精神内耗

Imagine spending three hours lying in bed mentally rehearsing a mildly awkward conversation from 2019, achieving nothing, and feeling absolutely drained afterward. That's 精神内耗 — the art of exhausting yourself entirely from the inside, through anxiety spirals, overthinking, and internal arguments you never win. No physical exertion required. It's burnout's quieter, sneakier cousin who lives rent-free in your head.

As China's post-2015 'involution' (内卷) culture intensified competition in education and the workplace, many young people found themselves too burned out to fight yet too anxious to rest. The pandemic years of 2020-2021 amplified this, trapping people indoors with their own thoughts. 精神内耗 became the vocabulary for a generation caught between relentless pressure and a creeping sense of futility.

指个体在面对压力或选择时，内心反复纠结、自我消耗，导致精神疲惫却毫无产出的状态。