THURSDAY, Feb. 24, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- Before she gave the feeling a name, Mary-Frances Winters felt it constantly. She calls it "a dull droning sound that is always present" and "an underlying syndrome of sorts that permeates my very being."

It's the exhaustion born of "the day-to-day small acts of aggression, or small acts of disrespect" a Black person endures; the endless need to prove your worth; and the constant exposure to news about injustice and violence being inflicted on people who look like you.

She calls the feeling "Black fatigue." And though the problem is not of their making, for the sake of their health, Black people need to understand and acknowledge the toll of living with racism, said Winters, a diversity and equity consultant from North Carolina. "You have to take care of yourself."

Aishia Grevenberg, a psychotherapist who lives in Las Vegas, said the idea that the cumulative effect of racial discrimination causes psychological damage is well-known. Her clients often are exhausted by it.

"It's in every area of my life, in every area of my clients' lives," she said. And "it takes on this invisible quality. Because it's always there."

It carries serious health implications.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes racism as a threat to public health. On a biological level, structural racism-based stress can lead to long-lasting damage to the body and brain, according to a 2020 American Heart Association report in the journal Circulation. It defined structural racism as "the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics (historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal) that routinely advantage white people while producing cumulative and...