The Neuroscience of Burnout: How to Spot It, Stop It, and Find Your Way Back to Balance (an autobiography)

Welcome to Season 2 of Firing & Wiring!

I’ve got a confession, Gentle Readers. This summer, burnout hit me hard. I’d been pushing myself non-stop, juggling work, family, and of course, this lovely digital soapbox. Eventually, it all caught up to me. One day, I sat down to write the new Firing & Wiring article, and…nothing. My brain felt drained, like it had been hollowed out. So I took a break (admittedly, a longer break than I planned) and spent the past few months figuring out how to climb my way out of burnout using the neuroscience strategies I’ve spent years studying. Now, I’m back, and I want to share how you can recover too — without needing to overhaul your life.

Burnout doesn’t hit like a lightning bolt — it creeps up, quietly dulling your edges until even the simplest tasks feel insurmountable. As someone who’s not only studied it but also experienced it firsthand (many… many times), I can tell you that burnout is more than just feeling “tired.” It’s a brain-wide shutdown of motivation, resilience, and even joy. The good news? It’s not forever. You can absolutely pull yourself out of burnout, and not just by making drastic life changes. Neuroscience gives us a ton of tools to spark a recovery grounded in realistic strategies that work with your life demands.

So what exactly is burnout?

Burnout is more than exhaustion — it’s a depletion of your brain’s resources. When faced with chronic stress long enough, prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for decision-making and attention) goes offline, leaving you unable to focus, plan, or manage emotions. Meanwhile, your brain’s reward system (think: dopamine) gets thrown completely out of whack, making it harder to feel any satisfaction, even from things you usually enjoy.

In functional terms, burnout is part of the brain’s “freeze” response to constant fight-or-flight mode. Under prolonged stress, the body pumps out cortisol, which initially helps you power through challenges. But over time, elevated cortisol levels wear down your brain’s capacity to get anything done.

How is it different than normal stress?

Stress isn’t always bad — in fact, your brain thrives with little bursts of it from time to time. Short-term stressors activate your sympathetic nervous system (think adrenaline), helping you take on challenges. But when stress doesn’t let up, your parasympathetic system — the “rest and digest” part that calms things down — gets drowned out. You stay stuck in overdrive.

Over time, this leads to what researchers call allostatic load — cumulative wear and tear on your brain and body that comes from putting the pedal to the metal without ever hitting the brakes. To keep allostatic load from doing serious damage, your brain pulls the e-brake, triggering the state we call burnout in order to force a much needed slow-down.

How do you fix burnout (without overhauling your life)?

The tricky part of burnout is that most of us can’t just escape the stressors that are keeping us in that chronic fight-or-flight state everyday. Work deadlines aren’t going anywhere. Your mortgage is not going to suddenly be payable in hugs. Your family will probably not be stoked if you decide to throw in the towel and become a hermit living alone in a remote cottage in the woods (but hey, I’m not here to burst any bubbles — if that’s you’re jam, you can stop reading here and I’ll see you in a fairy tale someday!).

You don’t have to eliminate your stressors to escape burnout.

But here’s the exciting part: you don’t have to eliminate your stressors in order to escape burnout. The key lies in changing how your brain interprets those stressors, turning them from insurmountable obstacles into manageable, even rewarding, challenges. And being your friendly neighborhood neuroscientist, I happen to have a trick or two up my sleeve to do exactly that!

Here’s your neuroscience-backed action plan to defeat burnout

1) Reignite Your Motivation with a Dopamine Reset: One of the most disheartening parts of burnout is losing the ability to feel motivated or excited about anything. This happens because burnout depletes dopamine, the brain’s “reward chemical.” The trick isn’t to seek constant external rewards (which can lead to further burnout), but to trigger small, achievable wins that slowly build your dopamine system back up.

• Action Step: Break tasks into tiny steps that give you a quick win. Your brain loves the feeling of completing something — it doesn’t care how small the victory is. Write one email, take one short walk, or tackle a simple project that’s been nagging you. By doing this, you start reintroducing dopamine into your system, one step at a time.

2) Induce Flow to Reduce Cognitive Load: In burnout, the prefrontal cortex is too tired to process long, complicated tasks, but you can still achieve a “flow state” — a condition where your brain gets fully absorbed in a task, leading to higher productivity with less effort. Flow feels effortless because your brain actually uses fewer cognitive resources once you’re in it.

• Action Step: To get into flow, start with something that’s just challenging enough to engage your brain without overwhelming it (My personal favorite way to ignite flow? Writing a bulleted to-do list of the tiny steps I need to do in order to complete something that’s been nagging me, then doing and crossing off the easiest/first thing on the list. I almost ALWAYS find myself crossing things off, losing track of time, and getting enough progress that the task no longer feels intimidating anymore). Turn off distractions, set a timer, and commit to a task that aligns with your skills. Whether it’s writing, brainstorming, or even organizing, you can build flow into your routine in short bursts, making it easier to get things done without draining your mental battery.

3) Use Gamification to Boost Dopamine: Without diving too deep into gamification (because I’m saving that for a special project… stay tuned!), here’s the short version: turning stressors into “challenges” helps your brain see them as opportunities for achievement rather than threats. Gamifying your work or personal life can reignite motivation by engaging your brain’s natural reward pathways. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated, it just has to be fun for you!

• Action Step: Make your to-do list into a game. Instead of seeing tasks as drudgery, turn them into challenges you can “level up” on. For instance, give yourself a point every time you complete a task, or set small rewards for reaching daily or weekly goals (my go-to is allowing myself a break to grab/make a decaf Americano once I hit a certain score). If you’re competitive, keep track of your personal records and post them somewhere you can see so you can try to beat them. Just by tweaking how you approach your tasks, you’ll start boosting dopamine and lowering cortisol levels. After a while, you’ll build a new automatic reaction for your brain, turning feelings of dread into feelings of excitement.

4) Recharge Your Brain’s Battery with Microbreaks: Your brain wasn’t built to sustain long periods of focus without rest. Microbreaks are short pauses where you completely disengage from work and let your brain recover. Think of them as mini-recharges that help restore your mental energy before you burn out.

• Action Step: Every 25–30 minutes, step away from your task for a quick break (5 minutes or so). Stand up, stretch, or take a few deep breaths. The goal is to give your prefrontal cortex a moment of relief so it can come back stronger. Research shows that these microbreaks reduce cognitive fatigue and improve overall performance, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed. After you’ve done this 3 or 4 times, take a longer break (20–30 minutes) before you start again. You can use a tool called a Pomodoro Timer to keep track of your microbreak schedule (there are tons of them available for free online;I use the timer that’s included in my TickTick app).

5) Reconnect with Intrinsic Motivation: Burnout erodes your connection to the things that matter most — things that motivate you from within rather than through external pressure or rewards. This might be your sense of purpose, creativity, or mastery. To rebuild, you need to identify and nurture those internal drivers again.

• Action Step: Reflect on the aspects of your work or life that feel meaningful. What drew you to them in the first place? Carve out 15–20 minutes each day to reconnect with that purpose, whether it’s a creative project, learning something new, or simply enjoying the mastery of a task you once loved. Rate your mood on a scale of 1–10 before you start, then rate it again as soon as you finish your activity (it helps really call your brain’s attention to the mood-boosting effects of the activity). The goal is to stimulate your brain’s natural reward system, making your daily activities feel intrinsically valuable again.

Wrapping Up: Burnout isn’t permanent and your brain can rewire with a few small tweaks

Burnout is your brain’s way of telling you that something isn’t working. But the beauty of neuroplasticity is that you can rewire your brain, one small win at a time. By prioritizing rest, small victories, and flow-inducing activities, you’re not just surviving burnout — you’re setting the foundation for thriving.

If you’re experiencing burnout, don’t feel like you need to overhaul your life. Small wins, intentional recovery, and a little bit of neuroscience can help you reclaim your brain and your joy — I mean, it got me back here on my soapbox again, didn’t it?

Now that I’m back, I want to hear from you! Have you experienced burnout? What’s helped you navigate through it? Let’s keep the conversation going — because when we share, we heal.