Episode 153: The Biology of Burnout: Why Pushing Through Stops Working
- Dr. Aimie Apigian
- 9 minutes ago
- 11 min read
If more self-care worked, it would have worked by now. In this episode, Dr. Aimie shares her own burnout story and introduces Claire—a patient whose chronic fatigue and exhaustion reveal a missing piece in how we understand the stress response. Through powerful research on learned helplessness and the metaphor of the elephant tied to a stick, this episode uncovers why so many of us feel stuck despite trying everything.
In this episode you'll learn:
[00:50] The Energizer Bunny Who Couldn't Push Anymore: Claire's story of chronic fatigue and missing her daughter's track meets
[03:39] Why Self-Care Fails: The backwards truth about stress that keeps us stuck on the hamster wheel
[05:13] Skill #1 — Generate a Good Stress Response: Why wimpy stress responses lead to burnout and trauma biology
[06:36] Skill #2 — Complete and Reset: The exhale our bodies never learned to do
[07:35] The Critical Line of Overwhelm: What happens when stress builds without reset
[13:46] Learned Helplessness Research: The study on dogs that changed everything about understanding why we stay stuck
[19:51] The Elephant Tied to a Stick: How early experiences program us to believe we cannot escape
[11:19] The Voice Underneath: Recognizing the quiet belief that "other people can have good lives, but not me"
[25:31] What Comes Next: Preview of how the researchers helped the dogs get unstuck
Main Takeaways
Stress is not the enemy. The problem is that we haven't learned the two critical skills our body actually needs: generating a good stress response and completing it.
Chronic fatigue follows a predictable pattern. When we inhale stress for years without ever exhaling, our body eventually says "enough" and shuts down.
Incomplete stress cycles keep us on the hamster wheel. Without completing and resetting, stress builds and builds until we cross the critical line of overwhelm.
Learned helplessness gets programmed through experience. When we tried to escape and couldn't, our body learned to stop trying—even when nothing is holding us back anymore.
The body adapts for survival, not brokenness. Those dogs weren't broken. Claire wasn't broken. Our bodies adapted for surviving powerlessness.
A good stress response allows us to jump over the wall. Without the capacity to generate energy to meet demand, we hit the wall and fall back down—eventually stopping our attempts altogether.
Notable Quotes
"If more self-care worked, it would've worked by now."
"Stress is not the enemy. It's not even the problem."
"We take in stress and never exhale. That's what keeps us on the hamster wheel."
"It's just a string and a stick. But the elephant believes it can't escape. So it doesn't even try."
"Those dogs weren't broken. Their bodies had adapted for surviving powerlessness."
Episode Takeaway
When I first learned about the learned helplessness study, I got chills. I recognized myself in those dogs. I recognized the years I spent believing other people could have good lives, but not me. And I think about Claire—missing her daughter's track meets, watching Emma become the caretaker at fourteen.
Here's what I want you to sit with: those dogs weren't broken. Claire wasn't broken. Their bodies had adapted for surviving powerlessness. And here's the thing about learned helplessness—it can be unlearned. Those dogs didn't stay stuck forever. The researchers found a way to help them.
If this episode resonated with you, the next episode will show you exactly how—because the solution wasn't through treats and incentives like we would think. Stay tuned.
Resources/Guides:
Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy
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Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, and author of the national bestselling book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology.
Why We Stop Trying: The Biology of Burnout
I used to ask myself this question every morning. During my burnout in 2014, I would watch colleagues thriving at work and wonder what was fundamentally wrong with me. I had tried everything: meditation, breath work, more coffee, more certifications. Nothing worked. What I didn't understand then was that everything I had been taught about stress was backwards.
The problem was never that I needed more self-care. If more self-care worked, it would have worked by now. The real issue was that I didn't know the two critical skills our bodies actually need to prevent crossing from stress into overwhelm. In this post, I want to share what changed everything for me and for Claire, a patient I write about in my book, The Biology of Trauma. Her story might sound familiar.
Claire was what her friends called the Energizer Bunny. A marathon runner, she tackled life with unstoppable drive. Then one day, she couldn't push through anymore. She found herself in bed, missing her fourteen-year-old daughter's track meet, watching Emma become the caretaker. Her bookshelf was full of certifications from health programs. Her iPad was full of notes about nervous system regulation. She knew so much and had tried everything, yet here she was. This pattern of trying everything and still feeling stuck has a name, and understanding it can change the entire approach to the healing journey.
The Two Critical Skills Our Body Actually Needs
When we understand stress differently, everything changes. The enemy has never been stress itself. The problem is that most of us never learned how to stress well. There are two skills that, once learned, can shift our entire relationship with stress and prevent crossing into the trauma response.
Skill one: Generate a good stress response. Not a wimpy one. Not a mediocre one. A good, strong stress response that allows us to meet the demand in front of us. When our stress response is weak, we hit the wall much faster. We cross into overwhelm before we've even had a chance to handle the challenge. The dogs in Seligman's research that could jump over the wall weren't stressed by the shocks. It was more of an inconvenience because they knew they could escape.
Skill two: Complete and reset the stress response. This is where almost everyone gets stuck. We take in stress all day but never exhale it. Think about it: we wouldn't inhale breath after breath without ever breathing out. Yet that's exactly what we do with stress. We accumulate it without completing it. This incomplete stress energy keeps us on the hamster wheel, feeling exhausted but unable to rest.
The Critical Line of Overwhelm: Where Growth Becomes Breakdown
Our body has a precise line between what grows us and what depletes us. I call this the critical line of overwhelm. On one side, stress energizes. On the other side, trauma depletes. This line determines whether an experience builds us up or wears us down.
When our stress response is strong and we can generate energy to meet demand, we stay on the growth side of the line. When we can complete and reset after stress, we return to what I call calm aliveness, ready for the next challenge. But when we can't generate enough energy, or when we never complete and reset, stress builds and builds until we cross that line into overwhelm.
Claire had always been a generator. She could rev her engine to meet any demand. That's why they called her the Energizer Bunny. But completing and resetting? She never learned to do that. Every stress she'd ever felt had accumulated. No wonder her body eventually said enough and shut down.
Chronic Functional Freeze: What Burnout Actually Is
Here's what I've come to understand about burnout: it goes beyond exhaustion from overwork. Burnout is a chronic functional freeze. Our body has crossed the critical line of overwhelm so many times without reset that it begins to stay in a trauma state rather than returning to the growth side of the line.
In this state, something else begins to happen. We start to believe the thoughts and feelings that come with overwhelm. Messages like what's the point? or nothing works for me or other people can have good lives, but not me. These aren't necessarily what we actually believe. They're the thoughts and feelings that show up when our body is past the critical line of overwhelm. But somewhere along the way, we start believing them.
The Research That Changed Everything: Seligman's Learned Helplessness Study
When I first learned about the learned helplessness research, I got chills because I recognized myself in it. The psychologist Martin Seligman conducted a study using dogs that reveals exactly why so many of us feel stuck despite trying everything.
In the study, dogs were placed in a container with two sides. One side had a pad that delivered electrical shocks. The other side was safe. A low barrier separated the two sides, easy to jump over. Some dogs were free to escape. Others were restrained so that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't jump to safety.
The restrained dogs tried desperately to escape. They watched their fellow dogs jump to safety while they could not. Eventually, they stopped trying. Here's the groundbreaking part: when researchers untied the restrained dogs and ran the experiment again, those dogs didn't even attempt to escape. They lay down on the shock pad and whimpered. Even though nothing was holding them back anymore, their body had learned that escape was not possible.
How Learned Helplessness Gets Programmed Into Our Nervous System
Those restrained dogs had adapted to their circumstances. They had been programmed through experience to believe they were helpless. This distinction matters: learned helplessness is a programming that gets installed through experiences where we were actually helpless. It's an adaptation, not a flaw.
Think about what the restrained dogs started to believe about themselves when they saw others escaping while they could not: there's something wrong with me. Other people can do it. There's something inherently wrong with me, so even if I tried harder, what's the point?
This same programming happens in us. After enough experiences of powerlessness, parts of us start to believe we can't accomplish things. Our brain's default begins to assume we aren't capable. Each time we experience a moment when nothing we do changes the outcome, our brain reinforces this programming.
The Elephant Tied to a Stick: How Early Programming Keeps Us Stuck
There's another way to understand this pattern. Elephants are trained to stay in place by tying them to a post when they're young. As a baby elephant, they cannot move that post no matter how hard they try. Eventually, they stop trying.
Here's the remarkable part: take that same elephant as an adult and tie it with a string to a small stick. All it needs to see is that it's tied up in some way. Even though it could easily pull free, it doesn't even try. It's been programmed to believe I can't. The string and stick are now an illusion, but the programming remains.
We are incredibly strong and capable, yet we can find ourselves getting overwhelmed with problems that don't really matter in the big picture. It's not because the problems are actually too big. It's because we've been programmed to believe that any problem is too big for us.
Why More Self-Care Falls Short
Claire's bookshelf was lined with certifications. She had tried meditation, breath work, yoga, supplements, and every wellness practice available. If more self-care worked, it would have worked by now. The missing piece was never another technique. It was understanding that her body was operating from learned helplessness and chronic functional freeze.
When we're in this state, adding more tools on top of the programming doesn't address the root issue. We might intellectually know change is possible, yet find ourselves not following through. We might start something new with hope, then quietly give up when we don't see immediate results. This pattern reflects the programming operating below conscious awareness.
How the Dogs Learned to Jump Again: The Path to Reprogramming
Here's the hopeful part of the research that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. Those dogs with learned helplessness were restored to their natural state of agency. They learned to jump again.
It wasn't through treats or incentives. The researchers tried those first, and they didn't work. What actually worked was physical guidance. Lab technicians would literally move the dogs' legs in the jumping motion, helping them remember how to jump. Eventually, the dogs learned they could jump to safety on their own.
This shows us something crucial about reprogramming: it often needs to happen at the body level, not the mind level alone. Like those dogs forgetting how to be dogs, we can forget how to move through stress and return to calm aliveness. Sometimes we need guidance back to what the body already knows how to do.
Recognizing the Pattern in Our Own Lives
There are signs that learned helplessness may be operating in our nervous system:
Starting programs or practices with hope, then quietly abandoning them
Believing that change is possible for others but not for us
Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by problems that used to feel manageable
Accumulating knowledge and certifications without seeing results
A quiet inner voice that says "what's the point" or "why bother"
These patterns don't mean something is wrong with us. They mean our body adapted to experiences of powerlessness. The programming can be changed.
The Biology of Trauma® Approach: Safety, Support, Expansion
In the Biology of Trauma® methodology, we approach this reprogramming through a specific sequence: Safety, Support, then Expansion. This mirrors what helped those dogs learn to jump again. They needed safety first: the assurance that they wouldn't be restrained. They needed support: the physical guidance of how to move. Then they could expand into their natural capacity.
When our nervous system has learned helplessness, we can't think our way out of it. The body needs to experience something different. It needs to complete stress responses it never finished. It needs to feel what it's like to generate energy, take action, and return to calm aliveness. This happens through the body, not the mind alone.
Start Today: Building the Two Critical Skills
Understanding this biology is the first step. Here are practices that begin to rebuild the two critical skills:
Immediate actions:
Notice incomplete stress cycles. After a near-miss in traffic or a stressful call, pull over or pause. Let the body settle before continuing. This teaches the body how to complete rather than accumulate.
Allow the body to shake or tremble. When these involuntary movements arise after stress, don't suppress them. They're the body's natural completion mechanism.
Track how close you ride to the line. Start noticing when thoughts like "what's the point" or "this is too much" arise. These signal proximity to the critical line of overwhelm.
Change how you talk about yourself. Replace "I am this way" with "I have been this way." Adding "up until now" creates space for change.
Start small with completion. After even minor stressors, take three deep breaths with long exhales. This simple practice begins teaching the body what completion feels like.
These practices may feel subtle at first. Trust that the body is learning. Like those dogs being guided back to jumping, sometimes change happens in small movements before we see the bigger shift.
Helpful Research
1. The Original Learned Helplessness Research Seligman, M.E.P., & Maier, S.F. (1967). "Failure to escape traumatic shock." Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74(1), 1-9. This foundational research demonstrated that organisms exposed to uncontrollable stress develop learned helplessness. The study shows how experience of powerlessness becomes programmed into behavior, even when circumstances change. For practitioners, this research validates why traditional motivational approaches often fall short with clients who have trauma histories.
2. Reversal of Learned Helplessness Seligman, M.E.P., Maier, S.F., & Geer, J.H. (1968). "Alleviation of learned helplessness in the dog." Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 73(3), 256-262. The follow-up research showed that learned helplessness could be reversed through guided physical movement. Dogs were helped to perform escape behaviors repeatedly until they regained agency. This supports somatic approaches to addressing chronic freeze states and validates body-based interventions in the healing journey.
3. Neuroception and the Polyvagal Theory Porges, S.W. (2011). "The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation." Norton. Porges' work on neuroception explains how our nervous system constantly assesses safety and threat below conscious awareness. This research illuminates why the critical line of overwhelm varies from day to day and person to person. It provides the biological framework for understanding why addressing trauma requires working with the autonomic nervous system, not thoughts and behaviors alone.
Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.
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