Allostatic Load: Why Chronic Stress Leaves You So Burned Out
When you’re burned out, it can feel like your energy never quite comes back. It doesn’t seem to matter how much you “rest”, take time off, or try to relax. You may be still appear to be functioning and fulfilling your daily duties, but everything feels a little harder than it used to.
There’s a name for this experience: allostatic load.
Allostatic load describes the cumulative impact of chronic stress on the body and nervous system over time. It helps explain why burnout also feels physiological. Your system has been working overtime for too long and needs extra support to recovery.
For many people, learning about allostatic load can bring relief because now there’s actually language to describe why burnout can feel so persistent and hard to shake.
What Is Allostatic Load?
Your body is inherently designed to adapt to stress. This adaptive process is called allostasis - maintaining stability through change (McEwen, 1998).
When you face a stressor, your body releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to help you respond. In the short term, this is helpful and protective to get you to safety.
Allostatic load develops when this stress response is:
Activated too often
Activated for too long
Or not given enough time to fully return to baseline
Over time, repeated stress responses begin to strain the body’s systems, including the nervous, endocrine, immune, and cardiovascular systems (McEwen & Stellar, 1993).
In simple terms: your body is working very hard to keep you going and it’s getting overextended.
How Allostatic Load Builds Over Time
Allostatic load is rarely caused by one thing and is most likely do to compounding factors that have accumulated overtime.
Contributors can include:
Long-term work stress
Caregiving without adequate support
Financial insecurity
Relational strain
Ongoing social or political stress
Unresolved trauma or chronic anxiety
Its common that even stressors that seem “manageable” at one point in time, can become overwhelming when they build up without relief.
Who is Especially At-Risk?
Allostatic Load is especially common among:
Caregivers and helping professionals
Highly sensitive people
Individuals in high-responsibility or unstable environments
Those living with chronic uncertainty or emotional pressure
Folks who have experienced discrimination, racism, and/or intergenerational trauma
Because the stress is normalized, it can be easy to dismiss symptoms as “welp, that’s just how life is.” Over time however, the body absorbs what the mind pushes away.
Building Awareness to the Impacts on Your Body
Chronic stress changes how the body functions at a biological level.
Research has linked high allostatic load to:
Persistent fatigue and low energy
Anxiety and depressive symptoms
Sleep disruption
Difficulty concentrating or memory problems
Increased inflammation
Higher risk for chronic health conditions (Juster et al., 2010)
Ongoing, lower-grade stress (especially when it’s relational, emotional, or unpredictable) can be just as impactful to the body as a single traumatic event.
Impact to Your Nervous System
When stress becomes chronic, the nervous system may struggle to fully downshift into states of rest and restoration. This can look like:
Feeling constantly “on edge”
Difficulty relaxing even during downtime
Waking up tired despite sleeping
Irritability or emotional numbness
These symptoms don’t mean you’re going to be stuck in this state for forever. It’s a red flag that your system that hasn’t had enough safety, predictability, or rest to fully recover (McEwen, 2007). It means your nervous system is asking you for some more regulation and assistance.
Impact to Your Emotional Health
People with high allostatic load often report:
Feeling overwhelmed by small tasks
Increased anxiety or emotional reactivity
Reduced resilience to stress
A sense of being “maxed out”
Over time, chronic stress can narrow emotional capacity, making it harder to tolerate uncertainty, conflict, or even joy. Without attention, these symptoms can grow to feel even more unmanageable creating more stress about stress itself.
Could This Be Allostatic Load?
You might be experiencing high allostatic load if several of these feel familiar:
You feel exhausted even after resting or sleeping
Small stressors feel disproportionately overwhelming
You’re more irritable, numb, or emotionally flat than before
Your concentration or memory feels worse
You struggle to truly relax, even during downtime
You’ve been “holding it together” for a long time
Your body feels tense, achy, or depleted
This list isn’t a diagnosis, but it can be a helpful way to notice patterns and a sign to get more help.
What Helps Reduce Allostatic Load
Reducing allostatic load is largely about helping your system feel safer, more supported, and less alone. This list isn’t meant to be a to-do list or something you need to check everything off of, I want you to choose 1-2 intentions to start with and work from there.
Simple strategies to reduce allostatic load:
Prioritize recovery, not productivity: rest that isn’t tied to earning or optimizing matters.
Add regulation throughout the day: brief pauses, slow breathing, stepping outside, or grounding can help reduce baseline stress.
Reduce emotional overextension: notice where you’re over-giving, over-explaining, or carrying responsibility that isn’t yours.
Create predictable rhythms: consistency helps the nervous system recover more than intensity.
Name what you’re carrying: unspoken stress contributes to allostatic load so talking about to trusted people can really help.
Seek support, not just strategies: burnout heals faster with relational safety.
Why Therapy Can Be Especially Helpful for Burnout & Allostatic Load
Therapy can be a powerful space to address allostatic load because it works on multiple levels at once.
In therapy, people often:
Understand how stress has shaped their nervous system
Learn regulation skills that support recovery
Process emotional burdens they’ve been carrying alone
Reduce internal pressure and self-blame
Rebuild capacity in sustainable ways
When stress is chronic, healing usually requires more than lifestyle tweaks. It often requires support that helps the body and mind feel safer over time using tried-and-true strategies and accountability. It can also mean confronting patterns, processing past trauma, and building increased self-trust. Therapy can be a great place to do this because it reduces your mental burden for figure it out yourself.
Get Started Sooner Rather than Later
If you’re burned out and wondering why it feels so hard to recover, your body may be responding to years of adaptation to stress.
I work with adults navigating burnout, anxiety, and chronic stress using a holistic, trauma-informed approach that supports both nervous system regulation and emotional healing.
Let me help you find the best solutions to your high allostatic load by reaching out for a free consultation call.
References
McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine, 338(3), 171–179.
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199801153380307
McEwen, B. S., & Stellar, E. (1993). Stress and the individual: Mechanisms leading to disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 153(18), 2093–2101.
McEwen, B. S. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation: Central role of the brain. Physiological Reviews, 87(3), 873–904.
https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00041.2006
Juster, R. P., McEwen, B. S., & Lupien, S. J. (2010). Allostatic load biomarkers of chronic stress and impact on health and cognition. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(1), 2–16.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.10.002