Basically, burnout feels bad because stress feels bad. Burnout is a state where you are, or have been, experiencing a period of prolonged stress. Think of the spin cycle in your washer – one that goes on for months or maybe even years – but never gets to the rinse phase. The constant churning without a pause or release in sight. That’s how burnout can feel.

Contrary to popular belief, stress is a physiological response to a threat or danger. It’s a series of processes in your body that includes hormones releasing, heart rate and blood pressure rising, gastrointestinal processes grinding to a halt, and electrical activity in the brain increasing. All these processes directly affect your physical and emotional state of being.

This is also referred to as the “fight, flight or freeze” response. Have you heard of the example of a person walking down a path and all of a sudden, a tiger jumps out at them? What is your response? Most people would probably start running – to remove themselves from the sharp fangs of that striped animal. But running from a tiger for 15 minutes already sounds like a pretty long time for your body to keep the stress response up. But what if you were running from the tiger for a day? A week? A year? At some point, your body will run out of resources. Your muscles will begin to get tired. Your legs will start to slow down. You start to feel exhausted. Your mood becomes heavier. You start to not feel like yourself anymore or unable to accomplish the things you used to. It’s here where you may have begun to hit the burnout threshold.

The good news is that there are ways to begin to tackle this feeling. There are strategies to help you manage your stress and assist you with navigating the emotional obstacles that often come with burnout. Choosing to prioritize your wellbeing – both physical and mental – is the first step to feeling better.