Burnout

You are still functioning. On the outside. You get up, you work, you take care of things, you deliver. But something inside has gone dark. The energy that once drove you is spent — not like a battery slowly draining, but like an engine that has been running in the red for months and is now smoking.

Medically, burnout presents as chronic exhaustion, sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating, cynicism, withdrawal. The adrenal glands are depleted, the cortisol balance derailed, the nervous system locked in permanent stress. But the question BodySignal asks goes deeper: Why did you allow your system to push so far beyond its limits? What stopped you from stopping in time?

Burnout is not a sign that you worked too hard — it is a sign that you did the wrong thing to yourself for too long.