What’s the Difference Between Anxiety and Burnout?
If you're feeling tired all the time, overwhelmed by the smallest things, or like your brain won’t shut off – but also your body won’t get going – you might be asking: Is this anxiety? Or is this burnout?
The truth is, it can be hard to tell. They share a lot of symptoms. Both can leave you feeling emotionally fried, physically tense, and completely drained. And for many women, especially those juggling work, relationships, caregiving, and invisible emotional labor, the two often show up hand in hand.
Let’s talk about what anxiety and burnout actually are, how to tell the difference, and how therapy can help you heal, especially if you’re carrying more than you can name.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety is your nervous system’s response to perceived danger or stress. It’s your body’s way of saying, something might be wrong, even when there’s no immediate threat. While occasional anxiety is part of being human, chronic anxiety can start to affect your sleep, digestion, relationships, and overall quality of life.
Common signs of anxiety:
Racing thoughts or constant worry
Feeling tense, restless, or unable to relax
Physical symptoms like a tight chest, headaches, nausea, or shallow breathing
Trouble sleeping or staying asleep
Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
A constant sense that something bad is about to happen
Overthinking social situations or past interactions
Anxiety is often future-focused. Your brain is scanning for potential problems, and your body is constantly bracing for impact, even if nothing’s actually happening.
What Is Burnout?
Burnout is what happens when you’ve been running on empty for too long. It’s a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by chronic stress, often from work, caregiving, or the endless task of trying to hold everything together.
Burnout isn’t just about being tired. It’s about being beyond tired. You might feel like you’ve lost your spark, your capacity to care, or your ability to recover from even small setbacks.
Common signs of burnout:
Feeling emotionally flat, numb, or cynical
A sense of detachment from your work or relationships
Chronic fatigue, even after resting
Low motivation or a sense that nothing matters
Feeling like everything is too much, but also not enough
A drop in performance or interest in things you used to enjoy
Feeling stuck, depleted, or like you’re just going through the motions
Burnout is often present-focused. You’re not necessarily panicking about the future – you’re just completely done with the present.
Anxiety vs. Burnout: The Key Differences
Anxiety
High energy (but restless or frazzled)
Hypervigilance, racing thoughts
Often includes fear and worry
Can happen anytime
Feels like too much stimulation
Burnout
Low energy, depleted, exhausted
Detachment, numbness, “shut down” mode
Often includes apathy and disconnection
Often the result of prolonged stress or overwork
Feels like not enough capacity
But here’s the hard part: you can have both. In fact, many women do.
You might be anxious and burned out at the same time. You might lie awake worrying about everything, then wake up with zero energy to do anything. You might feel on edge, but emotionally checked out. This combo is especially common in women who are constantly in caregiving roles, overworking, or surviving in systems that expect them to push past their limits without support.
How Therapy Can Help
Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, burnout, or both, therapy can help you understand what’s going on beneath the surface and what your mind and body are trying to tell you.
Here’s how therapy supports healing:
1. Naming What You’re Experiencing
So many women walk around thinking, I’m just not strong enough or I should be able to handle this. In therapy, we name the patterns, explore where they come from, and remind you that your exhaustion is not a character flaw; it’s a response to chronic stress and unmet needs.
2. Rebuilding Your Relationship With Rest
You might feel guilty for resting, even when you’re desperate for it. Therapy helps you understand why rest feels hard and how to create rhythms that support your nervous system, not just your productivity.
3. Addressing the Root Cause
Is your anxiety tied to people-pleasing? Religious trauma? Perfectionism? Therapy helps you trace the origin of your patterns so you’re not just treating the symptoms, you’re healing at the source.
4. Learning to Listen to Your Body
Burnout and anxiety live in the body. Therapy helps you reconnect with yourself – your gut, your boundaries, your voice – so you can recognize when something isn’t working before it turns into collapse.
5. Creating a New Way Forward
This isn’t just about managing symptoms. It’s about rebuilding a life that doesn’t require constant recovery. Therapy supports you in creating a life that actually works for you, not one that just looks good on the outside.
You Deserve More Than Survival Mode
If you're reading this and thinking, This is me, you're not alone. You don’t have to keep pushing through. You don’t have to wait until things fall apart. And you don’t need to prove your pain to anyone in order to get support.
As a therapist in Washington State, I help women move out of burnout, soothe anxiety, and reconnect with who they are beneath all the noise. You deserve rest. You deserve clarity. You deserve to feel like yourself again.
Ready to take the first step out of burnout and anxiety?
Book a free consult and let’s talk about what you’re carrying and how therapy can help you breathe again.
