The Productive Lie of Burnout

People say they are burnt out all the time.

Most of the time, they are just tired. Or bored. Or fed up with their job. They need a break. A long weekend. Maybe a vacation where they do absolutely nothing.  

That kind of burnout is real. And it usually goes away.

This was not that.

At my worst I couldn’t work more than 15 minutes without having a panic attack.  My body would seize up and I would freak out. I would step away from my desk just to calm myself down. Then I would try again. 15 minutes later, it would happen all over again.

This was not a motivation problem.  I wanted to work.  I just couldn’t.  My body rejected it.  

Thankfully my sabbatical was quickly approaching.  Soon I would have 4 weeks off without meetings, emails, or slack messages.  

Surely this was the reset I needed.

I returned from my sabbatical and things were not much better.  The panic attacks slowed a bit but I was nowhere near refreshed.  

That’s when I learned burnout is not about hours worked.  It’s about a nervous system that is stuck in overdrive.  4 weeks off was not enough to stop my nervous system from redlining.  

This is true burnout.  A nervous system that has been pushed too hard for too long.    

We pretend burnout is about too many hours. But if that were true, rest would fix it.  You need to do more than rest and take time off.  You need to make sure your nervous system is actually recovering.  

High-performers often wear long hours like a badge of honor.  Some are able to do it without redlining their nervous system for too long.  Others are not so fortunate.  For those. time off may even feel stressful.  Sundays feel heavier than Mondays.  This is what happens when your body does not associate calmness with safety.    

If your nervous system constantly feels like it’s in danger, you’ll never truly rest and recover.  

This is the lie of burnout.  The idea that the solution is more sleep, more exercise, better diet, etc.  You can do all that and still not settle your nervous system.  Those things help but they are not the starting point.  

You have to teach the body that life is not an emergency.  That nothing needs to be solved right now.  That you can pause without everything falling apart.  

Burn out is not always asking you to do less.  Sometimes it’s asking you to finally let your body believe it’s safe.   

I am not going to pretend I have this fully solved. I do not.

What I do know is that nervous systems can be retrained. Overdrive is not a life sentence. But it does not happen through willpower or lifehacks.  I’ve tried them all to no avail.  

It happens slowly, through repetition, safety, and learning when to stand down.

In future posts, I want to get into what that actually looks like. Not in theory, but in practice. What helped. What did not. What surprised me.

This piece is not the solution. It is the beginning of naming the real problem.