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Ways To Beat Burnout…
Life is busy - and many of us are suffering from juggling too many balls with not enough downtime.
Burnout is a phrase we hear a lot, but what does it really mean? The World Health Organisation classifies it as an ‘occupational phenomenon’ - something that can happen when workplace stress isn’t addressed.
Often though, it’s more to do with what’s happening in your personal life. If you’re a carer or a parent, living with a long-term health conditions or chronic pain, coping with serious financial or other uncertainty – you’re at greater risk. For many of us juggling work AND personal stress, things can just feel too much.
What is burnout?
Burnout isn't a medical diagnosis, but anyone who has been through it will tell you it's very real. The signs can be a persistent exhaustion that rest doesn't seem to shift, growing cynicism or disconnection from your work or activities that used to make you happy - a sense that your efforts just aren't adding up. Physical symptoms such as headaches, disrupted sleep and low mood are also common.
Burnout differs from ordinary stress in an important way. Stress feels like too much going on at once; burnout feels like running on empty - a kind of flatness where motivation and hope have quietly drained away. Recent figures suggest around 65% of UK workers are experiencing it, up 11 percentage points in just two years, making it one of the leading reasons for absence from work.
The good news is there’s a lot you can do to help feel yourself again. We’ve put together a few easily implemented strategies, to help us take a moment and look after ourselves a little more…
1. Prioritise sleep
Under pressure, sleep is usually the first thing we sacrifice, but it may be the most important to protect. Research suggests that staying awake for around 17 hours produces cognitive impairment comparable to being over the legal drink-drive limit. Most adults need seven to nine hours a night.
Build a proper wind-down routine, take a warm bath, step away from screens before bed. To quieten a busy mind, use relaxing music, meditation, or Apps like Calm, which also offer sleep stories and breathing techniques. There are a number of natural herbs that can be taken as supplements, tinctures or teas, and if sleep remains elusive despite your best efforts, talk to a doctor. Burnout and poor sleep feed each other and breaking that loop early makes everything else easier.
Block snoring partners or disruptive street noise with Sleeep earplugs.
Sleeep help people who are easily woken or kept awake by noise, enjoy a longer, more restful sleep, without the discomfort most other sleeping earplugs create.
Reduce stress from noise and help your body to wind down before bed with Calmer Extra. Calmer Extra is a soft silicone ear tool that takes the edge of stressful sounds whilst also reducing volume by -10 dB without blocking or muffling sound.
2. Move your body
Regular movement is one of the most well-evidenced ways to reduce stress and lift mood - and there's solid research suggesting it can help protect against depression, a real risk when burnout goes untreated. You don't need a gym or hours to spare. A 20-minute walk, a short home workout, dancing to a favourite song - it all counts. Activities involving rhythm and breath, such as walking, stretching or humming, also help activate the vagus nerve, nudging your body away from its stress response and towards a calmer state.
3. Learn to breathe (seriously)
Intentional breathing is one of the most immediate tools for calming a stressed nervous system and the science behind it is solid. When anxious, many of us unconsciously hold our breath or breathe shallowly, reducing oxygen to the brain and amplifying the feelings we're trying to escape. Try this: inhale through your nose for a slow count of eight to ten, hold for five, then exhale at the same pace. Picture the breath filling you from belly to chest. Even a few rounds of this can shift how you feel. A slow, deliberate sigh works too - it's the body's natural way of releasing built-up tension.
Reduce stressful and distracting sound with Calmer.
Calmer help millions of people reduce their stress response to sound by reducing triggering frequencies, not volume. Great for when you still need to be aware of your surroundings, helping you to feel more comfortable and in control. Calmer was awarded the 2025 Kings Award for Enterprise in Innovation. And if you want to turn down volume a notch as well, try Calmer Extra or Calmer Filters, which offer the same Calming sound with reduced volume of -10dB or -15dB.
4. Set boundaries
Stop work - and family or other demands - from expanding to fill every available hour. Take your annual leave, breaks and treats as non-negotiable, and make a genuine effort to have time to yourself. Try to take breaks from technology. If extra hours at work have become the norm, flag it with your manager – it’s usually a sign the workload itself needs addressing. For home workers, small rituals like closing the laptop at a set hour or changing out of work clothes can be surprisingly helpful for telling your brain you have stopped for the day. And if noise at work adds to your stress, use ear tools to help block or manage sound ad make you feel more comfortable.
Isolate®& Earshade® Ear Protectors
Sometimes you don’t want to just turn down sound, you want to block it.
Isolate are earplugs made from solid titanium or aluminium to block all sound more effectively than traditional silicone or foam earplugs. Isolate have an official sound reduction rating of SNR-30dB.
Earshade earplugs feature uniquely shaped, super-soft, memory foam tips that have a special wipe-clean hygiene coating. They’re ergonomically designed around the shape of the human ear and with the use of the metal stem are easy to fit and remove from your ears. CE certified to EN 352-2:2020 with a sound reduction rating of SNR-31dB, Earshade come in a range of colours.
Isolate®& Earshade® Ear Protectors
Sometimes you don’t want to just turn down sound, you want to block it.
Isolate are earplugs made from solid titanium or aluminium to block all sound more effectively than traditional silicone or foam earplugs. Isolate have an official sound reduction rating of SNR-30dB.
Earshade earplugs feature uniquely shaped, super-soft, memory foam tips that have a special wipe-clean hygiene coating. They’re ergonomically designed around the shape of the human ear and with the use of the metal stem are easy to fit and remove from your ears. CE certified to EN 352-2:2020 with a sound reduction rating of SNR-31dB, Earshade come in a range of colours.
5. Stay connected
Burnout has a way of shrinking your world – often social plans fall away and the energy for other people just isn't there. But isolation tends to make things worse, not better. You don't need to be at your best to reach out. A short walk with a friend, a low-key coffee, an honest phone call with someone who gets it - small moments of connection act as a real counterweight to the loneliness that often accompanies burnout and can offer a perspective that's hard to find on your own.
6. Try mindfulness
Mindfulness - paying deliberate, non-judgemental attention to the present moment -has solid evidence behind it for reducing stress and anxiety. A ten-minute guided meditation can help clear a cluttered mind and there are plenty of free apps to get you started.
If sitting still feels challenging, mindful movement is a brilliant alternative. Yoga weaves breathwork and physical movement together in a way that's been shown to reduce stress hormones and improve sleep.
Sound itself can also be helpful, when it’s the right kind: Research shows that combining music with mindfulness can be a powerful tool for improving mental and emotional health. Music is a great way to feel more present, to process emotions and reduce stress.
Singing, playing an instrument or even just watching live music can also boost a sense of wellbeing and social connection.
Sound baths are an increasingly popular mindful experience, creating vibrations that are believed to calm the nervous system and help the mind switch off.
Calmer Earphones
Maximise the effects of calming apps and audiobooks with the stress-reducing benefits of Calmer Earphones. With the same award-winning technology as Calmer, they reduce the sharpness of sound to help you relax.
7. Be kind to yourself
Burnout is NOT a character flaw. It can happen to the most capable, dedicated people. One of the most important shifts you can make is to stop treating it as personal failure and show yourself the same kindness you'd offer a close friend in the same situation. Rest without guilt where you can, lean on routines for a sense of structure and hold onto the knowledge that this is temporary. Things can - and do - get better.
When things get too much, turn down the world, not the detail.
Instead of blocking sound, reducing volume unevenly, or muffling and distorting certain frequencies, Attenuate reduce sound evenly across all frequencies by -12 dB. By using precision acoustics to pull volume down uniformly, Attenuate preserve the natural quality of sound; enabling wearers to hear everything in exactly the same detail - just quieter. Taking things down a notch can make a real difference to your day.
8. Reach Out
If burnout is significantly affecting your ability to function - persistently low mood, no motivation, anxiety that won't shift - talking to your GP is an important first step. A therapist or counsellor, particularly one trained in mindfulness-based approaches, can also offer structured support when things have moved into deeper emotional territory.
It's also worth checking what your employer offers: many organisations have occupational health services or an Employee Assistance Programme providing free, confidential support. Asking for help is often the first step to getting things back on track.
Next Steps
Burnout is more common than ever, but it doesn't have to be permanent. Not every tip here will suit everyone, and that's fine. Pick a few that work for you. Adapt things. What matters is finding a starting point: one small shift, one boundary drawn, one person reached out to. The road to recovery happens with that first step, not all at once.
Be gentle with yourself – you’re worth it!
Tools to Help
We have developed a unique range of calming tools that may be helpful if you find sound can add to your stress. Noise can be triggering due to the shape of our ears resonating sound - and traditional earplugs create muffling. We can help calm, turn down or block sound, depending on your needs. Click here to see how we can help.
From misophonia to neurodivergence, dip into real stories of people with sound sensitivities and how Flare calming tools have helped them here.
Read about sound therapist Lisa McDonald’s journey into sound therapy to promote relaxation, release stress and restore balance - one of our My Audio World series here.
