Burnout in Women: Why Pushing Through Is Not Recovery

In this enlightening episode, Cheryl dives deep into the often-overlooked phenomenon of high-functioning burnout in women. She reveals that burnout doesn't always manifest as a dramatic collapse; instead, it can look like merely keeping up with daily tasks, from answering emails to managing family responsibilities, all while feeling emotionally drained. Cheryl discusses the hidden costs of maintaining this façade of capability and the toll it takes on mental and physical well-being.

Cheryl emphasises that coping is not the same as healing, and a weekend off won't suffice to rebuild a depleted nervous system. She draws a powerful analogy between physical training and emotional resilience, highlighting the importance of recovery and rest in both realms. Tune in as she offers practical strategies for recognising the signs of burnout and encourages listeners to track their physical, mental, and behavioural responses over the next week.

This episode is a crucial reminder that you are not broken; you are overloaded. Join us for a candid conversation about the need for restoration, not just relief, and learn how to create a sustainable path toward recovery and balance in your life. If you resonate with the struggles of high-functioning burnout, this episode is a must-listen.
The contents of this podcast are for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. If you have a specific health concern or condition, please consult a qualified Healthcare professional for more details. Check out herguru dot uk forward slash disclaimers.

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The contents of this podcast are for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. If you have a specific health concern or condition, please consult a qualified Healthcare professional for more details. Check out herguru dot uk forward slash disclaimers

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:29

Hi. Burnout in

Speaker 1: 0:32

women doesn't always look like falling apart, which is what you expect when you see that someone's burnt out. Sometimes I think it looks like, answering emails. Sometimes it looks like remembering

Speaker 0: 0:52

school forms, the birthday cards, the meeting notes, the milk, the deadlines, small small domestic admin task that's apparently only become invisible to other people in the house after you have lost the will. Yes, sometimes Burnout looks like being capable. I suppose. Organized, reliable, strong, which is lovely yeah? In the same way as being described as a low maintenance girlfriend can sometimes mean we have worked out that we can ask more and more and more of you without kicking in. So today, we're talking about burn burning out in women. More specifically, the High Functioning Burnout. The kind where you are still doing all those things, you're still showing up, you're still replying to emails, you're still managing your team, you're still swanning in meetings, but emotionally, you've left the building. But professionally, somehow, you're still committed to tingles. And privately, yes, you feel hollowed out. You wake up tired. You go to bed even more tired. You can't switch off properly. You just feel guilty for needing to rest. You dread small tasks that used to be normal. Maybe you can catch yourself thinking, If I stop, everything will just fall apart so I can't keep pushing through, and that's not recovery. As you know, coping is not the same as healing, and a weekend off, while it's lovely, is not gonna rebuild your nervous system, not in the way that you've been treating it like an unpaid part of your infrastructure for years. Yes, we're talking about Burnout. And I'm Cheryl, I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and Stress Recovery coach, and this is Work Stress Anxiety by ABGW. This podcast is for you if you're a high functioning woman dealing with Work Stress, work anxiety, Burnout Overwhelm, Emotional Exhaustion, and the strange modern sport of pretending everything is okay while your body is quietly filing a complaint. Here, we do calm 1st, reality 1st, then change. I am not interested in toxic positivity. In fact, I run from it. I'm not here to talk about resilience, like, as if we're in the Grand Theater. I'm not interested in just pushing through. If that's what you're interested in, you need to listen to another podcast because honestly, if pushing through has worked, half of us would be levitating by now, seriously. So just wanna bring you back to something that made me think about this the other day. Before COVID, 1 of the reasons I liked going into the office was very honest and not especially glamorous, but it was 1 of the reasons why I did like going into the office. It gave me a reason to go to the gym, and I'm quite an early bird, so it meant going to the gym early. And I'd get there about 5, half 5, before work, you know, the trains and everything else starts, you know, before the inbox starts humming you back to reality, right? And at that time of the morning, there are no instructors floating around telling people what to do. It's just people training hard before the day's begun, you know? But there was something I noticed because I'm a coach, you know, I kinda tried to notice things, and some of the most fittest people in there were doing the same intensive routine every morning as if rest days were for amateurs. And you know, the problem is muscles don't grow through constant output. Muscles grow during rest, during the recovery period. And if you train hard every day without repair, your performance drops. It's it's just a matter of time, you know? Your body gets stiff and cranky, injuries start creeping in, and eventually something has to give. And I remember thinking later, this is exactly why so many high functioning women are expected to do emotionally. They don't have no rest days, they don't have any real recovery, no proper pauses, they just keep producing, producing, producing. They keep caring, they keep leading, they keep absorbing, they keep remembering, they keep managing everyone else's deadlines, moods, preferences, you name it, and those tiny little eruptions that other people have. And then when the body starts protesting, we all call it weakness. No. It's not weakness. This is a system sending some overdue invoices, ladies. Your nervous system is not spare equipment. It's your infrastructure. Come on now, it's as if you've been running in high alert mode too long. It will not and then you expect your body to recover because you had 1 bath or you had 1 sleep in until Sunday afternoon. You know? Come on. Helpful? Having those little mini pauses? Yeah? A complete recovery plan? I don't think so. It's a bit like watering a plant once after keeping it in the cupboard for 2 years and then calling that horticulture. It's not gonna work, is it? Come on now. And this is where so, I think, so many women get caught out because Burnout in women is often missed. Not because women are some sort of mysterious creatures who can't be understood without, I don't know, some weird moonlight phrase going on, but because High Functioning Burnout and this is what I'm specifically talking about here, High Functioning Burnout doesn't always look dramatic from the outside. People see what you produce. They don't see what it's costing you. They see that polished email that you've sent, but they don't see

you waking up at 02: 8:48

03AM. They see that calm, meeting voice that you've been practicing for years, but they don't see the tight jaw, the muscles in your stomach dropping, your breath that never quite settles, or even that private moment in the car where going inside feels weirdly impossible. The thing is, most people see you coping. They don't don't see you disappearing. And because you're still functioning, guess what? Everyone assumes you are fine, including yourself, which is very convenient for absolutely everyone except you and your body. To me, High Functioning Burnout can sound like If I take my foot off the gas, everything will implode, or Everyone thinks I'm fine, but they don't see what it's costing me. And that 1 last thing is so important because competency is such a beautiful camouflage. You become so good, so so good at holding it all together that people stop noticing you. Genuinely, they stop noticing you, and they stop noticing that you're holding something really heavy. Then you start blaming yourself for feeling exhausted. You start telling yourself, Come on, I should be stronger. I should be grateful. Come on. I should be able to handle this. You should be able to rest properly, except that you're not, your brain starts doing admin, threat scanning, you know, the emotional stuff at some sort of Olympic level, and this is where Burnout gets really, really nasty. It does not just make you tired, It can start eroding your very self, your very sense of yourself. You stop doing things that feel like you. You stop enjoying what you used to enjoy. You become so functionally flat. Present, but not really there. Responsible, yeah, but you're so resentful because of it. Capable, but really and truly just wanna vanish. You just wanna disappear. The thing is, please understand, you're not broken, you're not weak, you are definitely not deficient, you're depleted, and there is a big difference there. So here is what I'd like you to think. This is what I would say my reality 1st bit. Burnout recovery for women can't just mean, I want to feel a bit better and then return to the same furnace that was causing all that burning out. A weekend might help you pause, a day off might lower the volume, even taking a walk might help your body discharge some of that stress. And I love barbs and they're very pleasant, especially if nobody knocks the door asking for something, but temporary relief is not the same as restoration. Relief says, I feel a little less awful. I'm talking about restoration. Restoration, my system is rebuilding capacity, and capacity is the word we need here, Because Burnout recovery is not just about resting more I wish it was it's about rebuilding enough capacity. Capacity in your life, no longer draining you faster than you can recover. That means looking at the whole picture, yeah, not just 1 part of your life, it's about looking at your workload. Yeah, I know we're all under a lot of stress, but you still need to look at your workload, sleep, Boundaries, any emotional labor that's going on, the dreaded Perfectionism, the people pleasing, your role pressure, support, any signals that your body is sending you that it's stress, and the way you keep overriding yourself because stopping might feel dangerous. And it's not about blaming you, it's about telling the truth, because Burnout loves the fog. Burnout loves the vague crazies like, oh, I'm just tired, or I'll be fine after the weekend. I'll just need to get through this month and I'll be fine. And yes, sometimes you do need to get through a rough week. I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but if every week becomes the week you've just had to get through, that's not a busy patch, okay? That is a lifestyle that's turning into something that's hazardous for you and your body. Try some more honest language instead. My workload is exceeding my recovery capacity, or I'm using weekends to recover just enough to repeat the same damage the following week. I need to reduce demand and increase the support in myself. And that last sentence, I need to reduce demand and increase support, is really important. Burnout recovery is not just about adding, you know, nice things, it's about reducing what keeps burning you out and increasing what helps you recover. So yeah, a bath is great, a lovely candlelit bath is great, but it's not gonna save you if your entire life is like a bonfire. Okay, so let's do a practical micro step here. Not just, it's not an overhaul, okay? Okay? But let's just try this. For the next 7 days, just for the next 7 days, I want you to track any Burnout signals that your body's giving you. You can just do it once a day, that's fine. I want you to use these 3 headings, though.

Put it in your notebook: 16:04

body, mind, behavior. Body, mind, behavior. What I want you to do, under body, I just want you to notice any physical signals that you might be experiencing. That might be your jaw is tense or you have tight shoulders, you find that you have shallow breathing, your stomach just feels weird, headaches, fatigue, waking up in the middle of the night, feeling completely wired, having your body want to sleep but your brain just wants to keep on going those are the things to note, the physical signals under body. Then under mind, notice 1 thought pattern, and this might be dread or guilt or I can't stop or I should be coping, I'm failing, everything's gonna fall apart, something like that. Just notice that 1 thought pattern. Remember, you're only doing this once a day, okay? So it's about setting the intention at the beginning and noticing these things. So notice under your body, notice that physical signal might be more than 1 under mind, notice that 1 reoccurring thought pattern. And under behavior, notice 1 coping pattern that you have. It might be you say yes to everything. Maybe it's that you're constantly outside having a cigarette, or maybe that you just spend your time doomscrolling, or canceling things that you actually need to do, or even just skipping lunch. Yeah, just sitting at your desk and not even having a break for 8 hours, or pretending that you're fine because it's quicker than just being honest.

Then what I want you to do is write 1 sentence: 18:07

The smallest thing that would reduce demand or increase support today is I'll just repeat that. The smallest thing that would reduce demand or increase support today is and answer it. Answer that question not perfectly, not dramatically, just honestly, just be honest. It could be the smallest thing that would reduce demand today is delay my reply to that email until tomorrow. Or it could be something like this, the smallest thing that would increase support today is telling my partner, I need 20 minutes alone before I even start dinner tonight. Or it could be, The smallest thing that would increase support today is booking that GP appointment, or speaking to a therapist, or asking someone appropriate for help. This is not about self surveillance, okay? This is about information, and information gives you choices. Burnout thrives in the space where everything is vague. So what we need to do is make things visible. Relief So is where you feel better for a little while restoration is where your capacity actually starts to build. Relief might be a quiet evening at home, a bath, a walk, watching a funny program, a decent night's sleep, a day when nobody asks you to locate the objects that they cannot find. Relief matters, of course, it's not silly and it's not shallow, but relief becomes a problem when we mistake it for recovery because then you're just getting enough energy to go back to do the same old pattern again, just enough sleep to keep performing, just enough space to convince yourself the problem is handled. No, we're not doing that because you're not failing. Your nervous system has a pause, not a recovery plan. So when you ask, why am I burning out again? The answer may be because you recovered just enough to resume the damage. We're into restoration here. So the 1 thing I'd like you to take away, if anything, from this episode is that Burnout in women is not always obvious, especially in us high functioning gals. Burnout is proof that you are coping. It may simply mean that you've become very, very good at performing while you're depleted. And you don't need a dramatic breakdown before you're allowed to take what your body's telling you seriously. So start early, notice, rest, ask early, adjust earlier. Document earlier. If work pressure is part of the problem, start seeking appropriate help. Remember, this is an intelligent maintenance of the very thing that keeps you going, you being a human being. Your human infrastructure, and yes, I know, human infrastructure is not as glamorous as limitless potential, but frankly, limitless potential has terrible Boundaries, and I'm not interested in those. If this episode has helped you feel a little less alone in Work Stress, please follow the podcast. The link is in the show notes. Why I always forget to say that, I have no idea. Follow the podcast means that the next episode, you can find it without having to remember yet again. So today, please, please, please do 1 small thing, track that 1 Burnout signal, just delay 1 automatic yes, eat a proper lunch, ask 1 clear boundary of yourself, do 1 of my 5 minute resets. You're not broken, you're just overloaded. So remember, calm 1st, reality 1st, then change. Because recovery is required because you're a human being. And remember, every step you take, no matter how small, is a step towards a brighter, more balanced future. Trust in your journey and remember, progress is progress no matter the pace. I'm Cheryl and this has been Work Stress Anxiety by ABGW. Bye for now!