Get Real About Your Burnout: Why Changing Your Self-Care Routine Matters
If you’ve been feeling exhausted, checked out, or like you’re running on autopilot, you’re not alone. Burnout is a whole-body, whole-life response to chronic stress, especially for women balancing demanding careers, caregiving responsibilities, and/or the invisible labor of keeping everyone else afloat. For women, burnout can look like decision fatigue, irritability, self-doubt, guilt, shame, or feeling disconnected from your own needs.
It’s time to get real about your burnout, not as a personal failure, but as a sign from your body and mind that something needs to change. And one of the most powerful changes you can make? Rethinking your daily and weekly care routine.
Burnout Isn’t a Personal Weakness. It’s a Signal
Many women were raised to “dig deep” and push through exhaustion, always “be there” for others, and suppress their own needs. But ignoring burnout doesn’t make it go away. In fact, the longer it goes unaddressed, the deeper it can go, leading to health problems, strained relationships, and a diminished sense of self.
Viewing burnout as a signal rather than a flaw helps shift the narrative. It’s your body’s way of saying: “Something’s off. Let’s reevaluate.”
Why Your Current Self-Care Routine May Not Be Working
Scrolling social media, having a quick bubble bath, or booking a spa day can feel nice, but they often don’t address the root causes of burnout. True self-care routines go beyond temporary relief and focus on creating sustainable habits that honor your dynamic biological and social-emotional needs. Emphasis on dynamic. Unfortunately, we’ve all been operating under the assumption that today’s self-care practices will work every day, and that is the furthest from the truth. What is helpful today may not be as helpful a month from now, as our stressors, environment, and even our bodies are constantly changing. Therefore, our self-care has to also be dynamic.
Ask yourself:
Is (insert self-care practice) still working for me? If not, why might this be? What do I need to adjust to get back on track?
Do I only practice self-care whenever I’m about to crash?
What is missing from my self-care routine right now? What do I need more/less of?
Take this example: you’ve been aiming and most nights achieving nine hours of sleep. You went to therapy (or sat yourself down) and have come to understand how your sleep hygiene is negatively affecting your life. You’re elated that you’ve been getting 9+ hours of sleep every night for the last three weeks, but for the last two nights, you’ve woken up feeling like shit again. You’ve been groggy at work, short with your friends, and forget about cooking for yourself or your family by the time you get home. You feel like you’ve lost that ‘pep’ in your step. But now that you think about it, you’ve been scrolling more on your phone at night to decompress. You’ve also skipped out on your mindfulness body scans that usually help you fall asleep faster. Now you realize that you need to revamp your routine. Perhaps you’ve grown bored with the same mindfulness exercise and need to switch it up every few nights; maybe you realize that you need more sleep on days when you have nothing but back-to-back meetings. Understanding what is no longer working for you in your current self-care practice is a great place to start your revamp.
We can also grow accustomed to our self-care routine to the point that it loses its effect (i.e., sometimes we get used to getting nine hours of sleep per night, so the intended effect isn’t as strong or wears off). This is a form of habituation, and we can only stop habituation by changing our routines (i.e., getting more sleep on nights when you can or adding in naps in your day or week). Sometimes, our bodies will associate strong emotions with the self-care act altogether. I, like most people, use an alarm to wake up every day. While using an alarm might not be considered self-care, the sound that you use can be. Do you wake up to windchimes or a fire drill? Depending on how deeply you sleep, you might need something that jolts you up in the morning. However, you may slowly realize that you’ve been waking up anxious or on edge and not know why. It’s because your brain begins to associate waking up with anxiety (because of your very scary-sounding alarm) even when you wake up before your alarm goes off. This is an example of classical conditioning. Thanks to advancing technology, we now have multiple options for wakeup cues to use, including alarms that use only light to wake you up.
Even if you use windchimes to wake up, if you generally wake up disgruntled, like me, then you may benefit from changing your alarm sound regularly. This way, your brain does not have enough time to associate waking up with negative feelings. I change my alarm sound every two to three months. Based on your own needs, you may change yours more or less frequently.
How to Change Your Care Routine for Real Impact
Start With Honest Inventory
Take stock of your week. Where is your energy actually going? What drains you the most? What replenishes you most? Knowing your patterns helps you pinpoint what needs to shift. Start with basic needs (i.e., eating, sleeping, and hydrating) and then expand to other vital needs (i.e., time with family and friends, exercise, spirituality and religion). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may be a good model to use to assess what your needs are and how you’re doing in meeting them if you still aren’t sure where to start.
Redefine Care as Daily Maintenance, Not Emergency Repair
Think of care like brushing your teeth: small, consistent practices matter more than occasional big gestures. Five minutes of grounding, a lunch break walk, or a no-screens-after-9 p.m. policy can do more for your nervous system than sporadic “treat yourself” moments.
Address the Guilt and Shame
Many women feel guilty for saying no or prioritizing themselves. This guilt is a learned response, not a moral truth. Start by giving yourself permission: your well-being isn’t selfish, it’s foundational. Even small acts of self-compassion (e.g., noticing your inner critic and offering yourself kindness) begin to undo the guilt cycle.
Practice Boundary-Setting as Care
Saying ‘no’, delegating tasks, and protecting downtime are all forms of self-care. Consider experimenting with gentle but firm phrases such as, “I can’t take that on right now” or “Thank you for thinking of me and I am not able to fit that in”. If saying ‘no still feels impossible right now, give yourself permission and the freedom to reflect before making a decision with phrases like “Let me think on that for a bit and get back to you” or “I’ll get back to you once I’ve checked my schedule.”
Include Support Systems
Sometimes changing your care routine also means reaching out for support, whether that’s therapy, coaching, a support group, or trusted friends. Having someone to hold space for your experience helps you feel less alone and more accountable to your new habits.
The Ripple Effect of a Healthier Routine
When you get real about burnout and change your care routine, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re modeling a different way of living for your colleagues, children, partners, and friends. As you shift, you may notice clearer thinking, improved mood, better sleep, and a stronger sense of self-trust. You’ll also start making decisions from a place of alignment rather than exhaustion.
Burnout doesn’t disappear overnight, and you don’t have to overhaul your life in one week. But by being honest with yourself, dismantling guilt, and redefining what care looks like, you can build a routine that truly sustains you.
Start Working With A Burnout Therapist in New York, NY
If burnout is taking a toll on your mind and body, you don’t have to face it alone. Working with a burnout therapist in New York can help you process stress, reconnect with your values, and start feeling like yourself again. Reach out to The Lavender Therapy by following these simple steps:
Schedule a consultation today.
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Other Services I Offer Across New York
Burnout therapy is not the only form of support I offer from my New York-based practice. I provide a variety of specialized services, whether you're seeking help with infertility and pregnancy loss support, postpartum and pregnancy challenges, women’s therapy, or family planning, I’m here to offer guidance and care every step of the way.
About The Author:
Dr. Ruby Rhoden is a New York-based licensed psychologist who is dedicated to uplifting women through life changes and challenges, including reproduction and parent burnout. She understands how unhelpful behavior patterns and mental health disorders uniquely impact women and uses evidence-based techniques to usher in sustainable change and relief. Dr. Ruby is dedicated to helping women develop healthier habits and relationships with themselves and their bodies so they can connect to others and the world around them again. Dr. Ruby studied at Cornell University and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey for her Bachelor’s and Doctoral degrees, respectively. In her free time, she enjoys watching reality TV, supporting small businesses, and writing blog posts to remind all women that they are not alone.
