Burnout in Women: What is it? The Signs, Symptoms & How to Recover Holistically
Is what you’re feeling right now a sign of burnout? Wondering whether work is the root cause of the emotional exhaustion you’re experiencing?
If you’re a woman, then we need to look at burnout through an entirely different lens.
Because burnout seldom happens in isolation. It’s seldom a case of “doing a bit too much at work”, or due to the extra hours you’ve been putting in because of your recent promotion.
If it were that simple to explain, then it would be that simple to overcome.
And this is where most women go wrong. Through no fault of their own. Because this is what you’ve been taught for years.
You read the general guidance around burnout. Put in place a new wellness routine that might have worked before. Improve your diet and health, and get a few extra hours of sleep in.
But this time, it’s not working. So, you try harder. You look for more solutions. You try a different type of workout. A new supplement. And still things don’t feel quite right. You feel “off”. Like you’re not yourself. Trapped in a different body.
You still feel overwhelmed and frustrated. Irritated by things that were never a problem before, whatever… this “thing” is that happened.
It’s not your fault that everything you’ve tried hasn’t been working. Burnout is deep. And the science and research show us that burnout is caused not just by workload alone, but by prolonged physiological and cognitive strain.
Hey lovely. I’m Hayley. And I’m a Holistic Wellness and Health Coach based in Dubai that supports women like you in high-performing and leadership roles, or any role that involves spinning many plates.
We can’t get rid of all the plates. But we can put in place some supportive scaffolding so you’re not in a constant state of juggling overwhelm. We might even be able to replace some of the heavier plates with lighter ones.
And that’s where my work comes in. With my holistic approach to health, mind, and nutrition, and extensive qualifications in all areas, it’s my purpose and mission to help you take back the version of you you once knew. Rebuild from the inside into something more.
More energised and with more capacity to hold whatever you want to achieve.
In this article, I’m going to dive deep into what burnout actually is so you can spot the signs and symptoms early on. I’m also going to talk about how you can begin to recover holistically using my ARCH™ Framework.
You can recover from burnout, but you can’t eliminate the things that cause it completely (as much as we’d all love to go and live on a desert island free from the stresses of daily life!).
If you feel you’re in burnout right now, I want to invite you to download my 30 day reset. And when you’re ready. I’ll be here to listen and support you.
If you want to talk more, then please do book a clarity call. This is not a sales call. This is so I can understand your situation and advise on the next possible steps to begin the journey back to you.
What is burnout?
If you Google burnout, you’ll likely get a list of symptoms that centre on experiencing too much stress and being unable to cope. You’ll be told to identify the part of your life that’s stressing you out, remove it, put some wellness techniques in place, and you should be okay.
The other side of the internet might tell you to meditate, raise your vibration and create an abundance mindset because they believe that burnout is a state of mind.
I’m pleased to tell you, I’m neither!
There is a much more nuanced conversation to be had around burnout, especially where women are concerned.
Christina Maslach PHD is a pioneer for burnout research. She started her research back in the 1970s and has since written hundreds of articles in academic journals.
She describes burnout as:
“A term that just resonates with people. It describes what happens when you used to have passion, used to be on fire, and then it’s gone. The stress of the work eats you alive, burns you up.”
Notice the words. Used to be on fire. Used to have passion. And then it’s gone.
It’s an emptiness. It’s what contributes to that “I just don’t feel right, I feel off” feeling. The things you once loved have been reduced to ash because you haven’t been taught how to hold them all. You haven’t been taught how to build capacity and resilience.
Maslach also discusses her research with participants who describe becoming cynical. They were so exhausted that they had become detached from the people around them.
Doctors caring for patients began to see them as objects rather than humans. Cutting corners and doing less than their best.
I’m absolutely not saying you feel that the people around you are objects! But I hope you’re starting to understand what burnout is on a deeper level.
It’s far more than stress. Stress is fleeting. Stress can actually be good!
But ongoing stress can lead to burnout. Which can lead to that empty feeling when all passion and purpose, and the things that used to light you up, have gone.
What are the early warning symptoms and signs of burnout in women?
Now we know what burnout is, let’s talk more about the symptoms and signs.
Early symptoms and signs of burnout happen at the surface; they’re easier to identify.
We also know that burnout happens gradually. Many women come to me when they’re experiencing high levels of burnout because they missed the initial signs or dismissed them as part of “normal life”.
People often confuse burnout with mental health struggles such as depression and anxiety. While it’s true that they can go hand in hand. You can experience burnout without a mental health condition. This is where women are very good at dismissing those early waning signs.
Women are brilliant at “coping”. They will continue to work, continue to care, and continue to show up for everyone, appearing to function while, on the inside, simmering away. So if you find yourself working through this section and relating to most of the symptoms, please do confide in someone. Burnout should be taken seriously.
There are three main areas where we see signs of burnout.
The Physical – Exhaustion that seems to persist, headaches and an increase in regular sickness, like colds.
The Mental – You’ll find yourself with more brain fog and irritability, annoyance at small things and struggles with sleep.
The Behavioural – From withdrawing from friends and social activities, to doubting yourself and struggling to start or finish projects. Burnout has a big effect on your behaviour.
So what are the early signs you should keep an eye on? When does it start to cross the line into burnout?
Some of the early signs of burnout in women are:
Withdrawing from social events they once enjoyed.
When friends invite you for coffee or the latest family get-together, and you find yourself constantly cancelling at the last minute because the thought alone is just too draining, it could be a sign of burnout.
Fatigue and memory loss
This is a big one that can often be dismissed as ‘baby brain’ or ‘peri-menopause’ – which of course it can be. But when you consider the other signs, it helps to build a bigger picture of burnout. Memory loss has an effect on everything around you. Work and relationships. Many women report feeling like they get their brains back during recovery.
Reactive and reduced tolerance to stress
You might find yourself more irritable. The smallest things annoy you. The smallest things can stress you out. You might even realise that your reactions are not comparable to the problem. And then spiral into shame. You’re not broken. It’s just that your environment is not set up to support you.
Cynicism or emotional detachment
You might feel more detached from reality. Not caring about things that used to mean a lot. You might notice your partner, friends or family telling you that you’ve become more ‘cynical’.
Struggles with sleep
This is a very common early sign. Sleep, when regulated, shouldn’t feel hard. You might find yourself waking at night more frequently or much earlier than usual. You might struggle getting to sleep, find it hard to switch off, or feel restless.
An increase in dopamine-seeking behaviours.
We all like to scroll. But when in burnout, you might find the hours creeping by. Shopping for things you really didn’t need. Drinking more alcohol than normal – or most evenings to “wind down”. You might even be drinking more caffeine.
All of these signs, burnout or not, have a detrimental effect on your overall wellbeing, so being aware and taking a moment to notice is going to be beneficial to beginning your journey to recovery.
What are the effects of burnout? Why do I need to “recover”?
If it’s not depression or anxiety, it’s okay, right? You can just plough on through.
It couldn’t be further from the truth. We know that burnout has a huge effect not only on your behaviour but on your nervous system and overall health over time. It shouldn’t be ignored.
This is often why those wellness tactics you’ve been trying haven’t worked. Because the damage has been consistent over months, sometimes years, it takes a holistic approach to rectify.
The physical effects you might find yourself experiencing as burnout takes over:
Fatigue – the kind that just doesn’t seem to shift, no matter how much caffeine or nutritious food you consume.
Headaches and tension – you up your water intake, but still, they persist.
Digestive issues – you find you’re now sensitive to foods you could eat before, and might be experiencing IBS.
Lowered immune resilience – picking up every cold and sore throat, you might feel like there’s very little respite between illnesses.
If you treat these factors in isolation, they will continue to come back because you’ve not been able to work on the mismatch in your environment and the underlying cause of the burnout.
Other areas of your life that burnout can have an effect on:
Identity – You might experience a loss of yourself, the empty feeling we talked about earlier, where you lose all passion and purpose.
Relationships – Many women who come to me experience struggles with their relationships because burnout can cause miscommunication, irritability and intense tiredness. It’s only natural that these can affect the relationships with those closest to us at home and at work.
Coping mechanisms – You might find yourself relying more on alcohol, drugs or food (binge eating) to make it through or mask your feelings. These coping mechanisms can become ingrained habits that feel difficult to change.
Do women experience burnout more than men?
Research consistently shows that women report higher rates of burnout. Women are at higher risk of chronic stress, which leads to burnout.
You may have heard of the ‘mental load’ that women carry. Because they shoulder more of the household cognitive work, such as organising family life. But it’s more than that. It’s not just the pressure, it’s the sustained pressure. The lack of support. The lack of understanding. These are all causes of burnout in women.
Women are more likely to:
be in paid work in addition to caring responsibilities (because we rely more than ever on two household incomes)
undertake the majority of caring responsibilities
be in charge of all the decision-making
plan the holidays, birthdays, trips and more
look after the larger share of household tasks
It’s considered “the norm” and society has almost gaslighted us into thinking that this constant fatigue is normal.
If you’re a high-achieving woman who has always functioned on the outside, while feeling detached on the inside, you might find yourself saying “but I’m fine – I’m not depressed, I’m just fine”.
Being emotionally detached and exhausted is not fine. And it’s not normal. And we need to change the narrative so that we as women feel more empowered to seek out help. We feel like a failure if we can’t “hold it all together”.
The great news is that you CAN hold it all together.
Because recovering from burnout isn’t always about getting rid of the stressful things. That’s not realistic.
But we do need to look at your life from a bird’s eye view to make sure we’re not putting on a sticking plaster that falls off when things gets tough. And that we’re making changes for life.
How can I recover from burnout?
Recovery is different for everyone. But the way I support women with recovery from burnout is through my own framework, the ARCH Method™. It’s a proven method I’ve formulated after working through a process with my clients because I realised that most fixes for burnout were surface-level.
You cannot regulate a nervous system with a plan built on a body still in survival mode. It just will not hold. And none of it stays without the capacity to be able to choose it when life gets hard.
This is why you put a plan in place, but as soon as life becomes tricky, the plan goes out the window. Building capacity and resilience has to be part of the plan.
My ARCH Method™ draws on integrative health, nervous system science, NLP, nutrition and mental & physical strength work, because a woman is all of these at once.
Inside the ARCH Method™, we start differently
Awareness
Awareness has to come first. Without awareness, you’ll fix only the things you can see or notice. But you need to look closely at patterns. These patterns can be:
Across the body
In your energy
In your behaviour
Often, you don’t notice these patterns because they’ve been there for so long.
Regulation
The nervous system is what regulates, or deregulates, you. You’ve been pushing through what your system is able to hold and process - sometimes for years. It’s been telling you to stop, but you’ve “soldiered” on through.
Once you learn how stress works within the body and how to work with it, you’ll be more regulated and build more capacity to hold everything you dreamed of.
Clarity
Now that you’ve worked through the foundations, have a clear understanding of your starting point and where you want to be, this is where the practical work can come in.
And it’s not about one thing.
This is the holistic approach.
1. Looking at what you eat
It’s not about dieting or calorie deficits. It’s about understanding nutrition and what your body needs to regulate. It considers your hormones and age. Balancing your nutrition so you’re not restricting but fuelling your body and brain so that energy becomes more consistent, and your entire body becomes more regulated with less energy dips and dives.
2. Looking at how you move
We know movement is important for wellbeing. But movement has many forms. Movement can be tailored to your environment and life. If you have caring responsibilities and work, it’s about finding flexible options. As women, the moment we put in place an exercise routine, we can try to do too much, and so it becomes impossible to hold and remain disciplined. It’s got to be realistic.
3. Look at how your days work together
This is your plan. Not a cookie-cutter approach. You are unique. It needs to be tailored around your days, your energy levels, and the time of the month. As women, we are cyclical beings, and we don’t think (or know) how to tailor our wellbeing around that. Hormones affect far more than you realise.
Holding
This is the part that gets missed.
The plan is in place, and it’s working. You’re feeling better. Sleeping better. Starting to build new patterns.
And then you have a bad week.
A week where change feels impossible.
You feel like it’s a motivation problem. And so you blame yourself. In reality, it has nothing to do with motivation. It’s all to do with how much you can hold. You cannot hold change if you don’t have the capacity to when life gets tough. It’s an essential part of the framework. Helping you to slowly change your behaviours. It’s also where coaching can help. Having someone to work through this framework alongside you, pull out the unconscious actions, and hold you accountable will help you reach the next level of health and wellness you’ve been dreaming of.
If you’re ready for that step. Let’s have a call.
FAQs
Is there a difference between burnout and stress?
Yes – stress is usually temporary and happens during very specific situations. Burnout develops over a prolonged period when stress continues. Stress is obviously not a nice feeling, but unlike stress, the symptoms of burnout leave you feeling emotionally detached, with little motivation or ability to enjoy the things you once loved.
Are there physical effects of burnout?
Unfortunately burnout can affect you physically as well as mentally. Many women report digestive issues like IBS, fatigue, being more frequently ill with coughs, colds, sore throats, headaches and even poor sleep.
This is because burnout tends to be long term so impacts multiple systems throughout the body.
What’s the difference between burnout and depression?
Although they share similar symptoms, burnout is linked to prolonged stress while depression is a mental health condition that affects your mood and thoughts. That’s not to say they can’t overlap as some people do experience both at the same time.
Are women more likely to experience burnout?
All of the research suggests that women are more likely to experience burnout. We think the reasons behind this are due to women very often carrying more of the mental load in relationships. This includes caring responsibilities, managing the household and family planning. This is also referred to at the ‘invisible’ load. This load, plus other ongoing demands is what increases the risk of chronic (ongoing stress) leading to burnout.
How long does it take to recover from burnout?
Burnout recovery is different for everyone. It depends on factors such as how long you've been experiencing burnout, your support system, your overall health, and the changes you make. Some people notice improvements within weeks, while for some it can take several months.
Can I recover from burnout without quitting my job?
Absolutely. Recovery is not always about removing every source of stress. It's often about building resilience, improving nervous system regulation, creating healthier boundaries, and developing sustainable ways to manage your energy and wellbeing.
What are the first signs of burnout?
Some of the earliest warning signs can be subtle and include:
An increase in fatigue
Irritability
Difficulty getting to sleep, or staying asleep
Brain fog
Withdrawing from friends, family and social events
Feeling emotionally detached
Reduced motivation
Relying more heavily on caffeine, alcohol, scrolling, or other coping behaviours
When should I seek professional support for burnout?
If you suspect you might be experiencing burnout and it’s affecting your health, relationships, work, sleep, or quality of life, it's a good idea to seek support. Many women wait until they feel completely overwhelmed before asking for help, but early intervention is going to make recovery smoother and potentially easier for you.
Can burnout come back once you’ve recovered?
Yes burnout can come back if the underlying (or new) stressors remain unchanged. Recovery isn't just about feeling better temporarily. It's about creating sustainable habits, building capacity, and developing greater awareness so you can spot the warning signs before burnout takes hold again.