I study burnout. I didn’t think it could happen to me

From ScienceMag:

When I started my Ph.D., I believed I had found my true purpose. My research focused on how digital tools could help prevent burnout among clinicians—something I’m passionate about. I spent my days immersed in research about workload, stress, fatigue, and the fragile tipping points that push people beyond their limits. As my workload grew, I started to feel the pressure. But even as I worked later and later into the night, I kept reassuring myself: I was only studying burnout. It wasn’t something that could happen to me.

Unlike many in my cohort, I settled on my dissertation topic early in the first semester, thanks to my prior research experience and a quick alignment with my adviser’s interests. I hit the ground running, and at first, the work energized me. I loved feeling I was part of a broader research community and knowing my work could one day help people on the front lines of health care. But the challenge of balancing my research with teaching responsibilities and the required coursework was intense, and before I knew it, my preliminary exam—a big hurdle to continuing my studies—was right around the corner.

At the time, I didn’t notice how I was letting work take over my life, bit by bit. Skipping lunch to finish “just one more” section of a manuscript. Working weekends because “I’m already behind.” Feeling my chest tighten when I opened my email each morning, dreading any new additions to my growing to-do list. At first, I called it normal stress. Then, a rough patch. Eventually, I stopped calling it anything at all.

One evening near the end of my second year, desperate for reassurance, I took a burnout “self-test.” To my surprise, I scored high on several classic symptoms. Emotional exhaustion? Check. Feeling numb and disconnected from my work? Check. Losing the sense of personal accomplishment? Check. I stared at the results, feeling exposed.

Still, I resisted the idea for weeks until I finally reached a breaking point. It arrived quietly one evening as I was staring at a paragraph I had rewritten 10 times. No matter how much I worked, the gap between what I wanted to write and what I could deliver only seemed to widen. I closed my laptop and thought, for the first time, “Maybe I can’t do this anymore.”

The next day, I had my regular meeting with my adviser. As we wrapped up our discussion, he paused, looking at me for a moment longer than usual. “Xames, you should take a break!” he said lightly, but with real concern. He had sensed what I hadn’t yet fully admitted to myself.

That comment unlocked something inside me. For the first time, I allowed myself to admit that I was not OK. From my research on burnout, I knew the risk factors—long hours, poor boundaries, chronic stress. But I had completely ignored them creeping into my own life.

In the weeks that followed, I did something that felt both terrifying and necessary. I scaled back. I started to set real boundaries—no more writing emails after dinner, no more glorifying 60-hour workweeks. I went back to hobbies that had nothing to do with my dissertation. These are the kinds of restorative activities the research recommends.

It wasn’t an instant fix. Some days, the old voices still whispered: You should be working harder. You’re falling behind. But slowly, I learned to answer them differently: I am a person first, and a researcher second.

Ironically, or maybe inevitably, my work improved. Ideas came more freely when I wasn’t drowning in anxiety. Writing felt less like extracting teeth and more like creating something real again. I was no longer studying burnout from the safe distance of an observer—I had lived it. It was a reminder that behind the abstract models and metrics are real people.

Today, my research remains centered on burnout, but my focus has shifted to also include recovery, sustainability, and compassion. The work feels deeper, messier, and more honest—and it no longer consumes my life. Most of all, what my experience taught me is that even when work feels urgent and important, so is your well-being. That lesson didn’t come from a study. It came from the long, slow, humbling process of realizing that I am human—and that’s not a flaw.

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