The hidden cost of burnout: why doing less may be the restorative intervention we are missing.

Burnout can begin costing us long before we reach the point of complete collapse. As South Africans head into the final, often most demanding months of 2026, international transformational facilitator Irena Kovaljukova is bringing a gentler conversation around restoration, energy and self-care to South Africa.

Burnout is often discussed as an emotional cost of modern working life, but research suggests there can be a very tangible financial cost too.

A South African study of 3,182 private-sector employees, published in the South African Medical Journal, found that employees experiencing high burnout visited general practitioners more frequently and generated almost twice the medical-aid expenditure of employees in the low-burnout group. Over the six-month study period, total insured medical benefits were R2,737 higher per person in the high-burnout group. The rand figures are historical, but the relationship between burnout and greater healthcare use remains significant.

And the repercussions of severe, prolonged stress-related exhaustion may extend far beyond the immediate period of burnout. A 10-year follow-up of patients who had undergone rehabilitation for stress-induced exhaustion found that, among those still working, 31.5% had reduced their working hours, 28% continued to score above the study's burnout threshold and 22.5% experienced moderate-to-severe insomnia. Seventy-three per cent had changed workplaces. This was a clinical population with stress-induced exhaustion rather than a study of everyday occupational burnout, but it offers a compelling picture of how prolonged stress can alter working lives long after the initial crisis has passed.

It raises an increasingly relevant question: why do so many of us wait until the body and mind are exhausted before taking restoration seriously?

Self-care without another performance target

For many high-functioning professionals, even wellbeing has become another task to accomplish. Run further. Train harder. Wake earlier. Track the sleep. Complete the challenge. Hit another target. Sometimes, however, restoration may require the opposite.

International transformational facilitator Irena Kovaljukova, who tours South Africa this September, works with a gentle, body-led practice called Safe Energy Activation, designed to create space for people to stop performing, turn their attention inward and reconnect with their own physical and emotional experience.

There are no exercises to master, fitness levels to reach or personal bests to achieve. Participants lie comfortably while music and facilitated energy work form part of the session. Depending on the individual, the experience may involve deep relaxation, emotion, bodily sensations, spontaneous movement or simply stillness.

Kovaljukova describes the practice as working with the body's own energy rather than requiring the individual to generate more effort. Its purpose is not to diagnose or treat burnout, anxiety, depression or any medical condition. Instead, it sits within complementary wellbeing as an opportunity for slowing down, body awareness, reconnection and restoration.

For people who spend their lives thinking, managing, delivering and responding, there is something powerful about entering a room in which nothing is expected of them.

What does the research say about energy-based practices?

The scientific literature around energy or “biofield” practices is growing, although it remains an emerging field and should not be overstated.

A 2025 scoping review mapped 353 peer-reviewed studies of biofield therapies, including 255 randomised controlled trials. Of these studies, 172 reported positive findings across all investigated outcomes and another 95 reported mixed findings. Importantly, the review's authors concluded that inconsistent methodologies and reporting mean the effectiveness of biofield therapies for specific health conditions is not yet established conclusively.

There are, however, interesting signals within individual areas of research. A 2024 meta-analysis involving 824 adults examining Reiki — a separate energy-based practice and not the same methodology used by Kovaljukova — found a statistically significant reduction in anxiety across the included studies. The researchers reported a standardised mean difference of -0.82, while noting that outcomes varied according to population and treatment frequency.

Another systematic review of 14 randomised placebo-controlled Reiki trials found encouraging results for some measures of stress, anxiety and depression, with indicative evidence relating specifically to burnout. The authors were equally clear that the number of studies remains small, many had some risk of bias and further controlled research is required before definitive conclusions can be made.

Research into adjacent body-based practices is also relevant. A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials examining breathwork found a small-to-medium reduction in self-reported stress, based on 12 trials involving 785 adults.

What it does suggest is that the broader conversation around wellbeing is beginning to make room for interventions that involve stillness, breath, body awareness, relaxation and receptive rather than effort-driven experiences.

Restoration as a form of longevity

Perhaps longevity should not only be understood as adding years to life. In the context of burnout, it may also mean protecting our capacity to remain well enough to participate in the life we already have: to work sustainably, maintain relationships, sleep properly, think clearly and still have enough of ourselves left when the working day ends.

Kovaljukova knows the high-performance cycle personally. Before entering transformational work, she held senior corporate leadership positions, managed teams of more than 200 people and studied across three universities, three countries and three languages. Her own experience of outward professional success alongside increasing internal disconnection eventually led her into years of study and practice across energy facilitation, psychology-related education, body awareness and transformational work.

She subsequently trained through KAP Academy, completed accredited studies in numerological psychology and a 250-hour accredited psychology course, studied with the Estonian Tantric School, undertook private mentorship with international energy practitioners and founded the SEA Academy, through which she developed her own approach to Safe Energy Activation.

Her South African tour arrives at an appropriate moment.

As Q3 draws towards its close and businesses begin the push towards year-end, perhaps self-care does not need to become another demand on the diary.

Sometimes the intervention may be considerably softer: the phone goes down, the body becomes still, nobody requires an answer and, for a short period, nothing needs to be achieved.

For a society increasingly accustomed to running on empty, creating that space before complete exhaustion arrives may be one of the more valuable investments we make in ourselves.

Irena Kovaljukova's South African Safe Energy Activation tour takes place during September 2026, with sessions in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Centurion, Cape Town, Hout Bay, Knysna and George. Group and private sessions are available.

Safe Energy Activation is a complementary wellbeing practice and is not presented as medical or psychological treatment. It should not replace professional healthcare, psychological support or treatment where required.