How Women Can Recognize and Overcome Burnout

 “I actually think burnout is the wrong description of it. I think it’s burn up.” 

– Richard Boyatzis

Burnout for women can come by many names: Empathy Fatigue, Shutdown, Empath Burnout, and Compassion Burnout.

Most women by default are empathic, nurturing, and caring people. Meaning they have a unique capacity to understand or feel what other people are experiencing. This emotional understanding is a beautiful trait to have when healthily balanced. But shouldering the responsibility of being so attuned to others can also come with an immense amount of internal struggle leading to the condition known as Burnout. Learning how women can recognize and overcome burnout is what will support wellness long-term.

Having a sensitive nervous system means you are often hyperaware. Continually scanning your environment for cues of other people’s emotional and nervous system states. Women often feel the need to care for those around them, putting their needs above their own.

Feeling both the positive and negative emotions of others on top of your own can affect your well-being. So much so you may even struggle to distinguish which emotions are yours and which belong to someone else.

This added stress overstimulates an already sensitive mind. Which can lead to emotional dysregulation and anxiety. Leaving you feeling drained, overwhelmed, and unmotivated.

Understanding Burnout

Burnout comes when a person regularly overextends their emotional, mental, and physical energy to care for others. Over time this causes compassion fatigue which leads to long stretches of self-neglect. When your assumed responsibility takes the place of your emotional, mental, and physical abilities.

Women already have a higher than normal sensory processing sensitivity. That predisposition makes them respond differently to the subtleties of stress. Making mountains out of emotional molehills.  

Prolonged stress with little to no support contributes to building burnout. “When we are chronically stressed, the ‘fight or flight’ fear response works overtime, and this leads to an overabundance of both adrenaline and cortisol in the system,” says clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly, Ph.D. “Although helpful when faced with an immediate threat, chronically elevated levels of stress hormones leave us physically, emotionally, and mentally drained. Sleep, eating habits, and focus are all negatively affected by the constant stress state. As a result, emotional dysregulation and reactivity are far more common in those who are under constant psychological strain.”

Learning to manage your stress as a woman is key to overcoming the negative effects of burnout. Understanding your thought patterns, habits, and triggers can help diffuse the need to overextend your compassion.

The Burnout Cycle

The key signs of burnout are as follows:

• Feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope
• Experiencing disconnection from your or others’ emotions
• Emotional exhaustion
• Physical tension and fatigue
• Difficulty concentrating
• Potentially feeling anxious or irritable.

There are generally 4 phases to burnout for women:

Phase 1: Feeling energized and overcommits

In the beginning, when you are in your normal state you feel energized and confident. Any tasks that comes your way you feel ready to accept. This can-do energy allows you to overcommit yourself, overestimating your ability to corral all the responsibility.

Phase 2: Starts feeling overwhelmed

This is where the first signs of burnout begin. Overcommitting yourself causes overwhelm once you realize you’ve overextended yourself. Without a support system or structure to lean on pressure and anxiety will build with the mounting weight of responsibility. That added stress and strain starts to unlock negative coping tendencies. Be it perfectionism, procrastination, or poor self-talk, the spiral downward begins.

Phase 3: Withdraws and shuts down

As the spiral takes off and those ruminating thoughts of not being or doing enough really take hold, eventually reaching a tipping point. At some point (which is different for all women), we begin to shut down. Feeling overstimulated and drained from over commitment with no support, women tend to withdraw into themselves. Like a protective hermit shield, we forgo the remaining responsibility in favor of necessary rest. A rest, that often times feels guilt riddled and selfish, which further harms the psyche.

It is at this point where things can continue to go south if you allow yourself to stay in that place of self-neglect. Without the proper systems, community or family support, or mindset you can become trapped in a dark place that can eventually lead to deeper issues like depression.

With the proper encouragement and structures you are able to take the first steps towards restoring your balance, be it journaling, meditating, reading, etc.  

Phase 4: Starts feeling better

After some time equilibrium is restored and you feel ready to tackle the tasks at hand. This is the point, where if you do not have systems in place to monitor your mental expenditure, you are at risk of returning to Phase 1 and restarting the burnout cycle.

Overcoming Burnout

My observation and personal experience of how women experience burnout suggests the best way to start overcoming burnout is to develop a deep level of self-awareness. By knowing your limits, your triggers, what overwhelms you, the mindset that got you there, understanding the activities that help prevent that initial spiral, you stand a greater chance of limiting the negative effects of burnout.  

In my journey of investing my time to understanding my quirks, triggers, and habits I have realized I need systems in place if I want to avoid burnout. It is so easy to take on more responsibility, forgetting the task takes a mental toll as well as the physical act of getting it done. Add onto that the unexpected nature of life. There always seems to be something that comes up to derail a perfectly laid plan. Ballooning what was once a simple task to an unreasonable burden.

Feeling the need to do all and be all to everyone while letting myself slip through the cracks is what makes burnout so powerful. You lose your ability to see how damaging self-neglect is.

Over time I have learned to limit my availability, listen to my body’s cues, and set nonnegotiable internal boundaries. When dealing with others I only ask the questions I want the answers to. I only accept tasks I know I can complete on top of my regular responsibilities. I have systems in place that tend to my need to restore my energy healthily when I start to feel burnout creeping up.

It takes time and an unexpected amount of strength for a chronically stressed woman to learn that saying “No” is not only okay, but necessary at times.

We must cultivate our caring nature inwards as well as outwards. Ensuring we are within our bounds of time and energy before we commit ourselves is key to ensuring we don’t betray our trust or disappoint others.

Encourage empathy for yourself. Ensure the relationships around you support and respect your needs. Permit yourself to erect personal standards and systems that demonstrate to yourself and others that while capable you also have limits.

Overcoming burnout is a personal act of self-love.

One that can only be cultivated by the individual uniquely and intimately. Each of us knows ourselves better than anyone ever could. Therefore within us lies the answer to the stress, anxiety, and overwhelm that comes from burnout. We all have tendencies, triggers, and traumas, to overcome. The hidden habits within us allow us the disrespect our boundaries in the first place.  

Honor yourself by knowing your worth, your limits, and your capabilities deserve a voice too.  

Taking those steps back to yourself can feel foreign, scary, or even shameful if you have become stuck in your stress induced survival mode. Asking for help can feel taxing and expose you to a deeper level of anxiety and vulnerability.

As someone who has felt the dark depths of burnout and stress, and has worked with hundreds of women 1:1 over the years in the wellness world I can say with certainty that it is no small thing to experience. That it is okay to ask for help, as we all need a little support now and again.

Struggling with my own stress (read more about my story here) and seeing so many women beaten down by their burnout I created In-nested’s 12-Week Stress Reset. A personalized program that gives women the support and structure needed to understand and overcome their burnout. If you’re interested in overcoming your burnout check out the program below:

Final Notes

Part of overcoming the negative effects of burnout is respecting our inner need for restorative rest.  

Burnout stems from chronic patterns of self-neglect.  

When we ignore our limits and need for rest we exhaust our mental capacity. Energy slows to a halt, motivation goes out the window, and we feel a tragic sense of hopelessness.  

When our body tells us our bladder is full we promptly go to the bathroom. When our stomach rumbles we seek out food. But when our mind gets sluggish and our body screams for rest we ignore it. We listen to every other biological need except our mental and emotional ones.

Why?

What is so important we are willing to run ourselves into the ground for it? In most cases, the need to be productive and useful is a good thing. But when we continually choose to disregard our internal struggle, we abuse our self-trust.  

Burnout can come from not feeling like you are doing enough, as though there is not enough time, or you have to prove your worth through exhaustive effort. Burnout, perfectionism, and extreme productivity all go hand in hand.  

In reality, for us to have a chance at living a peaceful authentic lifestyle, we have to trust our ability to know and keep our boundaries, especially with ourselves. If we allow our ambition to override our internal boundaries, what chance do we stand when others try to do the same?

Keeping promises to yourself is the act of setting an internal boundary. It is living your life with intention. Simply reacting to the circumstances in life instead of setting an intention to be purposeful in the actions you take, detracts from you living authentically. Without purposeful rest and reflection, there is no opportunity to connect with yourself to prevent further spirals into the emotional exhaustion burnout brings.

Experience is our mentor, and only through thoughtful self-understanding and lifestyle experimentation can we create the life of our dreams.  

If what you pursue has deep meaning and fulfillment, it may be worth a sleepless night or two. If you find yourself chasing someone else’s dream you may need to reprioritize a few things. Only you can know where your boundaries are and what you are willing to sacrifice. It is commendable for you to want to do all you can when in service of others. It is important, however, to ensure that service is done on your terms, not forgetting your needs in the process.

Investing in yourself is a loving way you can restore the imbalance self-neglect causes. By regularly pouring time, energy, and resources into yourself you nourish the needs of the present and future you.  

Overcome burnout by loving yourself enough to honor your limits.

Until nest time,