Tag: midlife wellness

Somewhere in my early thirties, I began to feel it.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… here and there.

An aggravated hip after a long shift. A left shoulder that would ache for days because I “slept wrong.” A harder time getting back into my routine after a vacation. My bounce-back started to feel less like a bounce and more like a slow roll.

At the same time my body was whispering, my mind started getting louder.

On paper, everything was right.

Marriage. Home. Kids. Career.
All the boxes checked.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

So why did I feel… off?

Why was I so tired all the time?
Why was I gaining weight in a way that didn’t make sense?
Why was I quietly Googling things like “How to be a happy woman?”

I can laugh about that now. But at the time, it didn’t feel funny. It felt heavy. Confusing. A little scary, if I’m honest.

I was working around 60 hours a week. Salary, not hourly. There was no clocking out, just carrying it all home with me. No matter how much I gave, there was always more to do.

And without realizing it, I stayed in that cycle longer than I should have.

Somewhere in the middle of taking care of everything and everyone else, I stopped checking in with myself.

And slowly, almost without noticing, I became stretched thin in every direction.

As a wife.
As a mother.
As a woman who used to know herself.

Was I burned out?

Now, I can say yes.

Back then, I wouldn’t have dared.

Because saying I was burned out felt like admitting something had gone wrong. I had worked for that job. I had earned it. I had been mentored, trained, prepared. That position was supposed to be the reward.

So how could I say,
“I worked so hard to get here… and now I don’t want it anymore”?

I couldn’t.

So instead, I kept going.

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But Here’s What No One Told Me

Burnout isn’t just in your head.

It’s not just emotional.

It’s not just about being tired or needing a vacation.

Chronic stress actually changes the way your body functions.

When we are under prolonged stress, the body activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, releasing stress hormones like cortisol. Over time, this system can become dysregulated rather than returning to baseline (Ciobanu et al., 2021; ).

And when that happens, the effects show up everywhere:

• Energy levels
• Sleep patterns
• Weight regulation
• Mood
• Even immune function

Burnout doesn’t just feel physical.

It becomes physical.

So Maybe It Was Burnout…

Looking back, burnout was definitely part of my story.

The long hours.
The constant demand.
The pressure to keep showing up at a high level no matter what.

That was real.

But something else was happening too.

Something I didn’t have language for at the time.

Because while I was pushing through, staying productive, and checking all the boxes…

My body was slowly starting to change.

And I wasn’t listening.

A Different Question

What I wish I had asked myself back then wasn’t:

“Why can’t I handle this?”

It was:

“What is my body trying to tell me?”

Because sometimes what we label as burnout…
is only part of the story.

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Later This Week

In my next post, I’m going to talk about something I completely overlooked during that time.

Hormones.

How they shift in midlife.
How they impact energy, mood, and weight.
And how they can quietly amplify what we think is just burnout.

Because if you’ve ever felt like something is off…
but you can’t quite explain it…

There may be more going on than you’ve been told.