Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Best book for women who feel stuck in life

I highly recommend this book to any and all womexn, especially those at the start of their healing journey. Men too would benefit from this book -- for themselves, as well as for the womexn in their lives.

“We thrive when we have a positive goal to move towards, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from.” The gap between what it’s really like to be a woman and what people expect women to be is a primary cause of burnout, because we exhaust ourselves trying to close the space between the two. How can you ‘love your body’ when everything around you tells you you’re inadequate? How do you ‘lean in’ at work when you’re already giving 110% and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy and too selfish? The book begins by explaining the Human Giver Syndrome – the biggest cause of emotional exhaustion and burnout in women. It is also important to note that dealing with stress is separate from dealing with the stressors that cause stress or the frustration that ensues from not meeting goals. The book describes how to complete the biological stress cycle and return your body to a state of relaxation as well as manage the ‘monitor’ in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration. This book not only identifies the research to back the science but the authors also include prescriptive advice and practical worksheets that can be tailored to your requirement as you chart your path to breaking your stress cycle. While I felt the book was 60% bashing the patriarchy and about 40% actually breaking the stress cycle, the good parts do give some transformative advice that, along with reinstating self-compassion, makes it easier to derive joy while also being productive and feeling fulfilled. For complete review, visit aquamarineflavours.wordpress.com

I have been picking up a lot of books on recommendations these days. I brought burnout after reading reviews from Goodreads. I liked the book in patches. I connected to some chapters while I felt disconnected from the others. Let me start with what I liked in the book. I feel for the chapters where the author talks about identifying burnout and suggests the various ways to get over it. The book is quote-worthy. It gives the reader fodder for pondering about their life situations. I want to share a few of my favorites from the book. *“Wellness” is the freedom to move fluidly through the cycles of being human. Wellness is thus not a state of being; it is a state of action. *In so many ways, most of us tend to ignore or forget about advantages we’ve received, but remember the obstacles we’ve overcome, because the struggle against the obstacles requires more effort and energy than the easy parts. * The problem is the world has turned “wellness” into yet another goal everyone “should” strive for, but only people with time and money and nannies and yachts and Oprah’s phone number can actually achieve. *But we live from the neck up, only attending to the noise in our heads and shutting out the noise coming from the other 95 percent of our internal experience. *Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you. There are many more. I fell in love with these profounds pearls of wisdom. Every time you read these lines, they churn out a new meaning. The worksheet at the end of each chapter gives a very comprehensive study to analyze the current situation in life. Let me talk about the things that did not excite me in the book. Emotions like burnout and stress are common across gender and global boundaries. It is a tad biased to attribute it to only women. I agree in many cases, women are more stressed than men. In my opinion, keeping the book women-centric might create a stressful bias. There were specific chapters that I found exemplary basic and about individuals rather than the masses. I had to run through a few of them to see what lies ahead. Overall it's a good read, and a few chapters can be revisited time and again.

Received a used copy whereas the website mentioned it as new

After a promising start, the book becomes extremely dull, repetitive, ideological, and goes off the track in unintended direction. it then keep on complaining about things that have nothing to do with self improvement. This book wil probably not help anyone.

This book spoke directly to me. Recommended reading for women especially, at anytime in one's life-- not only when feeling tired and burntout.

Easy to read, easy to understand, mind blowing realisations

A real life changer.

It helps me a lot to understand my self and my current mood. I can put my feeling in real context and accept my self with compassion and love. Thanks for writing this book.