Becoming Burnout Proof: How Burnout Happens, Burnout Symptoms and How to Recover
It’s human nature to want to know exactly what burnout is, and how and why it happens. Because knowledge is power, right?! Knowing the source would allow us to avoid burnout altogether, starting today. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Get to the source. Once we have the source of choose-your-own-ailment then we can concoct a cure – and be done with it.
I’m never going to advocate for anyone’s limitations but… in your dreams my friend!
Intellectual understanding is almost useless (often worse than blissful ignorance because unintegrated knowledge leads to shame) without a willing heart fired up by a deep desire to change your reality. Whether you’re healing burnout, a weeping worthiness wound, or a deep and knotty core belief that you need to be perfect in order to feel safe in the world, it isn’t intellectually understanding the source of your “stuff” so much as choosing to be a brave practitioner, holding your life up to the light, and having the guts to clear the muck and do something about it.
That said, there is some good that might come from investigating the source of burnout. Getting closer to the cause is, at the very least, interesting. And, there’s always the chance that just by bringing awareness to a “problem” that spontaneously dissolving or healing occurs.
At Soul, we don’t believe in intellectually acquiring knowledge or spontaneous healing. We believe freedom is an endless choice and recommitment that starts and ends with you building the awareness and tools to understand you’re the most powerful person in your life. And the tool we teach you is breathwork because often the root cause of “symptoms” like burnout are deeply embedded in the meat of your body. So the path to “something different” lies through reclaiming your body through breathwork. More on that later.
Investigating How Burnout Happens
It’s easy to isolate burnout into one clean-cut category: burnout from work. But there’s burnout happening in every facet of our lives – so much so that it seems like burnout is a questionable rite of endless passage for modern humans. Our culture is very much oriented in an all-in, keep-going, laser-focus approach to self-actualization, especially when it comes to career success. Sure, there are plenty of “carefree spirits” who are happy to flit from thing to thing quite effortlessly, but there’s always that cultural undertone questioning, “What are they really accomplishing?” and, “Where will they really be in five years?”
Deep down, the majority of us are hardwired (hello, collision of personality traits, trauma, and conditioning) to run the race until we’re exhausted – or so sick of running that we never want to do it again.
And this is exactly how burnout happens.
While most clinical research on burnout happens within the realms of occupations that are notorious for having high turnover rates or low occupational satisfaction, like nursing, teaching, psychiatry, the findings are useful (but give a limited slice of insight) to anyone interested in learning more about what burnout really is and how it happens. According to a study published in World Psychiatry in 2016 about understanding the burnout experience:
“The prevailing norms are to be selfless and put others' needs first; to work long hours and do whatever it takes to help a client or patient or student; to go the extra mile and to give one's all.”
Sound familiar?
Being selfless (or accepting your role as a martyr)? (preservation of identity!)
Working long hours for the sake of others? (preservation of identity!)
Doing whatever it takes to help someone else, or get the approval of someone else? (preservation of identity!)
“Prevailing norms” are just another way of saying learned and conditioned belief systems that create identity. And identity (and preservation of yours) will make you do things, even when those “things” mean you become emotionally and physically symptomatic.
It’s that final “give one’s all” that really demonstrates how culturally ingrained this ideology is. How many of us are ready to retort, “Isn’t giving your all exactly what you’re supposed to be doing – all the time?” No wonder so many of us burnout – and quickly, too.
Of course, not everyone who’s an enthusiastic go-getter experiences burnout. To the contrary, all of us know that person who seems to have an abundance of energy, who’s excited for the week to begin, and who magically seems to be able to balance everything going on all at once – and actually enjoy the juggling act. So what gives? Why do some people succeed with the “giving one’s all” mentality while others burn out again, and again?
A closer look at the Spanish Burnout Inventory guide gives us a better understanding of the difference between the successful “all-inner” and the “always-burnt-outer.” In this guide, researchers have categorized four dimensions of burnout. They include:
Enthusiasm towards the job/task
Psychological exhaustion
Indolence, avoidance of activity, laziness
Guilt
It seems that when guilt starts to enter the equation, burnout rates increase and the symptoms become more severe. And it’s at these severe states of burnout that most people decide it’s time to do something about it – quit a job, end a relationship, buy a van and learn how to live off tips thrown into your guitar case…
Whether you’re in the camp that burnout “exists” or you look at as the trending way to group surface level symptoms that point to deep and major disconnection from your body and soul (more on that in a bit), studies show that most people are experiencing burnout to varying degrees in their lives right now. As of 2022, 59% of working Americans said to be experiencing “at least moderate levels of burnout.” And it gets worse as you look at younger generations. A staggering 74% of Millennials said that they’ve experienced burnout while an even more alarming rate - 84% - of Gen Zs said the same.
It’s safe to say that we’re all suffering from burnout to some degree. And if knowing the cause of burnout isn’t enough to make a difference in how we’re all feeling, maybe it’s time to take a different approach. What happens when we start looking at how burnout affects your brain?
Your Brain On Burnout
How burnout feels is different for everyone. And how burnout affects relationships is unique, too. While burnout symptoms vary, experts agree that in general it will leave you feeling:
Completely void of energy
Like you don’t belong
As if your self-esteem is plummeting
According to Amy Arnsten, a neuroscience professor at Yale School of Medicine who specializes in the “neural mechanisms of burnout”, burnout simply makes everything in life feel worse. “You notice things like being more irritable, more destructive, less motivated, less hopeful,” she says. When your brain begins to burnout, it can be a very fast tailspin, one that’s frustrating for everyone, including yourself, to witness.
While studying the impact of burnout on the brain can seem like a whole lot of doom and gloom, the reality is that it’s actually quite hopeful. When you realize that the symptoms of burnout are really just your brain responding to a chronic state of stress (stress that lives in your body), you recognize that you’re not a bad person. There’s nothing you need to label yourself as – it’s just your brain doing what it’s supposed to do when it’s receiving signals that indicate extreme stress.
So, yes, burnout can make your brain spiral out of control, but can burnout make you feel sick physically?
Yep, it sure can. Because the stress indicators are relaying messages to your brain, causing you to think negatively or feel like you have zero energy, those same signals can create other physical symptoms of illness too, including:
Headaches
Body aches
Digestive issues
Weakened immune system (so that you’re always getting sick)
Insomnia
All of these symptoms, whether physical or mental, are your body and brain telling you that something needs to change. It’s like an SOS begging for your attention.
And now that it has your attention, here’s the next big question:
Can burnout be reversed?
The good news is that the answer to that is simple: Absolutely.
Because again, burnout doesn’t actually exist. It’s just a convenient label created for us to talk about shared collective experiences than many people living in our society can relate to.
Once you recognize that you’re “experiencing burnout” and zero in on what’s causing your burnout (the core beliefs that create identity, patterns, habits and behaviors) then you can start to reverse engineer your way out of it in linear (literal actions), and non-linear (identity work) ways.
Human beings are plastic, and powerful. Your brain and body are resilient. They’re responsive and incredibly adaptable. Give new signals and you’ll get new feedback.
In other words, burnout really is a choice.
But before you go quit your job or make any impulsive decisions in order to free yourself from burnout, remember this:
You’re in control.
In a lot of cases you can remain right where you are, doing what you’re doing, and still erase burnout from your life. Now, that might not be what you want to hear, especially if you’re ready to make a big move, but it’s important to know that unless you do the work yourself to start reorienting and reorganizing the way you see yourself and the world, you’ll just fall victim to burnout over and over again.
Becoming Burnout Proof with Breathwork
As the co-founder of the breathwork app Soul and a breathwork coach myself, I’m no stranger to burnout. Having personally experienced a total and complete disconnection from my body and soul, I now work with people all over the world to help them find a way to become “burnout proof” – coaching them through the “bounce” that’s necessary to go from burnt-out to not just back-in-the-game, but playing in a whole different reality.
It’s good to chat about this stuff! While belaboring the idea of burnout only seems to exacerbate the issue for many (especially in our society’s that’s obsessed with labels as end-points rather than doors to walk through or lenses to stare through experiences differently), the beauty of having more conversations out in the open about burnout and mental health is that it allows you to see your life experiences mirrored in “someone like you” – something that’s more valuable than most people realize.
Shared experiences burn through shame, because in seeing your life mirrored in somebody else, you’re presented with the reality that (sharp inhale) you’re not that special!
What if this wasn’t just you being weak and failing. What if, in fact, you’re just hitting up against an experience that manifests in many people who share similar belief systems. And rather than languishing in brokenness or powerlessness you just need to be brave enough to find new ways (like breathwork) to help you start dissolving the systems of oppression embedded in your body and mind?
What stays hidden never heals. The first step towards changing anything in your life that hurts is to pull what you struggle with out of the shadow you’ve exiled it to, shine the light of your own awareness on it, wrap words around the experience, and own it. Vulnerability is a big part of understanding what burnout is and how to get to a point where you’re no longer imprisoned by it. Burnout is more than just symptoms and signs; it’s stories shared from one person to another in a way that’s relatable and intimate that leads to real change.
We’re all human, after all.
No matter how strong or smart or capable you are, pressure will catch up to you if you’re living in an unsustainable way. True burnout can’t be fixed with a face mask and a bubble bath on the weekend.
Also, if you’re a low-maintenance tom-boy shower-person like me, that stuff doesn’t work anyway!
While becoming “burnout proof” takes time, you can feel this cultural shift slowly changing the way people think and act.
We’re slowly evolving into a society that understands humans are whole beings, not just robots or heads on sticks. But, we’ve got a really long way to go.
I think it’s important that people don’t act like burnout is just an inevitable symptom of 21st century life, and just something they have to deal with. That’s not a powerful stance.
Burnout occurs when external structures like society, organizations, jobs, families, and relationships collide with a human being's capacity and sense of self.
In short: if too much of your life reflects who you're not, rather than who you are, you're going to burn out.
And if you feel like you have no power, voice, or choice, that's when things get dark. I know. Because I've been there.
A detail that’s often missed in “owning” our feeling of burnout is our unconscious positioning of ourselves in the role of victim:
My job did this to me
My boss has such high standards, I have to be endlessly available
I always need my phone on me incase people need me
My kids pull me in a million directions
I don’t have time
It was easier when I was single
Sure, that might be true. But when you’re laying the entirety of your painful life experiences at the feet of other people or circumstances, you’re throwing away a massive opportunity to take ownership of your one (that we know of!) beautiful life.
It’s time to take the power back.
Have you performed a Burnout Proof Inventory? Have you worked on your capacity to have difficult conversations? Have you committed to the idea that true generosity comes through a valuing of your own self, first? Have you learned that “no” is a complete sentence and you won’t die if you say it? Is working hard your “personality” or a coping strategy?! Have you considered who in your childhood taught you to work to the bone? Have you wondered who’s love you’re trying to earn? Have you realized that collecting external glitter will never ever fill the dark hole that lives inside a human being who doesn’t love and accept themselves?
At Soul, THOSE are the kinds of conversations we believe a brave person should be having.
I hope to see a shift towards all off us taking radical responsibility for our lives, actively learning how to live in more realistic and sustainable ways, working on self worth so we feel more empowered to navigate boundaries in our lives, work, and relationships, and integrating tools like breathwork for nervous system regulation and stress-release so we become more burnout proof.
My goal through the breathwork app, Soul, and my coaching is to make it approachable for everyone – not just those who “get it” instantly. Whether you find yourself a little creatively blocked or absolutely burnt to the ground, I stand firm in my belief that breathwork is one of the best paths forward for everyone.
Soul is a tool to:
Crack the stoniest hearts open
Burnout-Proof the most stressed individual
Thaw the tightness of inner judgment
Explode through the fear of being seen
Be known for something real
If you choose to get into a deep relationship with your inner world, you can’t fail to stand in the beaming light of your life.
If you’re on the fence about trying breathwork to help you reignite and re-engage with your life (aka the opposite of burnout), keep this in mind:
The Soul app is designed to be accessible to the type of person who wouldn’t be into trying breathwork. I am not a hippy dippy teacher.
I’m a former creative director and All-American athlete turned entrepreneur who created the tool I wish I’d had when I started my inner work journey.
Soul’s designed to be comfortable, cool, elegant, a little edgy – the athleisure shoe with a wee color pop you just keep putting on because it makes everything better.
And, thanks to all the research done by the experts, you can be confident that, yes, breathwork will actually help with burnout – and everything else in your life.
If you’re ready to come home to your body, burn bright not out, and do hard things that bear fruit. Like actually learning how to like yourself, then you’re ready to try Soul for free. You can download it now and enjoy the nearly 30 new tracks that were just added to the library.
And if your burnout is telling you that you don’t have the time or the energy to try something new, here’s a friendly reminder that you do. (So pick your breathwork session and get started!)
