A commentary published by Fortune for World Mental Health Day, observed annually on October 10, argues that the defining risk of the AI era is not the technology itself but the human compulsion to match its speed — and that deliberately reclaiming cognitive space has become a structural necessity rather than a wellness gesture.

Written by Stephanie Kramer, who recently moderated a panel with three researchers on the subject, the piece describes a "silent, profound redefinition of what it means to work, lead, and live." Kramer opens with a challenge to read the entire article from the top, with no AI summaries and no skim-reading headlines. In a hyper-accelerated era of endless content, notifications, and automated drafts, she asks: we are constantly informed, but are we still thinking? Trying to match machine speed, she writes, is pushing the human operating system to its absolute limit.

The converging storm she identifies includes overwhelming data volume, always-on intake, the cognitive tax of context-switching, and "AI sycophancy" — tools engineered to agree with users rather than push them. Surviving it, the author argues, requires cognitive counterweights: deliberate synthesis, ruthless prioritization, and active recovery. Staying pace in this environment requires far more than a "moment" for mental health.

A structural crisis with a measurable cost

The scale of the digital deluge is staggering. Dr. Gloria Mark of UC Irvine, author of Attention Span, found that screen attention spans have plummeted from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds today. Kramer frames this not as a failure of personal willpower but as a structural crisis with a measurable cost: within the Microsoft 365 suite alone, workers are interrupted every two minutes. Microsoft's Alexia Cambon calls this a constant "consumption tax." The interruptions wear down goal-oriented minds, forcing rapid attention-switching that spikes stress and drives errors. For organizations, the framing suggests that attention has become a resource to budget as deliberately as headcount or capital.

The deeper risk, in Kramer's telling, is the desperate pressure to match machine speed. Driven by "productivity guilt," people use AI to churn out highly polished but low-value communications — doing "more" simply because they can. The loop traps them, backfilling saved time with even more low-value complexity instead of freeing space for deep thinking. Used well, AI frees people for deeper work, but the courage to make creative leaps must still come from humans. Innovation requires creative friction — people disagreeing, debating, and pushing boundaries — the exact opposite of an AI engineered to make users feel, as Cambon notes, "nice and comfy and cozy."

Moving fast and fixing things

Kramer contends that the old innovation playbook of "move fast and break things" — the motto that defined Facebook's early years — is broken. Anne Morriss, co-author of Move Fast and Fix Things, argues that the old way is: "Not good for people. It's not actually good for business… [it leads to] more rework, more unhappy customers, fewer people bought in. So, when we talk about how to get this right, we talk about moving fast and fixing things."

To protect stamina, leaders must intentionally build a counterweight to modern speed. High-trust, high-functioning organizations deliberately slow down at critical moments. As Morriss observes: "It's called good friction… You can go as fast as the amount of trust that you have built… The Navy SEALs have a mantra that I love: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

That distinction, for Kramer, separates mere management from true leadership: set deliberate, not default, priorities, and give them undivided presence. Navigating acceleration requires leadership to shift from rigid hierarchies to horizontal agility — partnering across boundaries to follow the fluid flow of value. Let AI carry the speed of synthesis, the argument runs, so humans can bring the depth of judgment.

The most vital professional qualities — critical thinking, curiosity, creativity, and focus — are products of time and space, not speed. Deep thinking requires "cognitive slack"; without it, people default to pattern recognition instead of original thought. Even Albert Einstein famously sat in quiet rooms for hours staring at the ceiling, knowing his breakthroughs came from stillness rather than the rush of the laboratory.

To build intellectual stamina, Kramer writes, minds must be treated like those of elite athletes, recognizing that peak performance demands deliberate recovery. Dr. Mark invokes yohaku no bi, the Japanese expression for the beauty of empty space: "To really be able to shine, to do our best work, we have to give ourselves space."

Writing an alternative story

Framing matters, the commentary argues. Kramer cites Cambon's finding that mandated "AI-first" processes actually make employees eight times more likely to produce no work at all. The better path treats technology as an invitation to "co-build, co-produce, and co-innovate." Crucially, Morriss urges leaders to reject an automated, anxious future: "We have to tell an alternative story — not just the downside and the anxiety of this revolution, but also what could happen…"

For the first time in history, five generations are navigating a workplace transition together — a unique opportunity, in Kramer's view, to pair the wonder of youth with the wisdom of experience. True leadership, she argues, means consciously preserving the space where original human thought can breathe, connect, and thrive. When managing work, teams, autonomous agents, and days, leaders must protect not only the quality of their output but also the quality of their lives.

Reclaiming that space starts with individual action. Kramer has personally committed to an "analog hour": handwritten notes, reading on paper, and walking without headphones. Morriss offers practical advice: "Call a friend or loved one on your way to work, or on your way into your home office, and remind yourself who you are outside of that work identity — which… will help you put boundaries around work in a much more productive way."

But protecting intellectual stamina also requires collective action. This month, Project Healthy Minds — the leading health tech nonprofit expanding access to services across the U.S. — launched the Project Healthy Minds Workforce Lab, a first-of-its-kind coalition of global organizations, scholars, and thought leaders working to expand the evidence base for "what works" in workforce mental health. For employers and researchers, the Lab's playbook and shared evidence base are the outputs to watch as workplace mental health moves from awareness toward measurement.

Kramer co-chairs the Lab alongside Jacqui Canney, Chief People & AI Enablement Officer of ServiceNow. Together, they are designing a playbook for a future in which technology amplifies human potential without exhausting human capacity. The Lab invites others to join — because, as Kramer puts it, in an era of machine speed, the ultimate competitive advantage is human depth.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.