Every day, you bring someone to work with you that no one else can see.

They sit in meetings, react to messages before you read them, and quietly track how much you’re carrying. This piece introduces your nervous system as your invisible co-worker — the unseen force shaping how stress accumulates, why burnout is often missed, and how capacity slowly erodes long before anything “breaks.”

Burnout isn’t a sudden crash. It’s the long stretch of functioning while everything inside is working overtime to keep you moving.