Women disproportionately carry the invisible labour of caregiving, emotional regulation, and relational management across both professional and personal domains. For many women, particularly those working in healthcare and caring professions, the cumulative impact of this mental load contributes to chronic stress, burnout, and identity strain. Despite growing awareness of workplace wellbeing, many burnout interventions fail to account for the gendered realities of emotional labour, caregiving responsibilities, and economic pressures that shape women’s psychological health.

This presentation explores burnout through a gender-responsive lens, integrating neuroscience, lived experience, and clinical insights from pain medicine and nervous system regulation. Drawing on the speaker’s dual perspective as both physician and spinal cord injury survivor, the session examines how caregiving roles, motherhood, and professional expectations interact with the nervous system to sustain cycles of over-functioning, emotional exhaustion, and self-criticism.

Participants will gain insight into how the “mental load” operates neurologically and psychologically, and why traditional productivity-focused solutions often fail women in caring roles. The session highlights how chronic stress activates the body’s threat response, reinforcing patterns of hyper-responsibility, perfectionism, and emotional depletion that are common among women in caring professions.

The presentation introduces evidence-based approaches grounded in polyvagal theory, self-compassion research, and trauma-informed leadership. These strategies support nervous system regulation, emotional resilience, and sustainable engagement in work and caregiving.

By reframing burnout as a systemic and physiological response rather than a personal failure, this session offers practical insights for clinicians, leaders, and organisations seeking to support women’s mental health, workforce longevity, and economic participation.

We are living in an epidemic of stress and trauma. People are increasingly feeling overwhelmed and finding it difficult to cope with the pressures of life particularly people working in the areas of health care, education and caring professions. Over time stress can contribute to exhaustion, sleep difficulties, anxiety, reduced concentration, burnout and chronic health problems.

Transcendental Meditation provides a unique approach to addressing mental health issues and providing resilience to people from all walks of life. There are hundreds of scientific studies published in peer reviewed journals documenting the benefits of Transcendental Meditation on physical and mental health.

It is different to other meditation or mental techniques as it allows the mind to “transcend” or go beyond the busy, active surface mind and experience levels of rest deeper than deep sleep. While some people feel they are not good at meditation because they can’t stop their thoughts, anyone can do Transcendental meditation regardless of how stressed they are or how busy their mind is.

Through the David Lynch Foundation Australia, Transcendental meditation has been delivered to frontline health workers, first responders, defence personnel and veterans, teachers, First Nations Australians, survivors of domestic violence and people affected by natural disasters.

Wendy will explain what Transcendental Meditation is and how it works and give an overview of how the David Lynch Foundation Australia partners with organisations through the Heal the Healers initiative to help healthcare professionals experiencing anxiety, fatigue, grief and burnout.