Will I love Burnout?

My biggest takeaway from this book was completing the stress cycle.

I often have to practically beg clients—especially women—to take a break from their computers at lunch and go for a walk or at least eat screen-free. It was affirming to hear from the Nagoskis how beneficial this truly is for managing microstressors.

It’s the perfect blend of science, story, and humor that makes emotional health actionable and essential—not optional.

I heard about Burnout by sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, on a recent Brené Brown Unlocking Us podcast episode, and it was a happy surprise to learn that we share a literary agent! I listened to the audiobook and found I got something out of every single chapter. The book is aiming high: it wants to end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. I’ve been asked for book recs to help with shaky feelings from my fellow beautiful voyagers, and I often mention Burnout since it delves into how emotions can affect our bodies without us… show more.

While this book centers the way women experience burnout differently than men, I love that it doesn’t just focus on ‘work’ but instead highlights the full scope of what we’re doing each day that leads to burnout. It questions the givens that are creating the emotional and responsibility loads we’re carrying and gives science-based plans to get out of burnout.

Identical twin sisters, Emily has a PhD in Health Behaviour and Amelia is a musician, they focus on the stress cycle as experienced particularly by women who, they persuasively argue, experience it differently to their male counterparts. Their inner critic is a woman’s own worst enemy and it can be difficult to override when it feeds into a stress cycle based on perfectionism, the idea that it’s possible to ‘have it all’, and the necessity for expensive ‘self-care’. Their objectives in examining the female stress cycle are science-based, simpler, and more accessible and in spite of being directed at a… show more.