Yoga Day 2025: Can yoga help fight silent burnout in young professionals? Expert tips to consider

If you're stressing out at work, it's time to calm down and centre yourself with some yoga. Here's everything you can do to avoid work burnout with yoga.

World Health Organization (WHO) has called burnout an 'occupational phenomenon' and said, “Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” While burnout can affect your mental and physical health, it's not classified as a medical condition. “Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life,” WHO said.

Leaders must model micro-recovery habits, midday breathing breaks, movement between calls, quiet time for uninterrupted work, and empower teams to do the same without guilt. (Freepik)

Burnout can leave people detached from their work

Workplace burnout isn't a figment of your imagination. “According to the International Labour Organisation, India ranks second globally in overwork. Over 51 percent of workers clock more than 49 hours per week, far above the healthy threshold,” Pritika Singh, CEO at Prayag Hospital Group said in an interview with HT Lifestyle.

If you're feeling burned out, she listed tips that can help you devise a game plan to have you feeling your best. Speaking about 'growing' burnout among young professionals, she said: “This is a growing silence that echoes louder than words across industries. It builds up through missed lunch breaks, unread family messages, the guilt of not logging off on time, and a lack of personal boundaries.”

Pritika added, “This is not occasional tiredness. It is a chronic depletion of energy that does not recover with a weekend off. It leaves people detached from their work, emotionally blank, and physically foggy... the psychological cost of this overcommitment is yet to be fully accounted for in corporate balance sheets.”

Are conventional coping mechanisms failing?

Even though mental health is receiving more attention, current solutions, such as therapy after breakdowns, vacations after burnout, and meditation apps after insomnia, often feel reactive, Pritika said. According to her, “These are short-term fixes that fail to consider the routine of everyday work life.”

“Despite their best efforts, workplace wellness programs frequently come across as forced initiatives that fail to consider the realities of high-pressure work environments. Quarterly Friday yoga sessions or gym memberships are a checkbox, not an action plan. What is needed is a recalibration of daily living, something rooted, sustainable, and accessible,” she added.

Employees should be encouraged to block time on calendars for physical or mental reset. (Freepik)

Yoga as daily preventive care

Pritika said that yoga is not just a series of exercises or poses – it's a mindset, a lifestyle. “When this mindset begins to shift, it leads to broader lifestyle changes, how we feel, how we perceive situations, and how we respond to challenges. This creates a deeper level of resilience and self-awareness,” she said.

According to Pritika, yoga, when approached not as an activity but as a way of being, can quietly fix how professionals meet their day. Its value lies in the simplicity of its tools, breath, posture, and presence. “Unlike many wellness interventions that require large time blocks or expensive resources, yoga thrives in consistency over intensity. Practicing even 15 minutes of structured breathwork and movement every morning can regulate cortisol, improve clarity, and reduce reactive behaviour. Pranayama techniques like Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) or Bhramari (humming bee breath) support the nervous system without requiring dramatic lifestyle changes,” she said.

If yoga is integrated with intent, and adopted as a mindset, not merely an activity, Pritika said it can quietly become the first defense against the quiet burnout eating away at tomorrow’s brightest minds. Beyond physical postures, yoga fosters an awareness of what is happening inside the body and mind, and this inner tuning helps individuals catch early signs of exhaustion before they spiral into full burnout, Pritika added.

Embracing yoga at work

According to Pritika, if organisations expect their people to be sharp, resilient, and creative, the systems around them need to reflect that. This begins with rethinking time, output, and autonomy. She said, “People do not burn out because they are lazy or inefficient. They burn out because they do not feel safe to slow down. Leaders must model micro-recovery habits, midday breathing breaks, movement between calls, quiet time for uninterrupted work, and empower teams to do the same without guilt.”

Pritika listed some tangible interventions, and said, “These are not perks. These are preventive measures that allow high performers to stay sharp without losing themselves.”

● Embedding five-minute breathing exercises into all-hands or town halls

● Encouraging 'focus hours' without meetings or notifications

● Offering optional guided yoga sessions before the day begins or after work

● Allowing employees to block time on calendars for physical or mental reset

Work-life balance is important

Pritika said it is time to normalise not being available 24/7. This is not about resisting ambition, but preserving the people behind the performance – and yoga, at its core, offers a structure to pause and connect, without needing anything except a quiet corner and a mat, she said.

“It gives young professionals tools to self-regulate, to hold space for themselves in the face of relentless expectations. The conversation must now move from burnout recovery to burnout prevention. And that begins by turning inward before burnout turns outward. A high-performance culture cannot be sustained on depleted minds. Leaders need to champion space for stillness, not as a benefit, but as a baseline. The future of work is not just about technology, scale, or agility. It is about sustainable human performance,” Pritika said.

Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.