Mental Load, Burnout & the Body: What I Learnt the Hard Way
In 2020, I was managing a café through COVID. Rosters changed weekly, rules changed daily, and for months I worked 60 to 80 hours a week because someone had to hold it all together. I told myself it was temporary. My body had a different opinion.
Burnout lives in the body just as much as the mind. As someone who has navigated depression myself, I know how hard it is when the mind makes even the smallest things feel impossible.
What is burnout actually doing to your body?
When we're under chronic stress, the sympathetic nervous system, wired for survival, becomes our default: heart rate up, muscles braced, sleep on hold. Burnout stops this from switching off, and research links it with reduced heart rate variability, a marker of how well the body recovers from stress (Kanthak et al., 2018).
Hours matter too. The WHO and ILO found that working 55 or more hours a week was associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease, compared with a 35–40 hour week (Pega et al., 2021). I was well beyond that line, and I wasn't alone: an Australian survey during the pandemic found 70.9% of frontline healthcare workers reported moderate to severe burnout (Smallwood et al., 2021).
Your body isn't failing you. It's doing exactly what it was built to do. It just never got the all-clear.
What helped me recover
Recovery wasn't one thing. It was a team. Psychotherapy helped me make sense of what I'd been carrying. Short-term medication, under medical guidance, lifted things enough for me to take part in my own recovery. Manual therapy worked with a body that had been braced for months. Australian guidelines support this approach: the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists recommends combined psychological therapy and medication as first-line treatment for moderate to severe depression (Malhi et al., 2021).
What does "safe, skilled touch" look like?
Touch tells the nervous system you can stand down now, but only if it feels safe. In a session with me, we start by talking, so I understand you and your situation as a whole. During treatment we keep communicating, verbally and non-verbally. I observe your breathing, body reactions, and any tensing or guarding, and adapt as we go. Guided breathwork or meditation may help you stay present. You're part of the care team and an active participant in your recovery.
A 2026 review of 88 randomised trials found manual therapies were associated with lower anxiety, better sleep and a lower heart rate. The authors rate the evidence as low certainty and recommend it as an adjunct to broader care (Mo et al., 2026). That matches my experience: massage made the rest of the work possible.
It took time, and what I remember most is feeling supported by skilled practitioners. If you're struggling, please talk to your GP or a mental health professional. Massage is one supportive tool alongside that care, not a replacement.
If your body has been carrying more than it should, you don't need to have it all figured out before you come in. A session with my self, Audrey Lambert at Realign Health Clinic is a space for your body to begin to exhale.
If your mind needs support too, Alicia Adams, psychotherapist at Powerfully Human, works out of Realign, so body and mind can be looked after in one place.
References
Kanthak, M.K. et al. (2018) 'Associations of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity in job stress and burnout: a systematic review', PLOS ONE. Available at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0205741
Malhi, G.S. et al. (2021) 'The 2020 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists clinical practice guidelines for mood disorders', Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 55(1), pp. 7–117. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0004867420979353
Mo, Y. et al. (2026) 'Effectiveness of manual therapy on physical and mental health promotion in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis', Frontiers in Psychology, 17, 1815296. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1815296/full
Pega, F. et al. (2021) 'Global, regional, and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to exposure to long working hours for 194 countries, 2000–2016: a systematic analysis from the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury', Environment International, 154, 106595. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106595
Smallwood, N. et al. (2021) 'High levels of psychosocial distress among Australian frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional survey', General
Psychiatry, 34(5), e100577. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1136/gpsych-2021-100577
