Most listened to episode in 2025: The Burnout Doctor: It takes 1-3 years to recover from burnout - here's how to avoid it

0:00Hey, welcome to Motherkind. It is me, your host Zoe Blaski. I am so happy you are here and I cannot wait for you to hear this episode, one of our most downloaded in 2025. Enjoy.

0:18Welcome to Motherkind. This is the podcast that's going to help you feel validated, supported and understood in motherhood, even in our world of endless expectations. How are you all? I hope you're all doing okay. I am recording this intro in the studio in London. We've been here for a couple of days recording six incredible episodes and it's just been amazing and I feel so lucky to be able to have these conversations and that truly is all because of you our listeners so thank you for being here for listening it really does mean more than I can say make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode and please do leave a review if you loved this episode This week's episode is a really important one because it is on burnout.

1:03Dr. Claire Ashley has just released a book called The Burnout Doctor, Your Six Step Recovery Plan after her experience of burning out as a GP and mum of two and her recovery. There are a couple of things I think are really important about this episode. The first one is we spend a lot of time talking about the warning signs of burnout. And that is so vital because you can't change what you're not aware of. And I learned that the recovery time from burnout is one to three years. Isn't that wild for full recovery? So we really, really want to avoid getting to that place. And I know that this episode is going to help you do that because Dr.

1:46Clare shares so much about the signs that you can start to recognise now and do something about it before you get to that full blown crisis point, which we absolutely want to avoid. This episode is eye opening. It's supportive. And I think it might just save you or a family member or a friend from burnout. and that is really, really powerful. So I hope you love it. Please do share this episode far and wide. We need to get these ideas and this information to as many mums as we possibly can. Here it is. I hope you love it.

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3:37Just go to wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind to get started. That's wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind so you can feel a difference yourselves. Start 2026 rooted in wellness. T's and C's apply. Claire, welcome. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. You are welcome. Tell me about your experience with burnout. Yeah, so what I'll do is I'll just briefly introduce myself and then I'll explain a little bit about my story. So I'm Claire, I'm a GP and I'm a mother of two. My background is in neuroscience and about six years ago now I went through a really nasty episode of burnout.

4:16And this episode of burnout happened off of the back of obviously having a very competitive career where I had previously sailed through every stage of my medical training. so medical school, postgraduate training. I had never experienced a mental health problem in the entirety of my life. And I thought that my stress coping skills were top tier, 10 out of 10, I would have said that I was really good at managing my stress. And then at the back end of 2018, I qualified as a GP. And then I started working in a job that was incredibly stressful and incredibly pressurised. And within six months, I'd gone from having never experienced a mental health problem to effectively being in a mental health crisis.

4:59And I had no idea what was happening to me at the time. I didn't know that what I was experiencing had a name, despite the fact that I was a doctor, that I was a GP, that I had a degree in neuroscience. This was completely new to me. And I'd known during that period that there was something wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And I just blamed myself and basically threw myself into my work trying to compensate for my perceived shortcomings and my failings. And it was only when I started having panic attacks that I suddenly realised that I was in way over my head. Now to contextualise this, not only was I working a really, really pressurised job, so being a GP, working very long hours, you know, 12 hour days typically, you know, seeing up to 50 patients a day that were incredibly complex.

5:46I also had to balance this with being a mum. And I had two young children at the time. I had one in nursery and one in I think reception or year one and a husband that works away. He works in film and TV and I didn't have a family support network. So I was juggling a job where the working patterns were really incompatible with childcare, which as we all know is very expensive and not flexible. And so I was juggling multiple stresses at the time. And so whilst the work stress was the thing that fueled this, it was in the context of a lot of stuff happening at home as well. and on my recovery journey I ended up being under the care of a GP and I had a therapist to help me get better as well but I also had to make significant changes to how I work.

6:34I had to look at the work factors that were causing me to feel stressed and overwhelmed but I also had to look at my life and the structural things in my life that were making it very difficult for me to have capacity for work stress. So I kind of view that period as you know I was like a sponge you know only so much that you can absorb. There's only so much capacity you have for managing all of the stresses in your life. And I just overflowed. So I've had to make significant changes. And in my recovery journey, I learned so much about the science behind burnout and stress. You know, I've always enjoyed mental health psychiatry in my work.

7:10And I did a massive deep dive into all the scientific literature behind burnout. And I then documented it all on social media, I've got a decent following and off the back of that I wrote my book The Burnout Doctor where I detail everything that I've learned in a way that is as engaging and accessible as possible. I mean there's so much I want to unpack there and I think we'll probably spend the rest of the chat doing that. The first thing is why on earth is burnout not taught in medical school given that you know we're called the burnout generation, burnout levels are at records high particularly maternal burnout, which I know we'll come on to talk about specifically, why is it not taught?

7:51So you could go to your GP and potentially they might pick it up if they'd read maybe your book or they, you know, in that world, but it might also not. What's that about? Yeah. So, I mean, I had no training on stress management or burnout in my medical training. It was not mentioned once at medical school. I think perhaps in my postgraduate training, I think we had one session when I was a GP trainee on how to manage your workload. And basically the advice was get in early and leave late if you can't manage your workload, which is complete nonsense, right? Very useful. It's not actually a strategy for managing your workload, it's just telling you to work harder.

8:24I think, I mean, I went to medical school in 2002. We're talking about a different generation here of medics where, you know, you were just expected to get on with it really. And I don't think that there was that awareness of how stress deeply impacts not just on doctors and medical professionals, but also how it impacts on patients and how stress can interplay with their physical symptoms. And, you know, people, patients come to see you as a whole person, right? And that stress might be part of that. But the conversation is changing. So I would say, even since I started sharing my journey publicly, there has definitely been a change, certainly amongst medical professionals, but also I think amongst society as a whole about talking about mental health problems, about talking about the impact of stress on how we work, how we function, how we parent.

9:14And I think that there is a changing conversation there. And one of the jobs that I've had after my burnout is teaching medical students. So I was a tutor at the University of Bristol and they're making big changes to their medical curriculum and they are teaching the students and having conversations about their own stress management and how stress can interplay with how patients present with problems from day one of their medical training. So it's a very different experience to what I had. Well, because the World Health Organization says that stress is the health crisis of the 21st centuries and we're almost at epidemic levels of stress.

9:53The other thing that I really noticed as you were telling that story is that I would almost defy anyone not to burn out in those circumstances. it's almost impossible isn't it what you were trying to to juggle in the stress to me as you were describing it you know two young kids inflexible child care 50 patients I cannot even fathom it's almost such a structural challenge isn't it it's almost like it makes complete sense to me that that would be the result and it's really interesting that you're reflecting that back to me because when I see it laid out objectively it makes total sense that I ended up burnt out.

10:34But at the time it didn't make sense. And I really felt that I was to blame for the fact that I couldn't cope. And, you know, being a doctor, patient care is really what drove me. And when I felt like I was starting to struggle, I went back to type, which is what you're taught from day one at medical school, or at least I was, which is if you've got problems and things are not working out, you just work harder, you study more, you commit more to your work. and unfortunately and I didn't realise this at the time was that in over committing and and trying to work harder and blaming myself it just perpetuated that burnout spiral of of negative work behaviours that meant that I felt more stressed so then I felt more stressed and I did those things more and then I ended up in a crisis point.

11:16Yeah because it's so counterintuitive when we're stressed I think and I see this you know with many mothers in our community wherever that stress is coming from I'll just get up earlier I'll just work harder I'll just we think that the way out of stress is to do more in fact is to do less but that is so counterintuitive what was some of the flags and what did you think was wrong because I think people listening might relate to that I thought it was anxiety or I thought it was what did you think it was and what were those symptoms that made you come to that conclusion yeah that's a really good question I genuinely like this is this probably going to sound ridiculous when I say it, but I genuinely believe this.

11:57I thought I was failing at everything in my life. I thought I was a failure as a mother. I thought, I feel really emotional talking about this, actually. I genuinely believe this. I thought that I was a terrible doctor and it wasn't helped by some of the conversations that I was having at work when I was kind of alluding to the fact that I was finding it very difficult was they were kind of like, well, you just need to get on with that, you know, man up, just work harder. And that kind of compounded the guilt that I was experiencing and those thoughts of failures. And I genuinely believe that that's what I was.

12:31And, you know, looking back, I feel really sad for the person that I was in that moment because I wasn't a failure. I just couldn't handle what was on my plate. And it would have been too much for anyone. It's just too much for one, too much for one person. But I think that's what I see. And I wondered if it is gendered. I speak predominantly to women, so I know that. But when something goes wrong, we don't look at the system, the structure we're operating in. We so quickly go to, well, I'm failing. Yes. And I did try to find workarounds. So I, for instance, the period where I hit a crisis point, actually, my husband was away for six weeks filming.

13:10And I knew that that period was going to be very difficult with childcare and with work. So I went to work and I asked very nicely if I could leave by 5.30 every day. And they said no. So I ended up getting an evening nanny. So the evening nanny would come pick up my kids from nursery and from the after school club and then put my kids to bed for me whilst I stayed at work. And not only was that ruinously expensive, I just felt horrific because I was like, well, I shouldn't be paying someone to put my children to bed for me. I wanted to be there to be able to do that. And that was just, you know, I did try to find structural workarounds, but it just wasn't enough, unfortunately.

13:47Yeah, it's kind of papering over those. So what were some of the symptoms? You talked about helplessness. Yes. You talked about feeling like a failure. What were some of the other symptoms that you now know? Now what you know about burnout, you can see categorically that was burnout. Yeah. So I experienced a lot of emotional symptoms. We've already talked about some of them, but I was deeply depressed. I was very anxious. I worried over everything. I had a lot of intrusive thoughts, which primarily centered around harm coming towards my children. And they would just pop into my head at any time and they would be very distressing, very vivid.

14:23And I would get really quite upset about these thoughts. Profound sense of hopelessness, I would say. A lot of guilt. Wasn't sleeping very well. And that was making it very difficult to focus at work, to make effective decisions. I spent a lot of time ruminating on decisions, particularly centered around my patients and just kind of going over those decisions and getting a lot of decision fatigue. I struggled to regulate my emotions. So I would either end up in tears over things that normally I would handle in my stride or I was like getting really angry and het up about things. I withdrew socially.

15:02So I stopped seeing friends, family. Work became the most important thing in my life. and I really kind of struggled to balance everything. Towards the latter stages, I started self-neglecting. So I wasn't really eating properly. I wasn't exercising properly. And these were all things that I had previously found time to do and were important to me. And I also had a lot of physical symptoms. So I had a lot of headaches. I had really disproportionate fatigue. So I was absolutely exhausted. It didn't matter how much I slept and I wasn't sleeping very well anyway. But even if I did get a good night's sleep, I was completely spent.

15:37I got, you know, chest pains, tummy pains, backache, neck ache, and had this really weird sensation of just pressure on my throat the whole time, which I knew was in my head, but I just felt like I was constantly choked the whole time. And all of these symptoms kind of gradually kind of crept up on me until I got to that point where I started having these panic attacks. And I suddenly thought, oh gosh. And then that was the moment when I realised I really needed help it's almost like your body is screaming at you and I often think that that if we ignore those kind of whispers it gets louder and louder and stress I think manifests so physically doesn't it I love the book when the body says no because I think it's so true yeah that you can keep pushing down and cracking on and eventually if we don't stop we kind of get forced to stop right absolutely And looking back, I can see that there was a worsening of these symptoms over time and that there were opportunities where if I'd had the knowledge that I have now, I could have made changes to have prevented ending up in a burnout crisis.

16:45And knowing what I know now, there would have been opportunities to have done that. But the other thing to remember is there's a lot of denial in burnout and a lot of self-blame that happens. Well, and part of it is to keep going. Yeah, exactly. It's one of those cruel symptoms where it's like, I just need to keep going, but that's like fueling the fire. Yeah. And so it's part of that process of things getting worse is that denial. And so it means that even if someone has said to me at the time, Claire, you're really struggling, you actually you need to take a step back and make some changes. I probably would have reacted quite angrily to that.

17:16And that is one of the other things. One of the sneaky things about burnout is that it's obvious to the people around you before it's obvious to you. And that makes it a very difficult thing to effectively make changes and to stop yourself before you get into that crisis point. And so that Claire, who's kind of edging towards burnout and knowing what you know now, because there'll be people listening who are in that sort of edging towards not in a full blown burnout. What would you do differently? So prevention is like any physical problem, right, with burnout. Prevention is better than cure. So if you end up in the crisis point like I did, then it's a one to three year average recovery period because the stress has done such a number on your brain and your body.

17:59Because it makes real changes to your brain, its structure, its function. This all sounds terrifying, by the way, but it's completely reversible with time and with changes. And it changes the way your body reacts to stress as well. That's why you get so many symptoms and that's why you end up needing that prolonged recovery period. But if you get yourself before you end up in that situation, then you can avoid that. and so I think had I been you know had I caught myself at an earlier point I think if I'd known that I could have avoided that having to make as many changes as I did to how I work and as many changes as I had to make to my life and how I parent and how I manage my stress you know the recovery period was it's it was years for me to be honest and I I would have done anything to have avoided that, you know, so hindsight is a wonderful thing.

18:48What would some of those things have been? What would some of those early interventions been for you? So I think, so I would have looked at it from two angles. The first one would have been to identify the work factors that were fueling my stress and my burnout. So there are six workplace factors that can cause burnout and a problem with just one of these things can send you to that place. So it's problems with workload, control, values, community, fairness and reward. And I think when I look back, I think there were problems with all of these factors. It sounds like all of those you were ticking the boxes for.

19:23And so really what I could have done is just taken a step back and think, okay, how can I start to make small changes in all of these areas so that I can successfully manage the root cause of my work stress rather than trying to manage my emotional responses to it. And I think that would have made a big difference. And what's really nice about burnout is that just believing that you've got control over these things, that mindset shift is enough to help that recovery process. Because it's the counter to the helplessness, of course. Exactly. Yes. So that really does make a difference. And then the second thing is I would have looked at how I was coping with my stress and perhaps thought about having some therapy to get some different coping strategies because my coping strategies really were overwork work and exercise which I wasn't really doing at the time and that wasn't really robust enough anyway and actually I think I said two things but I'm going to add a third thing to that as well.

20:17I would have looked at the structural things so the things that were happening outside of work that were affecting my capacity for that so I would have looked at addressing the fact that my village was really lacking thinking about how I could maybe change my working patterns so that the inflexibility, the childcare wasn't so much of an issue. And also carving out some time for myself because I was either parenting or I was working. And actually, as we know, parenting, it comes with a lot of joy and a lot of happiness, but also can be very stressful as well and can feel like work too. So I think I probably would have looked at having a bit more for myself because everything that I did during that period was for other people.

21:02I didn't do anything for myself.

21:11so what does recovery look like and what did it look like for you so initially when I I realized that I was in over my head I went to my workplace and obviously floods of tears um and did you realize it was burnout no I didn't even know what it was at that time I've actually looked back at messages between me and my husband at the time. And I remember just, I've written things like, I don't know what's happening to me. Is this burnout? Is this depression? Is this anxiety? Like I genuinely didn't know. And it was only when I got help from, through a service called Practitioner Health, which is the NHS's mental health support service for doctors, that I realised what had happened and I realised that it had a name.

21:54So yeah, I went to work and they cut my workload in half. So I only had to see up to 25 patients a day, which definitely helped. But in and of itself, that wasn't enough for me. So I did end up needing to go into the care of a GP. I had severe anxiety and depression alongside my burnout. So burnout's not actually considered to be a mental health problem, but I did have mental health problems alongside it. And then I needed a lot of therapy. And there are actually six steps to recovery, which are outlined in the scientific literature, which I definitely went through. So the first step is crisis and realising that there's a problem, which is easier said than done.

22:33Then it's distancing from work. So if sick leave is available to you, ideally you should take it because it removes you from the source of your stress and the thing that is fuelling your fight or flight response and all of those stress hormones. I didn't take sick leave and I do regret it, but I couldn't allow myself permission to do that. Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, I really felt what was stopping you. I knew that if I went sick, that I would land my colleagues in it, that I would land my patients in it. And I couldn't bring myself to do that because I felt such a responsibility. Do you think that being that sort of giver and that good girl contributed to the burnout?

23:16100 percent 100 percent and the very thing that stopped you getting that recovery that you so needed yeah it really did and actually I really needed that time off work but I couldn't allow myself to take that time off because I was so worried about what would happen to the patients and you know we were we would we had too much work basically and I really didn't want my colleagues to feel the way that I did but actually I do regret not taking that time off because actually I really should have it would have made my recovery process a lot easier had I done that and also there was a lot of shame I was like I can't I can't go to my own GP and tell them that I can't do a job their job that they're doing it's complex when you're in that helping role yeah and I really just couldn't I was so ashamed I couldn't bring myself to do it um but funnily enough the science says that you don't need to take time off it's just ideal because you're removing yourself from the source of the stress.

24:12And I would encourage anyone, you know, sick leave isn't accessible to everyone. Not everyone works a job where you can take time off or have paid time off. But if it's available to you, I would say, please do it. I mean, my recovery process was complicated because I ended up leaving the job that burned me out. And then with a plan to locum and to think about what I wanted from my work and how I was going to change my life. But then we went into lockdown, COVID hit and my husband's industry shut down for a year, although we didn't know it was going to be a year at the time. And I ended up working full time through the first year.

24:44Did you manage a COVID hospital? So yeah, so just very briefly, it wasn't a COVID hospital. The local hospital shut down for a couple of weeks because there was a huge COVID outbreak and they basically set up a field hospital outside it and they wanted GPs to go and run it. So I thought that sounded quite fun because I'm a medic and these sorts of things do sound fun to us. I was up for the challenge and yeah, I went and did that. And do you know what? I loved it. It was great. Did that really help your burnout recovery? It did because I chose to do it. And my husband was at home at the time. He was doing all the homeschooling.

25:22He was looking after the kids. And so I could go and do that work and not have to worry. I think that's such an interesting point because so many people think about burnout as in quite extreme responses like I just have to quit my job or whatever it is but what I'm hearing that actually that you you carried on working but you found something more aligned with those six factors yes exactly sound like they were more aligned you're more in control of it so often it can be maybe thinking creatively about in the same industry is there anything that I could do that would that's kind of adjacent that would actually help the recovery.

25:56It's fascinating, isn't it? It's really fascinating. And actually, when you when you look at the data and what the data tells us about recovery, there are three things that really matter that turn the needle with burnout recovery. And it's not making those dramatic changes. It's not quitting your job and going and living in a forest for six months. And I actually know someone who's done that, right? That's right for them. But you don't have to do that. It's about finding control over your work in whatever that means for yourself. It's about finding control over your wellbeing in whatever that means for you.