Ep 103: Burnout: Why It Happens & What to Do About It

Feeling drained or uninspired in your teaching? You’re not alone. In this episode, we explore why burnout happens for yoga teachers, how nervous system dysregulation contributes to it, and what you can do to reconnect to your practice, your students, and your purpose. Learn how to recognize the signs of burnout, set boundaries without guilt, and restore your energy through nervous system care. Whether you’re feeling depleted or just need a gentle reminder to slow down, this episode will help you return to teaching from a place of authenticity and alignment.

You'll realize how chronic sympathetic activation can quietly lead to feeling burnout, why rest is not a luxury but a biological need, and how small, consistent nervous system care practices can help you regulate, reset, and reconnect with yourself, and why you started teaching in the first place.

Get your journals because I'll also weave in a few reflection questions throughout the episode to help you reconnect to yourself.

Transcript

Monica: 0:00

Have you ever had times where you felt drained or uninspired when it comes to teaching? I'm not gonna lie, I have had those feelings from time to time where I'm like, that's it. I'm done. I've done all there is to do. I don't have any inspiration to teach anymore. So listen, you're not alone. In this episode, I want to explore why this feeling of burnout happens, how nervous system dysregulation contributes to it, and what you can do to reconnect to your practice, to your students, and to your purpose. I wanna teach you how to recognize these signs of burnout, how to set boundaries without guilt, and restore your energy through nervous system care. Whether you're feeling depleted or just needed a gentle reminder to slow down. This episode will help you return to teaching from a place of authenticity and alignment. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers Podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you are a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you, whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you wanna dive deep and set yourself up for success. I am so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. Well, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Monica, and I'm so glad you're here. Here we talk about the anatomy, the injuries, the nervous system insights, plus all the real life knowledge you wish had been included in your yoga teacher training, but there just wasn't enough time in today's conversation. It's one that I think that so many of us need, especially as we approach the end of the year when our energy is running low, our schedules seem to fill up and it can feel like we are pouring from an empty cup. Let's talk about burnout and how it affects you while you're trying to keep up with a full schedule. Whether you teach full-time or part-time burnout is a real thing, but it might feel like taboo because you know, we're the wellness experts, right? Why does it happen? What does it feel like, and most importantly, how do you reconnect with yourself and your nervous system when you've been holding space for everyone else? I wanna start by saying this. Burnout doesn't mean you've failed. It doesn't mean you're not passionate about yoga anymore or that you're not cut out for this work. Burnout is a nervous system, response to chronic stress and overextension. It's your body's way of saying, I can't sustain this pace or even this level of output anymore. And for yoga teachers, that can be tricky to admit because so much of what we do is about being of service, about showing up, about helping and about giving. We all know teaching yoga requires a tremendous amount of emotional energy. You're holding space for the physical. Mental and emotional needs of your students. Sometimes several times a day, you are the person who stays grounded, calm, and steady. While your students release, while they cry, maybe you witness them struggle or try to find ease. You might walk into your classes carrying your own life stress, you probably are. But as soon as class begins, it's like you set it aside and take on the role of the guide and the space holder. And over time, that can feel heavy. Especially if you don't have a way to regulate your own nervous system between classes. A lot of yoga teachers get to this point quietly. You might start to notice that your teaching doesn't light you up like it used to. Maybe you dread going to class or feel drained afterward. Instead of nourished, some of us begin to question our purpose or even our identity as a teacher and often the default response is to just push through it to teach another workshop, to add another class, to take on another training. But the truth is more output doesn't solve burnout. What we need is to reconnect to ourselves, to our practice, and to our nervous system. Now let's look at why burnout happens on a physiological level. Your nervous system has two main modes of operation. The sympathetic, that's the mobilize, the active state, and the parasympathetic, the rest, recover, the digest state. When you're constantly giving, teaching and managing others' energy, you are often living in a subtle state of sympathetic activation. It's not full blown stress. It's more like a low hum of being on that never really shuts off without intentional recovery time, your nervous system doesn't shift easily back to balance. This chronic activation can show up as fatigue, irritability, loss of motivation, or even physical symptoms like tension and sleep disturbances. So what can you do about it? You know, I'm not gonna leave you without any advice, right? So the first step is awareness. Notice when your body and mind are asking for something different, ask yourself, when was the last time I practiced yoga without teaching it in my head? Ask yourself, when was the last time I sat in silence? Not to prepare for class or to create, but simply to listen to myself. And then finally ask yourself, when was the last time I allowed myself to rest? Not because I earned it, but because I needed it. If your answer to those questions is, it's been a while, that's okay. Awareness is the first doorway back to regulation. Once you recognize that your system is overextended, you can begin to make small, intentional choices that bring you back to yourself. For yoga teachers, nervous system care might look like creating transition rituals between classes. Maybe that's a short breathing practice or a walk outside, or simply a few minutes of stillness before you check your phone. It's about signaling to your body. We're shifting gears now. It can also mean adjusting your teaching schedule even temporarily, to give yourself space to recalibrate or reevaluating the types of classes you're teaching. Are they aligned with the energy you have right now, or are they depleting you further? Maybe you need to slow down and teach more restorative type classes for you and your wellbeing. I think one of the biggest contributors to yoga teacher burnout is the internalized belief that we have to be everything to everyone. We have to be the inspiring teacher, the motivator, the calm voice, the friend, the mentor. This is difficult to maintain over extended periods of time. Remember, you're human first. You're allowed to have boundaries. You're allowed to say no. You are allowed to be in a season of replenishment instead of output. Another layer to this conversation is the emotional burnout that comes from constantly holding space for your students', healing. When you're teaching students who are in pain physically or emotionally. That can take a toll on you. Without realizing it, you might start to absorb some of that energy. Compassion fatigue is real. And while empathy is one of your greatest strengths as a yoga teacher, it's also something that needs to be balanced with nervous system care. You can hold space without carrying the weight of it. That takes practice and awareness, but it's part of the evolution of being a long-term sustainable teacher. Now let's shift into solutions. Solutions that will help you restore your connection to your teaching and to yourself. One of the best ways to begin reconnecting is through your own embodied practice, not the practice you teach to others, your practice, the one that meets you where you are. Maybe that means slowing down, doing less asana and more stillness. Maybe it's meditation. yoga, nidra, breath work, or even going for a walk without your headphones so that you can truly connect with nature. The nervous system doesn't always need intensity. Sometimes it just needs consistency and gentleness. Another powerful way to prevent and recover from burnout is through connection with other teachers. Burnout thrives in isolation. Talk to your peers who understand what it feels like to also teach while they're exhausted or are starting to question their purpose. Then you'll realize you are not alone. Community is regulating for the nervous system. It helps you feel safe, seen, and supported. So I wanna leave you with a few journal prompts to reflect on, number one, what does my nervous system need for me right now? Number two, how do I know when I'm nearing burnout? What are my personal signals or cues? In what ways have I been giving more than I've been receiving? What does rest look like for me and how can I integrate more of it without guilt? And finally, how can I reconnect to teaching from a place of inspiration rather than obligation? As we move through this season, and honestly any season in life, remember that your role as a yoga teacher isn't to always be calm or centered. It's to model humanity. It's to show that self-awareness. Self-compassion and nervous system care are lifelong practices. Your students don't need a perfect teacher. They need an authentic one, and that authenticity has got to begin with taking care of yourself. So if you've been feeling tired, uninspired, or stretched thin, this is your invitation to pause, to breathe, to remember that you're doing enough. You don't have to earn rest, and you don't have to push through. You're allowed to take time to reconnect with yourself, your nervous system, and dig into the deeper why behind your teaching, and when you do, teaching starts to feel different again. It feels lighter. It feels more grounded, more aligned. You'll notice that when you're regulated, your students are too, because that's what nervous system regulation really is. It's a ripple effect. When you take care of your own system, you're actually still holding space just in a way that's sustainable for you. Remember, burnout is not a personal failure. It's a nervous system signal teaching yoga requires presence, empathy, and energy. But without intentional regulation and recovery, even the most passionate teachers can and do reach depletion. Learning to notice your own signals, create your own boundaries, and integrate nervous system care into your daily rhythm, allows you to continue holding space in a sustainable way that will extend the length of your teaching career. Your next step is to reconnect to your own practice, not the one you teach, but the one that nurtures you. Reflect on what replenishment looks like for you. Reach out for community support and remember that your students need a teacher who models authenticity and balance, not perfection. Understanding anatomy, biomechanics, and the effects yoga Asana have on the body helps you help your students. If you've been enjoying these episodes, I know that you're a yoga teacher who's ready to teach with more intention and less. Fear around injuries. Let's continue to raise the bar for how yoga supports real bodies in real life. It's so important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that students of all shapes, sizes, alignment, and abilities come to your classes and you can serve all of them. You know that my goal for you is to love the yoga teaching life. It's important to understand movement and the issues students come to your classes with, but it's equally important to understand how you are feeling. While you're teaching, subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops. And share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. And finally, thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. Alright, thank you for listening. That's it for now. Bye.