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Understanding Burnout: When Stress Gets Stuck in the Body

  • Haile Reeve
  • Nov 5
  • 2 min read
Feeling like a squashed blueberry spilled on the sidewalk of life?
Feeling like a squashed blueberry spilled on the sidewalk of life?

Burnout is not just “being tired.” It’s what happens when your body gets stuck in stress mode, even after the stressful situation has passed. You might finish the task, solve the problem, or make it through the day — but your nervous system never receives the signal that it’s safe to relax.

Over time, this can look like:

  • Emotional exhaustion

  • Irritability or numbness

  • Trouble concentrating

  • Feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or hopeless

Burnout isn’t a lack of willpower or resilience. It’s your body saying, “I’m still under threat.”


Stressors vs. Stress

There’s a difference between:

  • Stressors: the external pressures (deadlines, caregiving, expectations, conflict)

  • Stress: the physical tension and activation in the body

We often deal with the stressors — we get things done — but never help the body release the stress itself. So the stress lingers.


Burnout Can’t Be Solved by Thinking Harder

Understanding why you’re stressed doesn’t complete the stress cycle. Your body needs a physical signal that the effort is over and you are safe.

Ways to support that process include:

  • Gentle movement (walking, stretching, shaking out the body)

  • Deep breathing (especially long, slow exhales)

  • Crying or laughing

  • Creative expression

  • Physical affection or grounding touch (if it feels safe)

These aren’t luxuries. They are biological pathways that help your nervous system reset.


You Are Not Meant to Run on Constant Output

Burnout is not just personal — it’s also connected to environments and systems that ask for more than humans can sustainably give. If you’ve felt like:

“It’s not that I can’t handle it — it’s that this is too much.”

You’re right.

Your exhaustion makes sense.


A Small Step Today

Ask your body, not your to-do list: “What would help me release tension right now?”

Maybe:

  • A slow breath

  • A sip of water

  • Standing up and stretching

  • Looking out a window for 20 seconds

Not to fix everything, but to shift your state by a tiny degree.

Burnout is not a personal failure. It’s a sign that your body needs care, completion, and acknowledgment.

And it is absolutely deserving of that care.

 
 
 

 If you are in crisis you can reach the national mental health hotline at 1-800-273-8255, or, if this is an emergency call 911.

 

If you reside in WA State and are in crisis call 988 or text 741741.

I acknowledge that I work, live, and play on the stolen ancestral lands of the Indigenous people of Seattle. I honor with deep gratitude, the land itself and the Coast Salish Tribes, past and present. As a non-Indigenous professional, I commit to educating myself on the historical & present colonial violence, how I contribute to this, and learning ways I can provide culturally responsive services. To learn about the Native land you are on, please visit https://native-land.ca/. 

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