There was a point a few years back where I was wandering the isles of my local supermarket with my four kids in tow, laptop left on at home with a hundred emails waiting for my return, along with a pile of washing that had been there for three days, and just… couldn’t move. Stopped and stood stock still right there in the freezer isle.
Not tired. Not stressed. Something much heavier than that. I was completely hollowed out.
I didn’t recognise it as burnout at the time. I thought I just needed a good night’s sleep or a weekend off. But here’s the thing about burnout – it doesn’t respond to a bubble bath. It’s not a bad week. It’s what happens when you’ve been running on empty for so long that your whole nervous system waves a white flag. The second time, after I had ignored that first big red warning sign and, after a few days rest, simply returned to exactly the same pace and environment as before, was a little more dramatic. An ambulance trip to the hospital. A series of brain scans.
Doctors scratching their heads trying to work out what was wrong with me. Looking back now it should have been obvious – but I was an expert at powering through and parading around in a series of masks to cover up what was really happening on the inside.
I’m Jane. I’m a mum of four based in Wales, a holistic wellness coach, nervous system and burnout recovery specialist, and the founder of Mojo School – an accredited online learning platform that blends neuroscience with ancient wisdom to help people move from surviving to thriving. I’ve spent years studying burnout from the inside and the outside, and what I’ve learned is that most of the advice out there misses the point entirely.
So here are seven things that actually help and why.
1. Stop Treating the Symptoms and Start Asking What’s Causing Them
This is the big one, and it’s where most burnout advice falls flat. Burnout isn’t a mood. It’s a physiological state. Your stress response has been activated for so long that your body and brain can’t regulate anymore. The research from psychologist Christina Maslach identifies three core features: exhaustion,
cynicism, and a growing sense that nothing you do matters. Sound familiar?
If you’re just managing symptoms – drinking more coffee, pushing through, taking the odd afternoon off, you’re not healing burnout. You’re delaying its next wave. The real question is: what’s the root? Is it a lack of boundaries? An identity that’s been completely absorbed by caregiving? A to-do list that has no end and no purpose beyond survival? Until you name the actual cause, no amount of self-care
fixes it permanently.
Start there. Get honest with yourself. Dig deep and find the programme that’s running the show. There will be a tab open in your subconscious mind that has been there for so long you don’t see it……until you stop and go searching for it. This is the key to preventing recurring patterns and future episodes.
I know this is hard, because your main focus is not you – it’s your children. But I can tell you from experience, now that my children are grown up and having kids of their own – that if you ignore this vital piece of work, the pattern will run right through into their lives. As parents we teach our children by what we DO, not what we SAY. The greatest gift you can give your children is to model the way you want them to live their lives when they grow up.
2. Learn to regulate Your Nervous System Before You Try to Solve Anything
So, how do you actually start to do that in practice when everything feels chaotic, unmanageable and a general haze of lost P.E kits, homework, and household chores?
It’s not easy when you first start to make the changes, but I can promise you that with small, consistent steps, great changes can be made. When you’re burned out, your nervous system is stuck in a state of chronic activation. You’re not lazy, you’re not weak — you’re dysregulated. And you cannot think your way out of a dysregulated state. You have to move through it physiologically first.
This doesn’t mean meditation (though it can). It means finding what genuinely signals safety to your body. For some people that’s slow, deliberate breathing – box breathing is brilliant for this, four counts in, four counts hold, four counts out, four counts hold. For others it’s cold water on the face, a short walk, or putting their hands in the garden.
These aren’t tricks. They’re direct inputs to your vagus nerve — the biological pathway that shifts your body from fight-or-flight into rest-and-repair. You can build these nervous system regulation tools into your daily life and include your kids. This will be the best kind of education for them that school curriculum’s can’t even begin to touch.
Understanding this changed everything for me. Once I knew I had actual tools to regulate my state, I stopped feeling so at the mercy of it – and my kids now have these tools too. The greatest achievement as a parent, for me, is watching them share these tools with their babies as they grow. I know that by putting in the work to embed a new way of doing things went a long way towards breaking some cycles that have been present for generations.
3. Rebuild Boundaries — But Not the Way Instagram Tells You
To
Everyone talks about boundaries like they’re a switch you flip. “Just say no.” Brilliant,
thanks. Real boundaries are built slowly and incrementally, and they involve understanding what your values actually are – not the values you think you should have, but the ones that genuinely matter to you. When you’re clear on your values, a boundary isn’t a rule you’re forcing yourself to follow. It’s just what makes sense. In practice, this might look like: not responding to messages after 7pm. Saying “I can’t commit to that right now” without a three-paragraph apology. Letting the school run be done in silence because you need five minutes to breathe.
One important element I teach within Mojo School is that you can’t set any kind of boundaries until you know what actually matters to you – not what your inner people pleaser tells you that other people want, but what actually lights you up, what drives you crazy and most importantly, what triggers you into fight or flight. Start small. One boundary. Hold it for a week. See what happens. Notice that the world doesn’t fall apart.
4. Reclaim a Piece of Your Identity That Isn’t About Anyone
Else
One of the most underestimated drivers of parental burnout is identity erosion. When you become a parent (especially a primary caregiver), your sense of self can quietly get buried under everyone else’s needs. You stop being Jane or Tom or whoever you were before. You become Mum. Dad. The one who handles it. This isn’t about being ungrateful for your kids. It’s about recognising that humans need a sense of self beyond their role. Research consistently shows that personal identity – having interests, goals, and relationships that belong purely to you, is a significant protective factor against burnout. It’s not a luxury – it’s a necessity, and it’s one of the ways that you inoculate your children against low self-esteem and
burnout in their own futures.
What did you used to love that you’ve quietly given up? What are you curious about that has nothing to do with being a parent? It doesn’t need to be big. A book. A run. A half hour learning something new. Give yourself permission to be a person who is also a parent, rather than only a parent.
5. Sleep Like It’s Your Job
I know. You know. We all know sleep matters. And I know that kids like to completely sabotage your attempts at rest. – especially in the early days. But I want to push beyond the obvious here.
Chronic sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you tired – it actively impairs the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for emotional regulation, perspective-taking, and rational decision-making. When that goes offline, everything feels harder, more catastrophic, more personal.
You’re not being dramatic. You’re sleep-deprived.
Parents often resist prioritising sleep because there’s always something else to do in those quiet hours after the kids are down. I get it – that time feels precious. But if you’re using it to scroll your phone or lie awake catastrophising, you’re not recharging. You’re just delaying. What’s one thing you can move, delegate, or simply drop that would get you an extra thirty to sixty minutes of sleep? Start with that.
6. Ask For Help and Actually Accept It When It Comes
This one’s harder than it sounds, and I found it almost impossible for a long time. Many of us have been quietly taught that needing help is a weakness, or that real parents just manage. They don’t. Nobody does this alone. They just make it look that way from the outside.
Community and connection are genuinely protective against burnout at a neurological level. Human beings are wired for co-regulation – meaning our nervous systems actually calm down in the presence of safe, connected relationships.
Isolation, on the other hand, amplifies stress. This is biology, not sentiment. But here’s the part people miss: you have to actually let help in. Not deflect it. Not say “I’m fine.” Not insist you can manage. When someone offers to take the kids for an hour, say yes. When someone asks how you are, tell them honestly once in a while.
If you genuinely don’t have a support network around you right now, building one is worth prioritising – whether that’s a local group, an online community, parents/family members, or even just one friend you can be real with.
It really does take a village to raise a child.
7. Address the Deeper Patterns, Not Just the Difficult Day
Burnout rarely comes out of nowhere. Most people who experience it can trace it back to long-standing patterns – perfectionism, chronic people-pleasing, a deep fear of being seen as failing. These patterns pre-exist parenthood. Parenthood just amplifies them. This one circles back to where we first started, digging deeper for the root causes that led to burnout – not just plastering over the symptoms when they
come knocking.
The good news is that patterns can change. Neuroscience is very clear on this. Neuroplasticity means the brain retains the capacity to form new pathways throughout your life. What you practise consistently becomes your default. This is why working on the root patterns, whether through coaching, therapy, structured learning, or a solid framework for self-understanding, leads to lasting change rather
than another cycle of burnout.
I use a framework called the Medicine Wheel, which works with all four dimensions of human wellbeing (mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual) to help people find and change the patterns that are keeping them stuck. It’s trauma-informed, designed to work for neurodivergent brains, and built around the understanding that sustainable change comes from understanding yourself, not just managing your
symptoms. You can explore everything I have to offer (including a burnout specific self-paced course and a full burnout recovery coaching programme at mymojoschool.com.
One Last Thing
I want to be really clear on this. I see you. I understand what you’re going through and you wont’ be here forever. Change is possible. Life after burnout can be just wonderful, and you never have to go back there.
Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s what happens when the demands on you consistently outstrip your resources for too long. You’re not broken. You haven’t got it wrong. You’ve just been running without fuel.
Recovery is possible. Prevention is possible. But both require more than a nice bath and an early night. They require looking honestly at your life and making some real changes.
You deserve more than survival. Start there.
About the author
Jane Bellis is a holistic wellness coach, accredited course creator, and founder of Mojo School — an online learning platform blending neuroscience with ancient wisdom to help people move from surviving to thriving. As a mum of four who’s been through burnout herself, she knows this stuff from the inside out. You can explore her accredited courses, coaching programmes, and free resources at mymojoschool.com