Signs Your Habits Are Leading to Burnout

If you’re passionate about health and wellness, chances are you’re already inundated with various wellness practices that you can, should, or have to do every day. Drink lots of water, drop right out of bed onto your yoga mat, and don’t leave the room until your morning journal and skin care routine is complete. Once in the kitchen, you can enjoy a personalized supplement containing 32 ounces of fresh vegetable juice. But your to-do list isn’t done yet! You still need to complete 10,000 steps, meditate in front of a candlelit bubble bath, and you can’t sleep until you’ve completed your 17-step evening skincare routine and used one of those horrible LED masks.

Will this exhaustive wellness routine affect your sleep schedule? When you wake up, do you feel a sense of dread and obligation to check off every item on your list? you still Don’t look like that TikTok health influencer who convinced you to buy supplements? Your healthy habits may actually be draining you.

Although it may seem illogical, the concept of “health burnout” is one that psychotherapist Amy Morin, LCSW, is very familiar with. “One of the popular ideas I’ve encountered is that we should be strict about health,” Morin told us. “Sometimes people confuse rigidity with self-discipline, and their daily lives can become an unintentional source of stress.”

At Shape, we support and fully encourage healthy habits, but when does it become too much? “Turning self-care into a source of stress rather than relief can lead to someone burning out and giving up entirely,” she says. “Burnout often creeps in, causing fatigue, irritability, and loss of motivation. These signs can be interpreted as “weakness,” and some people believe the solution is to just keep going and try harder.

Once you’re aware of these signs, you can easily adjust your daily routine and reduce stress while increasing flexibility and being kind to yourself. “Health is feeling good in the moment,” says Fatemeh Farahan, LMFT, psychotherapist, and Connect for happiness. “I encourage my clients to ask themselves, What does my body need today? Instead of strictly following the plan. We’ve rounded up some of the signs of health burnout below, and while simplifying your habits, we’ve also included six back-to-basics products to further reduce the stress of complex daily tasks.

You feel obligated rather than energized

Waking up in the morning with fear and knowing what’s coming next means your healthy habits are counterproductive. This can be attributed to the number of health obligations and the types of tasks you commit to. Changing your daily habits is key, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Choose elements of healthy habits that excite and energize you. If you don’t fancy drinking a bucket of freshly squeezed juice filled with pulp, eat fresh fruit. Can’t get into a running routine? Give yourself permission to take a stress-free walk. What if you don’t want to do anything that day? Give yourself a grace period and simply take a day off.

You are too strict and rigid

“Healthy habits are designed to help us, but when they become rigid or start to feel like a chore, they can actually become another source of stress,” Farrakhan says. “I have clients who feel like they have to check off every task on their wellness list—meditation, exercise, specific diet and sleep goals—or they’re ‘failed’ for the day.”

Being healthy means listening to your mind and body, which is also reflected in the way you treat yourself. If your inner monologue criticizes you for “failing” at daily habits that are supposed to make you feel better, it can have the wrong effect and act as a catalyst for stress and guilt.

You don’t prioritize sleep

When your healthy habits take up too much of your time (causing you to wake up early and go to bed late to meet all your obligations), you’re missing out on one of the most important elements: sleep.

Farahon stresses that sleep should be a top priority in any healthy routine. “We often focus on exercise and nutrition, but without good restorative sleep, these efforts can be in vain,” she says. “Lack of sleep can sap your motivation, make it harder to keep up with daily life, and affect your decision-making, not to mention it can elevate stress hormones like cortisol, paving the way for burnout.”

Think of sleep as the foundation that supports everything else and helps you approach everything (including healthy habits!) with a clear, calm mind, Faraan says.

You ignore your body’s signals

Tune into (and listen to) yourself. While it may be difficult to quiet the noise of your list of “shoulds,” truly focusing on how you’re feeling in the moment can help fill your cup and help you listen to your body’s inherent signals.

“If you become rigid about your schedule, any minor obstacle or challenge can become a major source of irritability or anxiety, which is another sign that your health habits may have gone too far,” Morin tells us. She says to also look for other signs that your life is out of balance. This can happen in sneaky ways, such as difficulty concentrating at work, feeling tired and low on energy throughout the day, or even muscle fatigue from too much exercise and not enough rest.

Your social life is suffering

Seeing your social life suffer can come from a variety of reasons, including time management and avoiding social activities that don’t fit into a strict health paradigm. People who are hyperactive on a daily basis may avoid social activities because they have to squeeze in more time at the gym, or they may skip activities like dining out because they don’t want to eat restaurant food.

“While healthy lifestyle habits require some social sacrifice, over-involvement habits can sacrifice almost all social activities,” Morin said. “This may make it less convenient for you to make phone calls, face-to-face meetings, and spontaneous gatherings. It may also affect your vacation. You may feel pressured to go to the gym while everyone else is enjoying the beach. While staying active on vacation While that’s great, you probably don’t travel to hang out in a stuffy hotel fitness center.

you didn’t see the result

Goal setting is not Require for everyday health, but many of us start with goals in mind—whether or not those goals have measurable metrics. Goals may include feeling calmer and focused, better energy and health, more restful sleep, or even defined abs. But if your daily routine is too time-consuming and rigorous and adds stress to your life, it becomes more difficult to see better physical and mental health results.

Extra stress can even affect your immune system, causing you to get sick more often and have difficulty fighting off seasonal illnesses. If you are sick, you may not stick to high-involvement healthy habits. So, not only will you not see results, but you may feel worse.

6 Products to Help Simplify Your Daily Work

Multi-purpose products can help eliminate extra steps and encourage simplification of daily tasks. Here are our top picks for simplifying your healthy habits, from skin care to better sleep to immune health.

Manduka’s GPR Adapt Mat has the best stability and grip of any yoga mat we’ve tested this year. This five millimeter pad has plenty of cushioning without feeling too soft and can be rolled up tightly and stored in a corner or under the bed for easy stretching on those chilly mornings.

Did you know that drinking through a straw can actually encourage you to drink more? This bottle combines YETI’s classic Rambler size and insulation with a convenient straw lid. The water stays ice cold for 48 hours thanks to double-walled stainless steel insulation, and it comes in lots of fun new colors for the season. We like the 26-ounce capacity, which fits most cup holders, and it comes in a few other sizes.

Like multivitamins, green powders are not a magic solution and we should all get most of our vitamins and minerals from whole foods. But for an extra boost, nutritionist-recommended AG One is suitable for vegetarians, blends well, has a rich, sweet flavor, and leaves no gritty residue. Additionally, the ingredient list contains probiotics, adaptogens, and digestive enzymes. For more options, check out our other favorite green powders this year.

If you want to simplify your nightly skin care routine without sacrificing your nighttime moisturizing effect, this deceptively simple CeraVe PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion will do the trick. It brings moisture to the surface with a combination of glycerin and hyaluronic acid, and uses three different ceramides to keep the skin barrier healthy. Plus, compared to the crazy prices of many other moisturizers, this is an absolute steal.

While bedding might not seem like an important part of your daily wellness, the right sheets can make or break the quality of your sleep. Carihola’s Bamboo Blend Sheets are in the middle of the price range for this category, but have a premium luxury feel. Bamboo is a natural thermoregulator, pulling heat away from the body on hot nights but trapping it in the fibers to provide more insulation on cold nights. They have a tight weave and a soft brushed surface that feels very comfortable when you slide them on.

ICYMI, we’re a little obsessed with protein here. Collagen powders are one of our go-to supplements because they typically have little to no taste and can be easily mixed into a variety of drinks and foods. This grass-fed collagen powder from Garden of Life provides 18 grams of protein per serving and dissolves quickly in coffee or smoothies.