The End-of-Year Burnout Cycle: Why It Happens & How to Break It (Holiday Burnout)

Katie Carhart, PhD
Nov 18
2 min read

If every November/December leaves you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or disconnected from yourself, you’re not alone. For many high-performing adults, the end of the year brings a perfect storm of emotional load: increased demands, disrupted routines, family stress, financial pressure, and the pressure to “finish strong.”

What looks like burnout is often a nervous system stuck in survival mode and you’re not doing anything wrong. Your body is responding exactly as it was designed to.

In this post, I’ll break down what’s actually happening beneath the surface and offer trauma-informed strategies to help you move into the new year feeling more grounded, regulated, and connected.

What Causes End-of-Year Burnout?

Burnout is rarely about “too much to do.” It’s about a system that has been operating without enough recovery for too long.Common contributors include:

Disrupted routines → less sleep, less movement, less rest
Emotional labor → family expectations, caretaking, boundaries
Social overload → overstimulation, masking, performance fatigue
Financial stress → budgeting, gifting, year-end expenses
Increased decision-fatigue → travel, scheduling, planning
Pressure to “be joyful” → invalidation of real emotional states

For neurodivergent adults (ADHD, AuDHD, sensory sensitivity), these demands can be even more dysregulating.

Your Nervous System’s Role in Burnout

When stress accumulates faster than your body can recover, you may shift into:

Sympathetic activation → anxiety, irritability, urgency
Dorsal vagal collapse → shutdown, fatigue, numbing, fog
Rapid cycling between the two → feeling “all over the place”

Burnout is not a mindset issue, it’s a physiological mismatch between demand and capacity.

Three Nervous System Resets That Actually Help

Here are trauma-informed strategies that support real regulation (not toxic positivity, not perfection):

1. The 5% Rule

Instead of shrinking your entire life, reduce one domain by just 5%.Your brain and body can tolerate small adjustments far better than massive overhauls.

2. Sensory Anchoring

Choose one sensory anchor you reconnect with once per day:

Warm mug
Weighted blanket
A scent you love
Feet on the floor
Deep pressure at the sternum

Your body learns safety through repetition, not willpower.

3. The “Good Enough” Routine

Create tiny, sustainable rituals that signal your body to downshift:

2 minutes of slow exhale breathing
3 body stretches
One moment of stepping outside
One sentence of self-check-in

You don’t need a full routine, you need a reliable cue.

If December Always Feels Hard, It’s Not a Personal Failing

You may simply need new regulation skills, not new resolutions.

If you’re craving support with this, you’re welcome to join my upcoming Regulated Reset Workshop, a gentle 90-minute live session focused on restoring nervous system flexibility heading into the new year.