I thought burnout was something that happened to other people. Then I started working 70-plus hours a week, living out of a suitcase, and measuring my worth in achievements. I got more tired, then numb. Sleep dropped to four or five hours. I stopped seeing friends. My short-term memory started slipping.
One morning I found myself sitting on the stoop outside my building, keys in my hand, not fully sure where I was meant to go next. I was supposed to go to work. I went to a doctor and tried to describe the feeling, the sadness, the sense of failure. He listened, paused, and said, “You need sleep.” I heard it as both permission and an accusation. He ran through the basics, asked a few more questions, and told me to come back if it didn’t improve. Eventually I went on sick leave because I couldn’t get out of bed, even on a workday. The body stopped cooperating.
I said it like a confession. Like exhaustion is a character flaw. Like a body that has stopped cooperating is proof they weren’t built for this.
But burnout isn’t a collapse. It’s a signal. Survival mode is excellent at getting you through today. It’s terrible at most other things.

It doesn’t always creep. Sometimes it snaps.
Burnout often builds gradually. You lose patience faster. Sleep gets thinner. The inner monologue gets louder. Everything takes more effort. The day begins and you’re already behind.
And then, sometimes, there’s a tipping point: a deadline collides with a sick child, a crisis hits, a manager changes. A body that’s been compensating for months finally says: enough. That snap matters because it reveals what burnout is: not laziness, not fragility, but a threshold. A system pushed past capacity.
In the World Health Organization’s ICD‑11, burnout is described as a work-related phenomenon (not a medical diagnosis), defined by three dimensions: exhaustion, increased mental distance or cynicism about work, and reduced professional efficacy. The strain can spill into sleep, mood, and relationships, but the definition stays occupational.
That’s also why burnout gets confused with depression or anxiety. The overlap is real: low mood, withdrawal, loss of pleasure, sleep disruption. Overlap doesn’t mean equivalence. If symptoms are severe, persistent, or spreading beyond work, it’s worth a professional assessment.

The real fuel: mismatch
It’s easy to assume burnout is only about hours. Workload matters, but burnout is often less about volume than mismatch.
It shows up when effort and reward are chronically out of balance. Not just reward as money, but reward as recognition, fairness, progress, autonomy, meaning. You can be praised in meetings and still have zero say in your day.
It shows up when workload, control, support, and values are misaligned. When you’re asked to deliver without resources, to care without time, to perform without relief, to keep agreeing with things that quietly go against what matters to you.
And it can happen in any role. You can be promoted and still be burned out. You can be visibly “successful” and feel like your internal wiring has been stripped.
So people compensate. They optimize. They download another app, build another morning routine, subscribe to another version of the calendar-blocking gospel. They treat burnout like a productivity glitch.
But burnout isn’t a glitch. It’s feedback.

What it does to the body
When demand stays high and recovery stays low, the nervous system adapts. At first it’s useful: sharper, faster, more vigilant. You push through. You perform.
Then the cost accumulates. It may include disrupted sleep, fragmented attention, irritability, concentration problems, somatic tension, headaches and GI symptoms. If physical symptoms persist, get medical advice to rule out other causes.
Meanwhile the mind narrates the collapse with brutal efficiency:
I can’t rest. Nothing matters. I can’t do this. I’m failing. I’m at the end.
These thoughts feel like reality. They can be the brain trying to conserve energy by making the world smaller. When the system is depleted, everything becomes threat-shaped. Even your phone buzzing. Even someone you love wanting to talk.

The story that keeps you stuck
Under burnout, there’s often an inherited belief: If I’m strong, I should just endure. Under that belief there’s often a quieter one: I’m not enough. The job becomes a running attempt to disprove it. You keep going not because the work requires it, but because stopping feels like exposure.
It’s not a thought people choose. It’s a thought people absorb: family roles, workplace norms, the religion of high functioning. In that religion, boundaries can start to feel selfish. Rest can start to feel like failure, or laziness. Asking for help can start to feel like proof you weren’t built right. Until your body rebels.
The tragedy is that many people read the rebellion as a performance issue. They double down. They try to be even stronger.
It’s like responding to an overheating engine by flooring the accelerator.

What helps: a four-layer approach
If burnout is driven by mismatch, relief has to include system change, not just self-soothing.
First comes stabilization. Sleep isn’t a luxury here. It’s the base layer of repair. Where possible, protect a wind-down, reduce late-night stimulation, and give the day a clear stopping point. Then pace the day as if your attention were finite (because it is): fewer context switches, fewer “quick” check-ins that fracture the nervous system into shards. Add micro-breaks that are almost insultingly small. Sixty seconds. Two minutes. Eyes on distance. A short walk. A breath you can feel.
Next comes the part people avoid because it requires friction with reality: boundaries and workload. Reduce demands where you can: drop, delay, delegate, renegotiate. Increase control where you can: clearer priorities, protected focus time, fewer after-hours obligations. Make expectations explicit: what matters, what can wait, what “good enough” means right now. If you can’t change workload or boundaries at all, “resilience” starts to mean absorbing damage.
Then comes connection. Burnout isolates. Isolation amplifies burnout. Talk to someone grounded: a peer, a trusted friend, a therapist. Name what’s happening out loud. (If you’re having thoughts of self-harm, seek urgent help right away.)
And finally, give the body its due. If sleep disruption, headaches, GI issues, or other physical symptoms persist, get checked. It’s not overreacting. It’s respect.

A doorway, without the romance
Burnout can become long-lasting if you keep overriding the signal. But if you listen early, it can become a doorway into something simpler and saner: clearer priorities, less friction, and a nervous system that isn’t constantly bracing.

Most people assume the world is watching them. That if they slow down, they’ll be judged. Sometimes workplaces really are punitive. That’s real.
But the truth is this: many people are more focused on their own lives than on judging yours. And the people who punish you for having limits are giving you information about the culture you’re in and what it costs to stay.

That morning line, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” sounds private. It rarely is. What’s wrong isn’t you. It’s the system you’re trying to outlast.

Burnout isn’t weakness. It’s the body refusing to fund a life that doesn’t work.