In this episode, I’m talking honestly about what happens when your body reaches its limit, even when you’re trying to do everything “right.”
After weeks of pushing too hard, spending too much time on screens, not sleeping enough, and trying to keep up with a packed schedule, I ended up with a severe migraine that completely stopped me in my tracks for almost two weeks.
I spend a lot of time talking about self-advocacy, listening to your body, burnout prevention, nervous system regulation, chronic illness, and stress management. I know my triggers well. I have routines, tools, and awareness around my health, and I still ended up burnt out.
In this episode, I share how burnout has affected my body physically and mentally, why I think so many high-functioning women end up emotionally exhausted, and how I personally recover when I hit a wall. I talk about burnout recovery, migraine recovery, nervous system overwhelm, chronic illness burnout, emotional exhaustion, self-compassion, slowing down, and learning how to reconnect with your body without shame.
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out, emotionally drained, disconnected from your body, or frustrated that you “should have seen it coming,” this episode is for you.
Timestamps:
[00:00:14] Burnout, Migraines & Body Shutdown
[00:01:22] Burnout vs Chronic Illness
[00:02:03] Listening to Your Body Isn’t Perfection
Disclaimer:The Hairy Chin does not provide medical advice. All content is for informational purposes only. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personal medical concerns.
Transcripts
I know my triggers quite well. I have my tools, my routines, and I still just spent the last two weeks completely shut down by migraine that I really didn't see coming. So today I want to talk about burnout, about how I personally recover when I get to this place, and the compassion I believe we have to give ourselves when it happens.
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Hi there, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy you're here today. I talk a lot about advocating for yourself, listening to your body, paying attention to patterns and triggers, and even though I am fully aware of all of these things, and I really try to put them into practice, I still ended up here with a migraine that rebounded and took me out of the game for 14 days. Looking back now, I can absolutely see the things that probably contributed to this. I was pushing really hard for weeks, my schedule was packed, I wasn't sleeping enough, I was spending way too much time on screens, I was just doing too much for too long, and eventually my body just said, okay, we're done, and I'm going to power down. And I do want to say something important here, because I never want conversations around burnout to be confused with diagnostic illnesses. But I do believe that pushing our bodies to their limits can absolutely have an impact on how they function and respond to stress and stimuli. For me, my lifestyle and habits absolutely influence my migraine activity. But migraine is still a neurological condition that I live with, and sometimes episodes happen regardless. And I really dislike this idea that if we manage our lives perfectly enough, we can completely prevent health issues and burnout from happening. That's just not reality. So this is not about blame or trying to control every variable in our lives, it's about awareness. It's about understanding our bodies, understanding our triggers, and building a stronger connection to the things that can push us closer to our limits. And that's important to talk about, because there's so much conversation around burnout prevention and learning your body, but sometimes we just get here. Life gets busy, we don't always see the signs clearly, and even when we are self-aware and trying really hard to take care of ourselves, our bodies can still reach a limit.
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If you are somebody that struggles with migraine, then you know that even after the major symptoms calm down, there's often this whole post-drome period where you are foggy and slow and just trying to crawl your way back to feeling normal again. And honestly, that part has been one of the hardest things for me, because mentally, I want to jump right back into my normal routines, my work and my schedule, but physically, my body is still recovering. And I think that tension is something a lot of people experience with burnout too. Mentally, we feel capable of continuing at the pace we're moving. We know how to push through and keep functioning, but physically and emotionally, our bodies are often carrying a very different reality underneath all of that. There are times when our capacity and our sustainability are just in conflict with each other. We are capable of doing more than our body can consistently sustain long-term, and that gap between what we can do and what we can keep doing is where burnout lives, especially for people with chronic illness or neurodivergence or bodies that are already working harder than they let on, there's just less room for error. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what I personally do when I get to this place, because recovery is often talked about in this very perfect and idealistic way where you're supposed to completely unplug from life and do a full reset, and I just don't think that's realistic for most people. So here's what it looks like for me when I'm recovering from one of these episodes of burnout. The first thing I try to do is slow my nervous system down, and I don't necessarily mean sleeping all day or disappearing from life completely, I mean physically slowing down. I'm a naturally fast-paced person. I move fast, I think fast, I multitask constantly, and when I get into these burnout states, I try to consciously move at half speed. I walk slower, I talk slower, I stop rushing through every task. I try to stop creating this constant sense of urgency in my body, because our nervous systems are always listening to how we are moving through the world. And the same goes for breathing, not in this performative way where you suddenly need some perfect meditation routine or elaborate wellness practice. I mean just actually stopping for a moment and breathing intentionally.
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Sometimes for me, that looks like standing in the kitchen when I'm waiting for my coffee and just taking one deep breath with my hand on my chest and my eyes closed. Sometimes it means not immediately grabbing my phone the second I feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. Sometimes it is literally just giving myself 20 seconds to pause instead of constantly pushing forward. Healing is often built in smaller moments than we realize. It's not always these huge life changes or perfect routines. Sometimes it's literally just finding small moments throughout the day where your body can slow down for a second and feel safe. The second thing I try to do is to lighten my load wherever I can. And I know that is so much easier said than done because women carry so much. We carry responsibilities and schedules and emotional labor and expectations. And sometimes there genuinely isn't much room to pull back. But I still think it's important to look at our lives honestly and to ask ourselves where can we really stop pushing so hard? Where can we say no? Where can we reschedule something or ask for help? And where can we stop over explaining ourselves? I love the phrase that no is a complete sentence because many of us feel like we need to apologize for not saying yes to everything. It's like we need permission to rest, permission to disappoint people or permission to not constantly be available at all times. And the truth is is that when your body's already burnt out, continuing to overload yourself usually just extends the crash longer. And the third thing I do is to return to awareness but without shame attached to it. When I start coming out of these episodes, I try to look back honestly and ask myself where things started to shift. Not to judge myself or punish myself or create some huge life overhaul but just to notice.
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Where did I start running on adrenaline? When did my habit start slipping? What was my body trying to tell me before it finally forced me to stop? For me, I know my big triggers are usually a lack of sleep or too much screen time, not taking breaks, too much caffeine. All of our triggers look completely different. But awareness is one of the most powerful tools we have when it comes to burnout because awareness allows us to reconnect with ourselves without turning everything into a personal failure. We cannot juggle all the balls perfectly all the time. Inevitably, some of them are going to drop. And that doesn't mean you're weak. It doesn't mean you're bad at taking care of yourself. And it also doesn't mean that you need to fix and overhaul everything, supplements, diets, your lifestyle. Sometimes it just means that you need to slow down, assess, and be compassionate with yourself. Because the more we can release the expectation that we should always be balanced and regulated and self-aware all the time, the more we can actually start recovering instead of sitting in guilt and frustration and shame. Grace and compassion aren't things you earn by being perfect. They're what you give yourself precisely when you're not.
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Okay, that's it for today. I hope this episode made you feel a little less alone if you're finding yourself in one of these burnout moments right now.
