brain has limits and pushing it constantly isn't the solution.

0:28.8

Cognitive load theory or CLT for short offers a way to work smarter, not harder.

0:35.6

Let's explore how understanding your brand's capacity can transform how you

0:40.4

learn, work, and manage daily life. Welcome back to savvy psychologist. I'm your host,

0:47.6

Dr. Monica Johnson. Every week on this show, I'll help you face life challenges with evidence-based

0:53.8

approaches, a sympathetic

0:55.2

ear, and zero judgment. Cognitive load theory developed by psychologist John Sweller is built

1:03.1

on a simple premise. Your brain's working memory can only hold a few pieces of information at

1:09.5

once, much like having too many tabs open on your

1:12.7

browser. CLT focuses on three types of mental effort. The first is intrinsic load. This is the

1:23.7

natural difficulty of a task. For example, learning a new language is intrinsically

1:29.9

challenging because you need to remember new vocabulary, grammar rules, and pronunciation all at

1:36.9

once. There's also extraneous load. This is unnecessary information that complicates learning. For instance, trying to learn from a

1:48.0

poorly structured website with too many ads and unrelated links, adds extraneous load. And finally,

1:56.7

germane load, the mental effort to build and retain knowledge. An example would be practicing math

2:03.6

problems repeatedly to understand and remember the method for solving them. Imagine learning to

2:10.7

drive. Balancing steering, braking, and observing traffic is intrinsically challenging.

2:17.7

Now add a confusing manual and you're dealing with extraneous load.

...

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