Emotions, simply put, should be temporary turbulences.Īnd in most mammals, they pretty much are. It likes homeostasis much more than chaos. Moreover, the body is a self-regulating system and strives to balance things out.

After all, no neurochemical comes with an endless supply. Just as well, most emotions – be they anger or arousal, love or lust – are designed to end on their own. Most emotions are automatic and instantaneous. Before that, it is of vital importance to understand what emotions are – and how exactly one can exhaust them.Īt their most basic levels, emotions can be described as a cascade of physiological changes in one’s body, triggered by the release of certain neurochemicals in the brain. But we’ll get to the reason for that later. They have also concluded that women seem to be far more likely than men to experience burnout. Since Freudenberger first formulated the concept, researchers have repeatedly established strong connections between emotional exhaustion and various health problems, as well as numerous relationship- and work-related issues. Of the three components of burnout, it is the first one – emotional exhaustion – that is by far the most destructive.

“An unconquerable sense of futility: feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.” “The depletion of empathy, caring and compassion.” “The fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long.” The term “burnout” was first coined in 1975 by German-born American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger who also defined it along the lines of what he believed were its three primary components: If you are one, get ready to prepare to discover the secret to unlocking the stress cycle and prepare to confront the barriers that stand between you and your own well-being! Burnout and emotional exhaustion In the words of its authors, identical twin sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski, “Burnout” is “a book for any woman who has felt overwhelmed and exhausted by everything she had to do, and yet still worried she was not doing ‘enough.’” Put otherwise, it is a book about pretty much every single 21st-century woman – period.

Burnout by emily and amelia nagoski