We can’t separate our minds from our bodies. I remember my high school public speaking trainer Sir Garin pounding this idea into my head after I had told him about the table tennis competition I had on the same day as the extemporaneous competition we were training for. I didn’t take his advice and went to both competitions anyway. To put the long story short, he was right.
It’s easy to underestimate the effect our bodies have on our thoughts and vice versa, but we can’t change the fact that we’re one body with all our parts interconnected in a complex system. It’s easy to say “I’m only physically tired, not mentally,” but in practice, tired is simply tired. Whether it’s physically or mentally, tired is just tired.
So there’s no point telling ourselves that we’ll have fresh minds after a full day of physical work. Time to plan the days accordingly.