If you've ever sat in your car after work just to have a moment alone, you're not avoiding home—these 7 things are draining you without you realizing it

You know that feeling when you pull into your driveway, turn off the engine, and just... sit there?

The radio's still playing softly, maybe the heater's still running, and for just a few precious minutes, you're wrapped in this quiet bubble where nobody needs anything from you.

I used to do this every single evening after work. Sometimes for five minutes, sometimes twenty. I'd watch neighbors walk by with their dogs, see lights flicking on in houses, and wonder why I couldn't bring myself to open that car door and walk inside my own home.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. And more importantly, you're not avoiding your family or your responsibilities. What's really happening is that you're completely drained, running on empty from energy vampires you might not even realize exist in your daily life.

After years of pushing through exhaustion and eventually hitting a wall that forced me to completely reassess my life, I've identified seven hidden energy drains that might be leaving you sitting in that car, desperately needing just one more moment of peace.

1. The invisible weight of unfinished decisions

Have you been meaning to decide about that gym membership for three months? Still haven't chosen a paint color for the bedroom? Got five half-researched vacation destinations saved in your browser tabs?

Every unmade decision is like having a program running in the background of your mental computer. You might not actively think about these things, but your brain is still processing them, still holding space for them, still reminding you they exist.

I once tracked all my "pending decisions" and came up with 47 items. Forty-seven! No wonder I felt exhausted before even getting out of bed.

Some were tiny (which brand of vitamins to buy), others were significant (whether to pursue additional certifications for work), but each one was quietly draining my mental battery.

The solution isn't necessarily making all these decisions immediately. Start by writing them down, then categorize them: urgent, important but not urgent, and "nice to handle someday." Pick one from the urgent list each week and either make the decision or officially table it for later.

You'd be amazed how much lighter you feel when these aren't floating around in your head anymore.

2. Performing emotions you don't actually feel

"How are you?"
"Great! Everything's wonderful!"

Sound familiar? We've all done it. But constantly wearing an emotional mask, whether it's forced cheerfulness at work or pretending everything's fine when it's not, is absolutely exhausting.

During my years as a financial analyst, I perfected the art of the professional smile. Client being difficult? Smile. Boss dropping a last-minute project on Friday afternoon? Smile and say "no problem!"

By the time I got to my car each day, my face literally hurt from the performance.

According to psychologists, emotional labor, the effort of managing our feelings to meet social expectations, can be as draining as physical labor. When there's a gap between what we feel and what we show, our bodies experience it as stress.

You don't have to bare your soul to everyone, but finding safe spaces where you can be authentic makes a huge difference. Maybe that's with a close friend, a therapist, or even just in a journal. The more places you can drop the mask, the more energy you'll have for the times when you genuinely need to keep it on.

3. The background noise of digital demands

When did we decide that being reachable 24/7 was normal? Your phone buzzes with work emails at 9 PM. Someone tags you in a photo. Your cousin sends a political meme to the family group chat. Each ping might seem small, but together they create this constant state of alertness that never lets your nervous system fully relax.

I discovered trail running partly because it was the only place my phone couldn't reach me. Out there among the trees, with no signal for miles, I finally understood what real quiet felt like. My brain could actually complete a thought without interruption.

Try this: create phone-free zones in your day. Maybe it's the first 30 minutes after you wake up, or the hour before bed, or yes, those precious minutes in your car after work. Let people know you're not always instantly available. The world won't end, I promise.

4. Carrying other people's moods

Ever notice how one cranky coworker can ruin your entire morning? Or how your partner's bad day somehow becomes your bad day too?

This emotional contagion is real, and if you're naturally empathetic, you're probably absorbing more than your share of everyone else's feelings. You walk into work fine, but by lunch you're irritated, anxious, or deflated, and you can't quite figure out why.

A therapist once told me to imagine emotions like colors. When someone walks in with their "red" anger or "gray" depression, visualize yourself surrounded by a clear bubble that lets you see their colors without absorbing them. Sounds woo-woo? Maybe. But it works.

5. The myth of multitasking

Cooking dinner while helping with homework while answering texts while planning tomorrow's meeting. We call it multitasking, but our brains call it chaos.

Every time you switch tasks, even for a second, your brain has to reorient itself. This switching cost adds up throughout the day, leaving you feeling scattered and exhausted even if you haven't actually accomplished much.

When I worked those 70-hour weeks, I prided myself on juggling multiple projects simultaneously. What I didn't realize was that I was taking twice as long to do everything and burning through three times the mental energy. Now I batch similar tasks together and focus on one thing at a time. 

6. Living in time debt

You know that panicked feeling when you're already five minutes late and still have to find parking? That's time debt, and many of us live there constantly. Always rushing, always behind, always trying to squeeze in just one more thing.

This chronic time pressure floods your system with stress hormones all day long. No wonder you need those car moments to decompress.

Here's what changed everything for me: I started adding buffer time to everything. Fifteen minutes between meetings. An extra ten minutes for my commute. Padding my morning routine by 20 minutes.

Yes, I "accomplish" less in a day, but I actually finish more because I'm not constantly in crisis mode.

7. Postponing joy

"I'll relax when this project is done."
"I'll take a vacation after the busy season."
"I'll start that hobby when things calm down."

But things never calm down, do they? There's always another project, another busy season, another reason to postpone the things that actually restore your energy.

For years, I believed rest was laziness and productivity was the only virtue worth pursuing. It took a complete burnout at 36 to realize that joy isn't a luxury you earn; it's fuel you need to keep going.

Those trail runs I do are not rewards for hard work. They're what make the hard work possible.

Final thoughts

If you're sitting in your car right now, reading this on your phone before you go inside, I get it. Sometimes we need that transition space, that moment to shift from who we had to be all day to who we actually are.

But what if you didn't need to armor up quite so much tomorrow? What if you could protect your energy throughout the day instead of trying to recover it in stolen moments?

Start small. Pick one energy drain from this list and experiment with addressing it this week. Maybe you'll make that decision you've been putting off, or create a ten-minute phone-free zone, or add five minutes of buffer time to your morning.

You deserve to walk through your front door with something left in the tank. You deserve to greet your evening with more than exhaustion. And yes, you deserve those quiet moments in your car too, but as a choice, not a necessity.

The engine's off. The day is done. When you're ready, take a breath and head inside. Tomorrow, we start protecting that energy before it disappears.