What does burnout look like in the body?

In this episode of Why the Body Breaks, Dr Paulina Luis Braithwaite speaks with Jen, who lived through years of chronic stress that led to burnout, repeated infections, eye styes, exhaustion, and the feeling that she could not stop because work and family responsibilities kept demanding more.

We discuss:

• Early burnout symptoms people miss

• How chronic stress affects the immune system

• Why pushing through makes recovery harder

• What real recovery looks like

• How rest, medical care, and Western herbal medicine supported healing

Jen shares the moment she realised she was on a runaway train, and how she rebuilt her health step by step. Twelve months later, she has had no infections and a completely different relationship with stress.

Why the body breaks is a podcast about what happens to thebody under sustained pressure in way capable, high functioning people become exhausted, unwell, all stuck despite doing everything they were told should work.

Hosted by Dr Paulina Luis Braithwaite the show exploresstress as a physiological state rather than a personal failure through nervous system science and clinical inside it offers clarity context and relief from self-blame without quick fixes.

In this episode, Dr Paulina Luis Braithwaite examines why bodies do not break suddenly. They adapt first, compensate, and continue functioning.

Stress is not a failure of coping. It is a physiological state, and when effort stops working, that is not weakness, it is the body communicating something true.