Recognising atypical burnout and resetting stress with Dr Aditi Nerurkar

Executive overview

Most people recognise burnout as apathy and disengagement — but post-pandemic burnout often looks the opposite: inability to disconnect, constant engagement, always on. The brain is built like a dam; chronic low-level stress keeps the amygdala activated, and when the acute threat finally passes, the dam breaks.

Dr Aditi Nerurkar, a Harvard-trained stress physician, shares practical tools — breathing resets, the resilience rule of two, and brain breaks — that work with your biology rather than against it.

The brain needs rest the same way it needs food: it is a biological necessity, not a luxury.

Daily stress resets

• Prioritise sleep as a non-negotiable resource; set a 9:30 pm bedtime alarm until the habit is formed
• Short movement beats no movement — 10–20 minutes has measurable mental health impact; even 1–2 minutes of activity shifts your brain state
• Keep your phone out of arm's reach during the day; scrolling is a primal danger-scanning behaviour, not relaxation
• Parent yourself around screen time the same way you would a child — your brain changes via neuroplasticity at any age

Breathing as a biological lever

• Your breath is the only bodily process under both voluntary and involuntary control — that's what makes it uniquely powerful
• The sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) systems are mutually exclusive; breathing modulates the switch between them
• Stop Breathe Be: a three-second reset — stop, breathe, be present; anchor it to a habitual trigger (checking email, joining a Zoom call)
• 4-7-8 breathing: inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8; moves the prefrontal cortex back into the driver's seat

What atypical burnout looks like

• Classic burnout: apathy, disengagement, withdrawal from work
• Atypical (post-pandemic) burnout: inability to disconnect, constant checking, always on — the opposite presentation
• In one study, 60% of people with burnout reported inability to disconnect as their primary symptom
• 70–90% of people now report feeling burned out or significantly stressed; you are the norm, not the exception
• The brain acts like a dam during acute stress — it holds together, then breaks when the threat passes (the delayed stress response)
• The pandemic's collective dam break explains why so many people feel worse now, despite the crisis being "over"

Identifying your personal stress signal

• Everyone has a "first tell" — a physical or behavioural signal that appears before you consciously register stress
• It typically starts as a whisper (a small, recurring symptom) then escalates if ignored
• Others often notice your tell before you do — a partner saying "you've been cranky" is data
• Common tells: irritability, headaches, stomach pain that appears before high-pressure events and disappears after
• If a doctor clears you physically and symptoms track with stress events, that pattern is your canary

The resilience rule of two

• Change — even positive change — is a stressor on the brain
• Taking on many new habits at once leads to collapse within weeks; your brain cannot adapt that fast
• The rule: introduce only two new changes at a time, then give it eight weeks before adding more
• Comes from Holmes and Rahe's study of 5,000 people: more life events (positive or negative) correlated with greater future stress and illness
• Once two habits are embedded, add two more — compounding works with your biology

Brain breaks as performance strategy

• Human productivity is not linear; scheduled rest improves output, not just wellbeing
• Microsoft study: people who took 10-minute breaks throughout the day had lower cumulative stress and higher cognition and engagement at day's end
• Neural consolidation — converting new information into deep knowledge — happens during rest, not activity
• Even 10 seconds of rest accelerates learning
• Active rest (breathing, stretching, walking) beats passive scrolling; scrolling has a measurable activating effect on the brain
• Schedule breaks like meetings; avoid back-to-back calendar blocks by building in 15-minute gaps