 In the Autumn of 1839 the strain of overwork was beginning to take its toll on Fechner. There were acute physical symptoms of mental stress. He was suffering from headaches, insomnia and lethargy. But there were also symptoms of neurosis. His thought was obsessive and compulsive. He complained that his thinking was leading nowhere, that he would constantly come back to the same point, that in doing so he was exhausting himself. It was impossible for him to stop thinking; he could not relax or distract himself. Rather than he controlling his thinking, it was as if his thinking were controlling him. 