Mia opens her laptop on Monday morning, glances at her calendar full of meetings, and immediately feels her energy drain. Her chest tightens. Her mind fogs. She hasn’t even started yet, but she already feels behind. She’s noticing that she feels emotionally flat in meetings, snapping at small requests, and worrying that she’s not performing the way she used to. These experiences reflect three common indicators of burnout: exhaustion, feeling distant from work, and reduced effectiveness (WHO, 2019).
She’s not alone. According to the Annual UK Burnout Report (Mental Health UK, 2025), one in three adults (34%) feel high or extreme pressure “always” or “often,” and one in five (21%) have needed time off due to stress-related mental health challenges.
While Mia loves parts of her job, values responsibility, and needs her income, she is aware that the workload, the pace of the role, and the team culture are contributing to her feeling burnt out. And these work stressors do not seem to be easing anytime soon. She feels stuck like being in a maze.
From a scientific perspective, Mia is stuck in a stress cycle that is impacting her health and wellbeing. This blog explores how someone like Mia can develop tools to navigate the stress cycle when the stressor can’t simply be removed.
(Note: while Mia's story focuses on workplace burnout, “work” here can include caregiving, studying, parenting, and other responsibilities that demand sustained effort (Schaufeli, 2021)).
What is the Stress Cycle?
The stress cycle is the process your body goes through when it detects a stressor - anything your brain interprets as a perceived threat. In a work context, a stressor could be an upcoming presentation, an annual review, or even a meeting with a difficult colleague.
When a stressor appears, your body activates an automatic stress response to prepare you to meet that challenge. This response is appropriate and useful when it helps you focus, mobilise energy, and take action. You might notice sensations such as a faster heart rate, muscle tension, a sense of urgency, feeling quick to react, and difficulty with big-picture thinking. At a physiological level, your brain is releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, shifting blood flow toward the muscles, and heightening attention so you can deal with the perceived threat.
But just as important as gearing up is the ability to return to balance. The final part of the cycle involves the behaviours and signals that tell your body it’s safe to return to calm. When this happens, your system shifts back to a calmer, more regulated state. The stress cycle is complete.
How We Get Stuck in the Stress Cycle
Burnout can develop when your stress cycle becomes trapped in a loop. This can happen in three main ways:
1. The stressor doesn’t stop: Workloads remain high, deadlines continue to arrive, and/or the work culture reinforces high demands.
2. Stress accumulation exceeds capacity: When stress builds throughout the day, your system needs adequate opportunities to process it. Without small ways to ease the impact, the stress continues to rise, making it harder to recover.
3. The stress response stays activated if your body doesn’t get signals that it’s time to rebalance: After a stressor passes (e.g., meeting a deadline) or even when the overall stressor remains, your body still needs chances to reset. Without behaviours that signal “it’s safe now,” you can stay stuck in stress mode, feeling wired, numb, anxious, or unable to switch off.
(Nagoski & Nagoski 2020)
Two Ways to Support the Stress Cycle When the Stressor Can’t Be Changed
While increasing your awareness of the stress cycle can be a really helpful step in managing it, there are two strategies that will help you to practically navigate the maze.
1. Reducing Stress Accumulation
Throughout the day, putting strategies in place that slow the build-up of stress can help prevent your stress response from rising faster than your system can cope or process it.
Micro-breaks during the day
- Stepping outside for a coffee
- Closing your eyes while waiting for the kettle to boil
- Taking 30 seconds to stretch before joining the next virtual meeting
Simplifying tasks to reduce overload
- Breaking a large task such as writing a report into small steps like brainstorming key points, outlining the introduction, etc
- Using Do Not Disturb for 30 minutes of focused work
- Combining small admin tasks into one block rather than switching back and forth
Environmental tweaks
- Reducing workspace clutter
- Adjusting lighting
- Using noise-cancelling headphone or playing background music
Including stop-gaps when stress may build up
- Adding transition time so meetings aren’t back-to-back
- Protecting recovery time after a high-demand task
- Scheduling low-demand tasks (e.g., admin) after high-demand ones (e.g., presentation)
2. Completing the Stress Response
Even when the stressor remains, your body still needs opportunities to shift from activated mode into a more regulated state so that the stress cycle can be completed.
There is a broad range of evidence showing that certain categories of activities help support system regulation. While there is a list below, it’s important that you find something that works for you - an activity that feels genuinely possible (easy enough to do in real life), that you’re motivated to engage in, and that helps your system feel more grounded.
Here are examples of activities from each category, moving from small to more substantial:
- Physical movement: Standing up and stretching for 30 seconds → taking a short walk → going for a swim
- Breathing practices: Taking a few mindful breaths with a longer exhale → a 5-minute breathing practice lying down → attending a mindfulness class
- Connection: Receiving a hug → having a short phone call → meeting a friend in person
- Self-compassion: Placing a hand on your chest and acknowledging “this is hard” → writing a kind note to yourself → doing some journalling.
- Time in nature: Stepping outside for some fresh air → walking in a nearby park → spending time gardening
- Creative activities: Doodling for one minute → spending a few minutes playing an instrument → engaging in a longer creative hobby session
(Nagoski & Nagoski, 2020), (Neff, 2012), (Sternberg, 2010)
By making this wise and self-caring choice to do a regulating activity after a stressful demand, at the end of the workday, or at regular points in your week, you are intentionally encouraging your system to recover and reset.
As this happens, stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol begin to settle, your breath regulates, your thinking becomes clearer, and muscle tension may release. You may notice a gradual shift in your internal landscape. Recognising and soaking in this change can further support your nervous system to complete the cycle.
Closing
When managing burnout, it may not be possible to remove the stressor, but you can support your system to feel more equipped to meet the demands through practical strategies that:
1. Slow the accumulation of stress throughout the day, and
2. Help your nervous system to recover by ending the stress response
By putting these supports in place, you shift from running on a constantly activated stress state to a system that can recognise when stress is building, respond to it, and return to balance more effectively.
At Flourish with Fatigue, our specialist therapy service helps clients struggling with burnout to understand their stress cycle, respond to it wisely, and create conditions that support their wellbeing.
References
- Mental Health UK. (2025). Burnout Report 2025 reveals generational divide in levels of stress and work absence. https://mentalhealth-uk.org/blog/burnout-report-2025-reveals-generational-divide-in-levels-of-stress-and-work-absence/
- Nagoski, E., & Nagoski, A. (2020). Burnout: The secret to unlocking the stress cycle. Ballantine Books.
- Neff, K. (2012, July 2). The physiology of self‑compassion. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-power-self-compassion/201207/the-physiology-self-compassion
- Schaufeli, W. (2021). The burnout enigma solved? Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 47(3), 169–170. https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.3950
- Sternberg, E. M. (2010). Healing spaces: The science of place and well‑being. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- World Health Organization. (2019, May 28). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases