Monthly Book Review: Burnout
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
Another monthly feature of this newsletter is a review of a (usually) popular book that relates to at least one of the core focus areas in this newsletter: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Modern Workplace Culture, and Leaving Academia. Bonus points if it has legs in all three —and this month’s pick absolutely does. The book is Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, by (sisters) Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. It’s also important to note that while I link out to bookshop.org when I share books I’m reading for this series, I have no affiliation or kickbacks from these (or any!) links or purchases you might make. I just prefer bookshop.org for online book buying, as their proceeds support local, independent bookstores. I also always try my local libraries first! I actually did both for this one, so I could listen to the audiobook (on Libby) and then go to the hard copy to mark things and review.
So why did I give myself this homework this month —and to any of you who chose to read along? Burnout is one of the key reasons many people leave academia, and it’s also pervasive in (too) many contemporary workplace cultures. It also, like many experiences, tracks with social advantages and disadvantages —it’s not that having more privileges means that you are less prone to burnout; on the contrary, higher status jobs (which unfortunately are often not equitably distributed) often come with enormous pressures and expectations. But there are resources one can devote to mitigating that burnout, while the heightened expectations for those with less privilege (more care work, more emotional labor, facing more frequent microaggressions, pressures of being “the only,” just to name a few) can exponentially add to that stress and fatigue.
One of the things I appreciated most about Nagoski and Nagoski’s book is how intentionally and regularly they centered the dynamics of privilege in their work. In fact, the book explicitly pitches to women throughout. But that doesn’t mean that others who are struggling with many of the same pressures, or who are just plain burned TF out, can’t benefit from their recommendations. It just means that they see clearly how additionally challenging the burnout landscape is for women, people of color, women of color, and others trapped in cultural and economic systems that produce those inequities in the first place.
To this end, they also draw heavily on Kate Manne’s work in Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny on what she terms “human giver syndrome,” those “givers” who offer up their resources (time, energy, emotions, and more) to the human “beings” who can enliven or express their humanity once extracted from the givers. I love Kate Manne’s work, and the way it deepens and extends some of Arlie Hochschild’s, whose line “the world turns to women for mothering, and this fact silently attaches itself to many a job description” always stopped me cold as an academic.
For those unfamiliar with her work, Hochschild demonstrated how gendered expectations can shape work in fundamentally different ways based on one’s gender identity or presentation. And it regularly burned me as an academic that so many of the men I worked with, male professors hired at the same time as me, seemed to have entirely different jobs. Some of them were deeply caring men who are in the profession because they have a passion for mentoring and/or actively supporting students from historically marginalized backgrounds and sincerely want to teach, not just publish papers but really teach, in the small liberal arts context where we worked. But mothering never became part of their daily (and nightly) work. And they were far less burned out. Fewer of them have quit.
Nagoski and Nagoski work fervently in Burnout to ground these experiences in the very real dynamics of privilege in a sort of reverse-gaslighting endeavor, but also to offer concrete practices to support anyone facing burnout —including as a matter of life or death. (Stress kills, as does fatigue.)
It’s hard evaluating this book today, as I’m so fucking fortunately not in a work environment that produces burnout. I did work in one for two years post-academia, where I was being micromanaged through chaos by an incredibly smart and fundamentally kind young boss who, like the rest of our leadership, was doing her very best, but I was miserable. So miserable that I considered at one point going back to my tenured position at a dying institution, thanks to a year of unpaid leave that contractually held my position during that time. (I’m so glad I didn’t!)
So when I read Nagoski and Nagoski’s directives on completing the stress cycle (things like exercise, scream into a pillow, snuggle with someone you love and trust) I think
“Excellent — I love doing those things” and
“But then again, I confused 30 minutes of morning exercise with having a life for 15 years as an academic….” and
“Plus who had the capacity find someone to love and trust when constantly tapped out? —I sure didn’t…” and
“Screaming into a pillow, though, is actually kinda upsetting and makes my throat hurt” (OK, I don’t think they specifically recommended screaming but it sure would complete the stress cycle) and
“BUT HOW DOES THIS FIX BROKEN CULTURES OR SYSTEMS?!?!”
To be fair, Negoski and Negoski don’t claim that it does. They look squarely at those broken systems and then squarely at the reality that there is only so much we can individually control. So things like meditation, sleep, grounding ourselves in our purpose, and human connection become not just essential but life-saving. And we certainly can’t change broken systems if we don’t care for our own well-being —put on your own oxygen mask first, and all that. They also make a compelling argument that the answer is not to move from acting as “human givers” to “human beings,” as we need to build a culture and society where we are all acting with greater care and generosity. In short, the behaviors are not the problem; the inequity is.
As I reflect on my experiences of burnout, I felt most burned out when I was operating in human giver mode, deeply isolated even as I was spending so much time with colleagues and/or students, and putting caring for myself (physically, emotionally, socially, etc.) last. As a sociologist, I appreciate any book, like this one, that situates those personal troubles in the context of wider social (including political and economic) issues. That’s the foundation for needing those reminders to sleep, move, and connect —none of which will happen without our intentional efforts. But I still fear that had I encountered this book while in those burnout eras, I would have LOLsobbed and chucked it across the room.
Readers, how do you know when you’re burned out? What strategies help you to mitigate it? How do you think about the tension between those socio-cultural factors that create the burnout and our individual abilities to offset them? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
Want to get a jump on next month’s book selection? I’ll be reading The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff. Grab a copy and join me! Want to recommend a future book? Email me at MeghanB@gmail.com
Loved getting to read your reflection! Also *love* that you link to Bookshop and not (ew) Amazon.
I have so many things to say about gender and burnout and unequal burdens placed on women and I don’t want to carry on about it in comments. Bottom line, universities run on the exploitation of faculty. Women are far more likely to be exploited than men, thus universities are direct beneficiaries of unpaid female labor.
It’s time for women to start saying no. The suggestion that we need to try to bring men gently into the caring burdens is absurd — why would they want to give up their privilege? They don’t and unless they are forced to do it, they won’t.
I propose an academic Lysistrata, only instead of withholding sex (which, ick!) women withhold the unpaid labor and unfair burdens of service.