Book Review: Burnout by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski

June 30, 2024

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ID: an ipad has the book cover for Burnout on its screen, featuring a black cover with the title in varying shades of pink text.

I’m currently in the process of adding my old book reviews to my blog! Keep your eyes open for new book reviews every week. This book review was originally published on Instagram in 2022.

Burnout by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski

I may only be twenty-nine, but I already know a thing or two about burnout. Perfectionism and a habit of striving to be better has led me to continually taking on far more than I should or have time for, almost always to a detrimental effect. Yes, I come out of it having met new people and learned new skills, but it also leaves me dead tired and like I want to curl up under a bed of moss and never come out.

My university career is a glaring example of this. Every time I sign up for something new, I inevitably go too hard, lament my lack of time and energy, and burn out, yelling to anyone that’ll listen that this is the last degree I’m ever doing and after this is done, I’m moving to France. Me saying I’ll never sign up for another program has become a running joke, one I nervously laugh at, knowing my own patterns.

But onto the book: it was eye-opening, particularly around what happens to your body when you don’t give it the rest it needs. In between the science of burnout–the stress cycle, the “monitor” in your brain, how self-love plays into it–there are personal narratives, very real instances of what happens: if you won’t slow down, your body will do it for you. I found these narratives incredibly helpful in that they referred to women in everyday jobs, specifically teaching. Having worked as a teacher myself, I know the burnout is real.

To dive a little deeper, I found the sections on completing the stress cycle to be particularly applicable. Without over-complicating it, the stress cycle is the cycle your body goes through during and after experiencing a threat. But in order to complete the stress cycle, you need to signal to your body that the threat is taken care of: you can do this through deep breathing, exercising, laughing, or crying (Yes! Crying releases stress!). If you don’t complete the stress cycle, your body get stuck in fight or flight, leading to all sorts of adverse effects: your blood pressure goes up, your body has trouble digesting food, and besides that, you feel anxious as hell. Completing the cycle is important, and the Nagoskis do an excellent job of highlighting this.

The one reservation I have about this book is that it is incredibly woman-focused in its language and topics. That’s not a criticism of the authors: it’s exactly what they were going for, and they did an excellent job of zeroing in on the problems women face–the patriarchy and its effects in different spheres, an endless battle between women and their bodies–and how this connects to burnout. However, it did make it a little hard for me (someone who identifies as non-binary) to really connect to it as much as I would have liked to.

My own hangups aside, Burnout was an incredibly informative, interesting, and eye-opening read. If you’re like me and are trying to find ways to haul yourself out of the burnout hole–or want to learn how to keep yourself from falling in it in the first place–I’d definitely suggest giving this a read.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to learn more about witchcraft, herbalism, and living an intentional life—while getting a glimpse into my own witchy, intentional practice—consider signing up for my patreon. I post a lot of behind the scenes content you won’t find anywhere else, as well as handy herb profile printables, spell sheets, book recommendations, and excerpts of my upcoming novel, Bramble Manor.