The neurochemical truth about burnout
It's not how much you work
At 17:30 on a Friday, just as you were looking forward to clocking off for the weekend, your boss drops an urgent request that will require you to work till midnight, unleashing a chemical warfare between your different motivational systems.
It is how you handle this moment, rather than the extra hours worked, that will determine whether you burn out or thrive. The reason? Burnout isn’t about workload but the proportion of your actions driven by your brain’s most expensive, unsustainable motivational systems.
Why we do anything: The hierarchy of human motivation
Ever wondered why we don’t just sit around and do nothing until we die? Our brains have several motivational systems that cause us to take action, typically operating simultaneously and each burning different neurochemical fuel:
Level 1: Habits and Automaticity (Most Sustainable) Learned behavioral sequences that run on autopilot. Morning routines, well-practiced work skills, getting water when thirsty - these cost virtually no energy because they bypass all motivational circuits and go straight from stimuli to action.
Level 2: Dopamine-Driven reward seeking (Sustainable - when well-calibrated) Your primary conscious motivation system balances expected reward, effort, certainty and immediacy.
This explains why Netflix often wins over exercise, even though exercise is ultimately more rewarding. Netflix offers moderate reward with 100% certainty and immediate delivery. Exercise offers higher reward but with uncertainty and 45-minute delay - so it gets heavily discounted.
It is also why starting is often the hardest part: Once moving, uncertainty decreases and immediate micro-rewards (progress, competence, “I’m someone who follows through” identity) activate multiple dopamine streams simultaneously.
Level 3: Social obligation systems (Moderately Sustainable) Oxytocin drives prosocial behavior, while your brain processes the social pain of disappointing others. These override personal preferences when relationships or reputation are at stake, but they're more sustainable than fear-based compliance.
Level 4: Fear and threat override (Unsustainable) When your amygdala detects threats, it triggers stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that hijack other systems. This forces immediate action but creates internal warfare between competing brain systems.
Level 5: Executive willpower override (Most Unsustainable) Your prefrontal cortex forcing behavior despite objections from all other systems. This burns glucose heavily, depletes throughout the day, and creates constant neural conflict.
The real cause of burnout
Burnout isn't about working too much - it's about spending too much time in Levels 4 and 5.
You can work surprisingly long hours if most actions come from habits and well-calibrated dopamine systems. Conversely, you can burn out very fast if driven primarily by fear and willpower override.
The burnout cascade follows a predictable pattern:
Phase 1: Chronic Override Activation - Frequent use of fear systems and executive willpower while reward systems get suppressed. You're constantly forcing action against your brain's preferences.
Phase 2: System Strain - Dopamine receptors downregulate from constant suppression. Your stress response becomes dysregulated. Decision fatigue becomes constant as your prefrontal cortex operates in permanent overdrive.
Phase 3: Infrastructure Breakdown - Your reward system collapses - nothing feels motivating anymore, even non-work activities. Stress systems either stay chronically elevated or crash completely. Neuroinflammation develops, creating actual structural damage to motivation circuitry.
This is why burnout is completely different from tiredness. Tiredness means your systems are in good working order but need to recharge. Burnout means fundamental damage to your brain's motivation infrastructure.
Strategic neurochemical applications for different work scenarios
The goal isn't avoiding difficult work - it's using the right motivational systems for each type of challenge. Different scenarios stress your neurochemistry differently and require different strategic approaches.
Maximising sustainable motivation on a daily basis
Build automatic habits
The more you can act on autopilot the better, so build as many rituals as you can, for example starting and ending every day with the same sequence (coffee → calendar → priorities → immediate action on #1 task) or creating systematic blocks for mundane tasks, deep work etc.
Create clear workday boundaries through shutdown rituals. Without psychological closure, work stress continues degrading your system even during non-work hours.
If you want to learn more about habit building (also great for personal discipline), I warmly recommend Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, one of the few books I would consider life changing.
Maximise your dopamine baseline
This would be an article in itself, but apply all the usual self-optimisation suspects: Sleep, exercise, nutrition, meditation, walks in nature etc
A particular shout out for cold exposure, which can raise your baseline dopamine to the same level as a line of cocaine but sustained over hours rather than a peak and crash. It is also great stress and resilience training.
Hydration is also one that is very easy to fix and can make a big difference to your energy levels
Maintain your reward prediction system
Your dopamine system relies on accurate reward prediction. During high-volume periods, your brain starts predicting that work = endless effort without reward. Combat this by breaking large projects into completable phases that generate achievement dopamine and maintaining celebration protocols for completions, even small ones.
Make progress visible through tracking systems that show advancement over time. Your dopamine system needs evidence that the marathon is building toward something meaningful, not just endless running.
Find the intrinsic reward in the task. What is there to learn? What interesting problem is there to solve? Engage your curiosity and ambition.
Cultivate fighter mentality
Train your brain to interpret professional challenges as opportunities for skill-building and a chance to demonstrate capability rather than threats to avoid. This fundamental reframe shifts you from threat-detection mode (amygdala activation, cortisol release) to opportunity-detection mode (prefrontal engagement, approach motivation).
The neurochemical difference is dramatic: Same situation, but your brain interprets it as "chance to learn and prove myself" rather than "thing being imposed on me." This restores a sense of control and transforms stress into excitement.
To learn about fighter mentality in detail, grab a copy of Bill Beswick’s book
Reduce interruptions
Each notification triggers a cortisol releasing micro-stress response. Set email times rather than reactive checking. Switch off your notifications during focused work and meetings. Provide an emergency channel (eg WhatsApp) to remove FOMO.
Leverage social systems
Humans are social creatures - isolation elevates cortisol and makes everything feel harder. Even brief positive interactions release oxytocin that buffers stress throughout the day.
Seek mentoring opportunities. Explaining concepts to others activates multiple dopamine pathways - competence demonstration, social contribution, and knowledge consolidation.
Managing acute pressure
Remember that 17:30 on a Friday crisis? This situation is really brutal as the urgent demand triggers your amygdala, interpreting the situation as an existential threat and flooding your brain with cortisol. Your dopamine system is very much not onside with this demand, viewing this task as prohibitively expensive and completely at odds with its own agenda (enjoying a well earned evening off).
Typically your executive function will side with your cortisol system and override your dopamine drive. This comes at an insanely expensive cost and internal emotional wrangling, much of which will revolve around feeling stripped of your autonomy and catastrophizing the magnitude of the effort.
How to better handle the situation?
1. Switch on autopilot before the stress chemistry can kick in
Normally level 1 is the domain of habits but we can to some extent replicate their key “switch brain off and get moving” characteristic on demand.
The 3-Second Override Protocol
Immediate minimum action: Open laptop while instructions are being given
Sensory redirect: Focus on screen/first line of text
Micro-commitment: Read first sentence
Breathing optimization: Start 0.1 Hz breathing once reading/typing (5 seconds in, 5 seconds out)
This works because it engages your motor cortex and visual system before your amygdala can fully activate the threat response. Starting is neurochemically the hardest part - once moving, momentum generates its own motivation through task-engagement dopamine.
The key insight is to focus on micro-actions in isolation of any bigger picture, eg opening the laptop lid. Focus exclusively on that physical movement.
(On the breathing point, apparently 0.1hz breathing helps induce a state of flow. To be completely honest I’m not sure this step is necessary but I am pretty sure it won’t hurt. Other breathing techniques like box breathing or 478 are likely just as good).
2. Reframe through multiple dopamine streams
Understanding why this task is important and needs doing urgently is key to regaining your autonomy. If you are aligned with the need and opportunity it becomes much easier to digest than if you feel arbitrarily coerced.
Most "unwanted" urgent work is actually interesting - it's the imposed timing and loss of autonomy creating aversion. Separate content from context by asking: "What's the most elegant solution here?" "What can I learn I didn't know before?" This activates curiosity dopamine, one of your most sustainable reward systems.
Engage identity-reinforcement dopamine: "I'm someone who delivers under pressure" rather than "I'm being forced to work late." Same behavior, completely different neurochemical cost because you're accessing identity coherence rewards rather than threat-avoidance systems. Again, Bill Breswick’s book is pure gold.
3. Find amusement in the absurdity of the situation
Bond with colleagues over ridiculous situations. "Well, this is happening" with a knowing look activates social reward circuits while reducing cortisol. Gallows humor transforms individual frustration into group experience. Sometimes the best strategy is genuinely finding humor in life's periodic insanity.
4. Manage your energy
Give yourself a short break to recharge fairly early on. Meditate. Go for a short walk. Have a nap. DO NOT scroll social media (that will deplete your baseline dopamine).
5. Control the damage
When override is the only way necessary, minimize the neurochemical cost. Time-box the emergency work - your brain handles temporary override much better than indefinite pressure. Set clear boundaries around when the crisis mode ends.
Protect some immediate reward afterward to prevent your dopamine system from learning that effort = punishment. This could be as simple as your favorite coffee or brief positive social interaction.
The meta-strategy: Working with your neurochemistry
Before I wrap up, I would like to make a disclaimer: This post is about making the most of your motivational systems no matter the work environment but if, despite your best efforts, you find yourself constantly driven by cortisol and executive override then you need to change your environment. How? Set some boundaries and if that doesn’t work, look for another job.
But for many of us there is an additional problem, best illustrated by my favorite quote about startups: They are like chewing broken glass - you learn to love the taste of your own blood. Enjoying that image? You’re welcome.
In other words: Some people like fast paced environments. If this is you, then managing your motivational drivers is the only way to thrive rather than burn.
The ultimate insight is that you have multiple motivational systems available at any moment. Different work scenarios benefit from different neurochemical approaches, but the goal is always maximizing time spent in sustainable systems.
Those Friday evening demands aren't going away. Professional life will keep generating unexpected pressures, marathon periods, and recovery challenges. But now you understand: It's not the pressure itself that burns you out - it's which motivational system you consistently choose to handle it.
Now onto the barrage of feedback you wake up to on Saturday.
Thanks to Claude for helping with research and being a thoughtful discussion and writing partner, as well as Steffi Kieffer and Adam Elwood for providing feedback. AI and Humans sometimes get things wrong so please leave a comment if you know better.