Burnout is something I’ve come to recognise not just professionally, but personally too.

As a nurse, I’ve felt the crushing weight of it and seen how it creeps in slowly, until suddenly, you feel like you have nothing left to give. Balancing On The Edge: Resilience Without Burnout by Marina Bezuglova landed on my reading pile at exactly the right time and it felt less like reading a book, and more like being offered a lifeline.

This is not just a book about stress; it’s a thoughtful and evidence-informed guide to understanding stress, burnout, and ultimately, how to restore balance. What sets it apart is its accessible integration of psychology, neurobiology and sociology, without ever feeling clinical or distant.

The book has a practical element, it offers tools, reflective questions, and exercises that genuinely help you assess where you are and how to move forward.

The book is divided into three parts: the nature of stress, the anatomy of burnout, and strategies to rebuild wellbeing. What stayed with me most was the reframing of stress as something we can work with, not simply push through. I found myself nodding along, especially during the sections that encouraged taking ownership over what we can control, and letting go of what we can’t.

There’s also a powerful “stress score” list that ranks life challenges from most to least intense. It’s a sobering reminder of how often we overlook the need for self-compassion when facing high-stress periods, something I’ve definitely been guilty of.

One of the most useful takeaways was the emphasis on small wins. Breaking down big goals into manageable steps feels like a small act of kindness to yourself and right now, I need more of those.

If you're feeling frayed at the edges, overwhelmed by expectations, or simply want to understand how stress can be transformed into resilience, this book is well worth your time. It’s an invitation to pause, reflect, and begin again with intention.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

I thought the research in this book was very thorough but as someone who reads a lot of self help books, I didn’t find anything in the book unique/new. This would probably be a good book for a manager or someone who is higher up in a company that wants to change the culture because that’s what the majority of the book is about. If I was to suggest a self-help book to someone, it would probably not be this one.