Burnout and depression get treated as the same thing more often than they should be. They’re not. Depression is a mood disorder with its own clinical picture. Burnout, as I see it in practice, is depletion — adrenal reserves run down by chronic overexertion, what Chinese Tonic Herbalism would call jing depletion from sustained output…

Jing is the word Chinese Tonic Herbalism uses for the deep reserve you were born with — the essence you draw on for decades before you ever think about it. Quwwat is the Unani Tibb term for the same territory: vital force, the capacity behind everything else you do. Both traditions assume this reserve declines…