Burnout: How to pull back from the brink of exhaustion

Work can be all-consuming to the point where we ignore our need for rest. We talk to two high-powered women who turned their lives around after pushing themselves too far

Recovering from burnout can be a long process.

Burnout was a transformational experience for 47-year-old Caroline Hughes. “It was tough at the time,” she says. “But looking back, it was the biggest gift of my life.”

A growing number of people suffer from burnout in Ireland. In October 2022, a Gallup poll of 12,000 workers in 12 countries revealed that Irish workers suffered most from the syndrome, with 30% reporting that they felt burnt out very often or always.

Their lives can be seriously impacted, according to Linda Breathnach, a Navan-based psychotherapist and workplace trainer.

“I see clients who are stressed and anxious, low in themselves and disconnected from work,” Linda says. “Things that used to excite them no longer do. They’re exhausted yet have trouble sleeping. Their self-care is slipping, and they’ve given up on exercise and socialising with friends. Burnout seeps into all aspects of life and takes over.”

Linda Breathnach, psychotherapist

Recovering from burnout can be a long process. Depending on the severity of the burnout, how quickly a person reaches out for help and the supports available can take a year or more before their energy levels are replenished. Yet, many of those who seek help go on to live happier lives post-recovery. Like Hughes, burnout can be the wake-up call that prompts them to make positive changes.

By 2019, Hughes had spent decades climbing the corporate ladder in Dublin, excelling in senior positions in banking and industry. “My job involved developing leaders and helping people to progress in their careers,” she says. “I can’t say how much I loved it.”

This high-powered job required high levels of energy. “I travelled a lot working with teams all over the world and taking on bigger and bigger projects,” she says.

At the end of 2019, Hughes was showing signs of burnout. “I had chronic jaw pain, trouble sleeping and was exhausted,” she says. “Working was taking up more and more time and I’d spend weekends catching up on rest. I now know that exhaustion, feeling detached from work and judging yourself negatively for no longer being able to work as hard as you used to are all typical signs of burnout. I had them all but didn’t realise I was burned out until I collapsed.”

It took her a year to recover. “Having to sit still was so frustrating when my default setting is to be a constantly moving dynamo,” she says. “At first, I’d push myself to do as much as I could with the energy I had, which meant I became depleted. My recovery was physical and psychological. I’d been someone who had pushed myself to and beyond my limits. I had to learn not to do that and find a better pace.”

Caroline Hughes of Conscious Leaders

A high price

Therapies like breathwork and meditation helped. “They still do today,” she says. “They help ground me in my body and connect me to how I am and how I want to be.”

Seven months into her recovery, Hughes realised she couldn’t return to her job. “I was passionate about my work, but I was paying too high a price for it,” she says. “I had to find another way to help others evolve and develop while also leaving time in my life for me.”

Three years on, Hughes runs www.consciousleaders.ie, a leadership development and coaching service delivering executive team development and talent management solutions in Ireland and internationally.

“From the outside, my life looks similar to before in that I still work with leadership teams in big businesses,” she says. “But from the inside, it’s a different story. I spend less time talking myself in and out of whatever I need to do. I have much more time and compassion for others and myself. I keep energy for the weekend as I know that it’s equally important to the time I devote to work. It’s not all about work and career and job satisfaction. It’s about who I’m being. There is much more to a successful life.”

She believes everyone has the power to change their lives for the better. “You may not feel you have much control over your work environment but there are bound to be modifications you can make to manage work more effectively,” she says. “Taking time to work on your self-talk and learning to be less judgemental of yourself are key tools. Step back from situations to ask yourself what’s happening, what you can do about it and who you can ask for help. This opens up choices about what’s possible. Achieving that shift in mindset is the real work of recovery from burnout.”

Niamh Moynihan, project manager

Buried in work

Former project manager Niamh Moynihan from Grenagh in Cork has experienced burnout several times. The first time was just after she left college.

“I was given a phone and a laptop in my first job, but not much guidance,” she says. “I’m ambitious, so I looked around and saw that the senior people worked long and hard, so I decided that to be successful, I should do that too. I skipped lunch and breaks. I checked emails in the evenings, at weekends, and even after nights out with friends. I buried myself in work until it all became too much.”

The first time she started to show signs of burnout, she mistook it for depression. “It’s similar in that you lose your sense of humour, you have no energy, you can’t sleep, and you don’t look after yourself,” says the 38-year-old.

Over time, she realised that what made burnout different was her relationship with her work. “When I was burning out, I’d feel compelled to continue working,” she says. “I’d be too afraid to get off the hamster wheel because if I did, I thought my body would tell me it was too tired to ever get back on again.”

On the three occasions she burned out, Moynihan dealt with it by taking a few weeks off work, getting counselling and playing music. “I didn’t make any changes to my approach to work,” she says.

That change didn’t happen until a junior sought her advice. “She asked me how she should manage her time and it hit me that I was the worst role model for her,” says Moynihan. “She made me realise that I needed to stop burning myself out.”

Moynihan started small. “Really small, like actually taking breaks,” she says.

She then studied personal development, which taught her how to enjoy getting stuck into her work while also taking time for herself. Eventually, the changes in her life inspired her to offer her services to others through www.abetterworkday.com.

“Helping people avoid burnout is now my full-time job,” she says. “And one of the great things about it is that it reminds me to follow my own advice.”

Moynihan admits it’s not always easy. “I sometimes catch myself slipping into old patterns and that’s when I have to reassert my boundaries,” she says. “I remind myself that there are times, places and situations when I disconnect from work. If I’m having tea with family or friends, watching a movie with my husband or even waiting in the queue at the supermarket, those are small pockets of peace in which I should give myself a break.”

She has finally learned that ambition doesn’t have to come at a cost. “You can achieve success and still have a healthy and rewarding life,” she says. “You just have to learn to maintain boundaries around your work.”