Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

by Emily Nagoski

In short, emotions are tunnels. If you go all the way through them, you get to the light at the end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion.

Your body, with its instinct for self-preservation, knows, on some level, that Human Giver Syndrome is slowly killing you.

We thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from.

Dealing with your stress is a separate process from dealing with the things that cause your stress. To deal with your stress, you have to complete the cycle.

Chronically activated stress response means chronically increased blood pressure,

Physical activity is the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle.

A simple, practical exercise is to breathe in to a slow count of five, hold that breath for five, then exhale for a slow count of ten, and pause for another count of five. Do that three times—just one minute and fifteen seconds of breathing—and see how you feel.

Positive Social Interaction. Casual but friendly social interaction is the first external sign that the world is a safe place.

One thing we know for sure doesn’t work: just telling yourself that everything is okay now. Completing the cycle isn’t an intellectual decision; it’s a physiological shift.

For a lot of people, the most difficult thing about “completing the cycle” is that it almost always requires that they stop dealing with whatever caused the stress, step away from that situation, and turn instead toward their own body and emotions.

If you’re hiding from your life, you’re past your threshold. You aren’t dealing with either the stress or the stressor. Deal with the stress so you can be well enough to deal with the stressor.

Wellness is not a state of being, but a state of action.

Positive reappraisal involves recognizing that sitting in traffic is worth it. It means deciding that the effort, the discomfort, the frustration, the unanticipated obstacles, and even the repeated failure have value—not just because they are steps toward a worthwhile goal, but because you reframe difficulties as opportunities for growth and learning.

first, acknowledge when things are difficult; then, acknowledge that the difficulty is worth it. Pessimists assume everything is hard and will require work, so that’s easy. The hard part is acknowledging that those difficulties are actually opportunities.

Soon: Your goal should be achievable without requiring patience. Certain: Your goal should be within your control. Positive: It should be something that feels good, not just something that avoids suffering. Concrete: Measurable. You can ask Andrew, “Are you filled with joy?” and he can say yes or no. Specific: Not general, like “fill people with joy,” but specific: Fill Andrew with joy. Personal: Tailor your goal. If you don’t care about Andrew’s state of mind, forget Andrew. Who is your Andrew? Maybe you’re your own Andrew.

What are the benefits of continuing? What are the benefits of stopping? What are the costs of continuing? What are the costs of stopping?

Soon: When will you know you’ve succeeded? Your goal should be achievable without requiring patience. Certain: How confident are you that you can succeed? Your goal should be within your control. Positive: What improvement will you experience when you win? It should be something that feels good, not just something that avoids suffering. Concrete: Measurable. How will you know you’ve succeeded? There is an external indication that you have succeeded. Specific: As opposed to general. You should be able to visualize precisely what success will look like. Personal: Why does this goal matter to you? How much does it matter? Tailor your goal so that it matters to you.

That’s the power of meaning. We can tolerate any suffering, if we know why. And not knowing why is, itself, a profound type of suffering.

Meaning is not found; it is made.13 To make meaning, the research tells us, engage with something larger than yourself.14

Research has found that meaning is most likely to come from three kinds of sources:15 1. pursuit and achievement of ambitious goals that leave a legacy—as in “finding a cure for HIV” or “making the world a better place for these kids”; 2. service to the divine or other spiritual calling—as in “attaining spiritual liberation and union with Akal” or “glorifying God with my words, thoughts, and deeds”; and 3. loving, emotionally intimate connection with others—as in “raising my kids so they know they’re loved, no matter what” or “loving and supporting my partner with authenticity and kindness.”

If you’re still struggling to recognize your Something Larger, research has found a few strategies that can help: Try writing your own obituary or a “life summary” through the eyes of a grandchild or a student. Ask your closest friends to describe the “real you,” the characteristics of your personality and your life that are at the core of your best self. Imagine that someone you care about is going through a dark moment in their life—they’ve experienced significant loss and feel helpless and isolated (the two things that drain us of meaning fastest). As your best self, write that person a letter to support them through this difficult time. Then reread it. It’s for you.18 Finally, think of a time when you experienced an intense sense of meaning or purpose or “alignment” or whatever it feels like for you. What were you doing? What was it that created that sense of meaning?

Do you suffer from Human Giver Syndrome? Symptoms include • believing you have a moral obligation—that is, you owe it to your partner, your family, the world, or even to yourself—to be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others; • believing that any failure to be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive makes you a failure as a person; • believing that your “failure” means you deserve punishment—even going so far as to beat yourself up; and • believing these are not symptoms, but normal and true ideas.

This is a theme we’ll encounter over and over through the rest of this book: Behave yourself. Follow the rules. Or else.

Joseph Campbell himself, father of the “Hero’s Journey” framework, summarized it succinctly when presented with a “Heroine’s Journey” to consider. He said, “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize she’s the place people are trying to get to.”

Human Giver Syndrome is the first villain in our story.

Take half an hour or so to write your story, answering these questions: 1. What parts of the adversity were uncontrollable by you? (e.g., other people and their choices, cultural norms, your life circumstances at the time, your age and prior experience, the weather…) 2. What did you do to survive the adversity, in the moment? (Hint: We know for sure that you did successfully survive the adversity, because here you are.) 3. What resources did you leverage, to continue surviving after the adversity had passed? Be specific. (May include practical resources, like money or information; social resources like friends, your ability to seek, find, and accept help, or your social influence; or emotional resources like persistence, self-soothing, and optimism.) Once you have your story, take a moment to write about a time when those resources empowered you to overcome a subsequent difficulty. Then write a summary: Even though I couldn’t control ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (adversity), I managed to ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (survival tactic), and then I used ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (resource) to grow stronger. After that, I could ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (skill/win/insight). Writing an origin story can even help you identify your Something Larger, because it helps you notice the parts of your past experience that you leveraged to survive.28 Meaning is not made by the terrible thing you experienced; it is made by the ways you survive.

If I do everything, if I manage his feelings and the house and everything, then I’m exhausted. And if I don’t do it, I suffer from his shitty mood and nothing gets done.

During World War II, an unknown Jew, hiding from the Nazis, scratched these words into the wall of a cellar:30 I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when feeling it not. I believe in God, even when He is silent.

“Meaning in life” is good for you. You make meaning by engaging with something larger than yourself—whether that’s ambitious goals, service to the divine, or loving relationships. • Meaning enhances well-being when you’re doing well, and it can save your life when you’re struggling. • Human Giver Syndrome is a collection of personal and cultural beliefs and behaviors that insist that some people’s only “meaning in life” comes from being pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. • The stress response cycle, the Monitor, and meaning are all resources you carry with you into the battle against the real enemy.

If we take Colin out of the water, dry him off, and put him into the shuttle box, he will not even try to escape the shock, though the door is right there.1 In the shuttle box, Colin could escape if he tried, but he can’t try. His brain has learned that trying doesn’t work, that nothing he does makes a difference…and so he has lost the ability to try.

When an animal has learned helplessness, it goes straight past frustration right to the pit of despair. It’s not a rational choice; their central nervous system has learned that when they are suffering, nothing they can do will make a difference. They have learned they are helpless.

Givers may spend years attending to the needs of others, while dismissing their own stress generated in response to witnessing those needs. The result is uncountable incomplete stress response cycles accumulating in our bodies. This accumulation leads to “compassion fatigue,” and it’s a primary cause of burnout among givers, including those who work in helping professions (many of which are dominated by women—teaching, social work, healthcare, etc).

Signs of compassion fatigue include21 • checking out, emotionally—faking empathy when you know you’re supposed to feel it, because you can’t feel the real thing anymore; • minimizing or dismissing suffering that isn’t the most extreme—“It’s not slavery/genocide/child rape/nuclear war, so quit complaining”; • feeling helpless, hopeless, or powerless, while also feeling personally responsible for doing more; and • staying in a bad situation, whether a workplace or a relationship, out of a sense of grandiosity—“If I don’t do it, no one will.”

People who live through traumatic experiences are called survivors. People who love and support people who live through traumatic experiences are co-survivors. They need all the support and care that a survivor needs. If they don’t get it, they run the risk of burning out, dropping out, and tuning out.

tl;dr: • The game is rigged. Women and girls—especially women and girls of color—are systematically excluded from government and other systems of power. It’s called “patriarchy” (ugh). • The patriarchy (ugh) says it doesn’t exist. It says that if we struggle, it’s our own fault for not being “good enough.” Which is gaslighting. • Human Giver Syndrome—the contagious belief that you have a moral obligation to give every drop of your humanity in support of others, no matter the cost to you—thrives in the patriarchy, the way mold thrives in damp basements. • The solution? SMASH. (See worksheet. )

BMI is nonsense as a measure of personal health.

You might have to stop what you’re doing, take a slow breath, focus on the sensation of your weight on the floor or the chair, and actually ask out loud, “What do you need?” You may receive the answer as an instantaneous knowing, or as a physical sensation you need to interpret, or as words in your mind.

And there is nothing she has to do, no shape or size she has to be, before she “deserves” food and love and sleep.

tl;dr: • The “Bikini Industrial Complex” is a hundred-billion-dollar industry that tries to convince us that our bodies are the enemy, when, in reality, the Bikini Industrial Complex is itself the enemy. • Bias against people of size can be more dangerous to our health than the actual size of our bodies. And many of the things we do to try to change our bodies make our health worse. • It is normal—nearly universal—to feel ambivalent about your body, wanting to accept and love your body as it is and, at the same time, wanting to change it to conform to the culturally constructed aspirational ideal. • Solutions: Embrace the mess. See yourself as “the new hotness.” Practice seeing everyone as “the new hotness.” And tune in to your body’s needs.

tl;dr: • Connection—with friends, family, pets, the divine, etc.—is as necessary as food and water. Humans are not built to function autonomously; we are built to oscillate between connection and autonomy and back again. • We are all constantly “co-regulating” one another without even being aware it’s happening—synchronizing heartbeats, changing moods, and helping one another feel seen and heard. • Certain kinds of connection create energy. When you share mutual trust and “connected knowing” with someone, you co-create energy that renews both people. We call this the “Bubble of Love.” • Sadness, rage, and the feeling that you are not “enough” are forms of loneliness. When you experience these emotions, connect.

“You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.”

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

When you work your muscles—especially your biggest muscles—you strengthen not just the muscles you’re using but also your lungs and liver and brain. Exercising one part of you strengthens all of you; exercising the strongest parts of you strengthens the rest of you most efficiently. The same goes for cognitive, emotional, and social effort.

“When you are broken, go to bed,” goes the French proverb.

People who’ve been awake for nineteen hours (say, woke up at 7 A.M. and now it’s 2 A.M.) are as impaired in their cognitive and motor functioning as a person who is legally intoxicated.

Eight hours of sleep opportunity, give or take an hour. • Twenty to thirty minutes of “stress-reducing conversation” with your partner or other trusted loved one. • Thirty minutes of physical activity. Whether with people or alone, you do it with the explicit mindset of gear-switching, Feels-purging, rest-getting freedom. Physical activity counts as “rest” partly because it improves the quality of your sleep and partly because it completes the stress response cycle, transitioning your body out of a stressed state and into a resting state. • Thirty minutes of paying attention to food. “Thirty minutes?” you say. Don’t fret. That includes all meals, shopping, cooking, and eating, and it doesn’t have to be all at once. It can be with people or alone, but it can’t be while working or driving or watching TV or even listening to a podcast. Pay attention to your food for half an hour a day. This counts as rest partly because it provides necessary nourishment and partly because it’s active rest, a change of pace, apart from the other domains of your life. Think of it as meditation. • And a thirty-minute wild card, depending on your needs. For some people, this will be extra physical activity, because they need that much to feel good. For others, it will be preparation for their sleep opportunity, because they know their brains need time to transition from the buzzing state of wakefulness into the quiet that allows the brain to sleep. For still others, it will be social play time, b...

Color-code each activity by types of needs they fulfill: connection, rest (both sleep and mind-wandering), meaning, and completing the cycle.

Reserve thirty minutes of each day for a “stress-reducing conversation.” If your stress-reducing conversation partner is your life partner, you might also add a weekly hour-long “state of the union” conversation. Research recommends these as the standards for sustaining a satisfying relationship.39

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker

tl;dr: • We will literally die without rest. Literally. Finding time for rest is not a #firstworldproblem; it’s about survival. • We are not built to persist incessantly, but to oscillate from effort to rest and back again. On average we need to spend 42 percent of our time—ten hours a day—on rest. If we don’t take the time to rest, then our bodies will revolt and force us to take the time. • Human Giver Syndrome tells us it’s “self-indulgent” to rest, which makes as much sense as believing it’s weak or self-indulgent to breathe. • Getting the rest your body requires is an act of resistance against the forces that are trying to rig the game and make you helpless. Reclaim rest and you reclaim sovereignty over your own life.